About.com

Short Brand Stories with Long-Form Quality

Sun, 26 May 2013 01:43:50 +0000

I am a fan of long-form journalism. The New York Times is *my* newspaper. Although I do read the NY Times on my Nook when I'm traveling, I prefer to savor the best journalism I've found in its conventional form - not crowd-sourced or citizen journalism..

Over the course of each week, I work my way steadily through the Sunday issue of the Times, snatching time here and there to read choice articles from start to finish. The experience is an intellectual treat akin to an everlasting memory I have of a salad-plate sized lollipop I got during my first trip to Disneyland when I was seven years old. I never completely finished that candy spiral of grape-flavored sweetness. Doubtless, one parent or the other made it disappear after a respectful interval. And so, too, the stacks of New York Times must eventually make their way to the recycling bin. But not until I have built a pile of tear-outs and must-reads that threaten to undermine my careful filing system.

Increasingly, I find articles about big data, digital privacy, and social media in The New York Times. I am struck by one factor above all. Like good qualitative researchers or anthropologists, the NY Times journalists know how to tell a story. Yes, they *report* a story in the conventional way, answering all the readers' anticipated questions of what, when, who, how, and why. But the fact is, the stories reflect the opinions of the journalists in a way that may not have once been considered *good journalism* in the traditional sense. The new Public Editor of The New York Times, Margaret Sullivan, has acknowledged this dilemma of contemporary journalism: How can a journalist tell a good story and not reveal their own opinion? And should they even try?

The field of market research is experiencing the same growing pains. Old methods of research are being melted down and forged into strong new methods that reflect the ubiquitous and inherent presence of technology in our lives.

The burgeoning co-participation of consumers and companies in social media networking belies an intolerance for marketing as it once was. Consumers are expecting and demanding more transparency from the companies that produce the brands they enjoy. Most consumers will choose not to spend time reading a long-form story, but they do expect the shorter brand stories they read or view to be as authentic and balanced as the journalistic perfection of a long-form story in The New York Times.

There are more well-informed and skeptical consumers in the marketplace than ever, and - stating the obvious - it is increasingly difficult to convincingly market to them. A number of presenters at The Future of Consumer Intelligence conference suggested strategies for telling brand stories in a way that consumers will find acceptable and that will build trust in the brand and the people who are the company. These sessions promise to be exciting and informative. I trust the strategies market researchers learn at the conference will hit our collective sweet spot and sustain our practice for a lasting interval of time.

Texting the Talk - FOCI - Be There in 2014

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:34:56 +0000

I recently attended The Market Research Event of the Year, aka the Future of Consumer Intelligence aka FOCI 2013. An excellent conference by reputation, I was still a bit skeptical when I learned that the FOCI conference was using a mobile application to communicate most of the conference proceedings. A complete agenda was integral to the application, and it included the capacity to learn more about the presenters and their companies.

The use of mobile digital devices as a platform for the conference was brilliant. And it really did underscore the technological focus of the conference. At first, before I had explored the application, I was confident that I was not going to like the format and that I would find it not easy to use. I am pleased to report that the developers did an excellent job of creating the application for mobile devices.

All the components of the mobile application were highly functional and intuitive after only minimal experimentation. Indeed, using the application was actually fun, and conference attendees were motivated to use the application through a contest based on the number of session evaluations submitted. The evaluations for each each session were integral to the information about the session. There was capacity for using the application to arrange meetings and to take notes.

If you happened to stumble into the conference without a smartphone, you would not have been at a loss. A smattering of updated agendas were available on cardstock for Luddites.

I don't care what you have on your calendar for next spring at this time, do all you can to try to attend The Market Research Event of the year.

Really.

The Future of Consumer Intelligence Is Here Now!

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:30:31 +0000

Integration and Sharing of Unstructured Data Results in a Plethora of Uses of Databases Dave DiBiase, © 2004 Stock.xchng.com
The Market Research Technology Event is now The Future of Consumer Intelligence. The conference will be held on May 14 - 16, 2013 at the Park55 Wyndham hotel in San Francisco. Data guru Nate Silver is the keynote speaker.

The conference topics will address the many substantive changes occurring in the field of market research, including applications such as work force science. In the current marketplace, consumer intelligence relies heavily on databases information. The Future of Consumer Intelligence will provide a multitude of perspectives on the pressing issues faced by market researchers, including whether market research needs to go underground - or in the black box - in order to produce meaningful data.

Be sure to follow the online pre-conference discussions and then attend the conference sessions of your choice. It may simply be the best investment in knowledge you have made this year.

Are you learning ways to crack open the black box?

Share what you are doing and how it is working.

New Faces and New Functions - ABCs of Facebook's Analytics Tools

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:53:08 +0000

New Data Collection Tools Because Consumers View Ads and Often Delay Action Courtesy Pepsi &copy2013

New ways of tracking and measuring online consumer activity are available to advertisers. The policies and practices of digital media advertisers will be represented at an important market research conference taking place in San Francisco in May. The name of the Market Research Technology Event has been changed to The Future of Consumer Intelligence. The conference will be held on May 14 - 16, 2013 at the Park55 Wyndham hotel in San Francisco. Data guru Nate Silver is the keynote speaker.

The conference emphasis is on presenting innovated tools and technologies in use today and in the future. These technologies enable market research to clearly understand complex consumer behavior. Through real-world experienced based presentations, this event will look at brand-mind placement, eye tracking research in a virtual retail environment, social gaming as a research device, and social and mobile analysis.

Market research like you've never seen it before.

Resetting the Balance in Digital Privacy

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:14:02 +0000

The events of the past week have been tragic, sobering, and an opportunity to consider digital privacy policies, practices, and laws. The case for using technology to ensure homeland security was quite clearly made during the hours that proceeded the manhunt for the terrorists that bombed the Boston Marathon Race. It is difficult to imagine that a law-abiding citizen would object to the use of volunteered videos belonging to American citizens. The spirit of the support that people exhibited is admirable and the level of participation was stunning. People are becoming more comfortable with having their data shared publicly. In fact, recent research indicates that people say they want online privacy - and are often quite adamant about it - but they are frequently unwilling to pay to maintain their digital privacy. As consumers, we don't always practice what we preach, and we frequently don't do as we say. In writing several articles about this issue, I was fascinated by the many adages and sayings about the gap between behavior and intention. It seems to be an Achilles Heel for humans, and psychologists and sociologist have long studied the phenomenon.

The research on consumer decision-making extends to investment choices - particularly the issue of keeping unprofitable stocks - and the economics principle known as sunk costs.. From a completely different frame, this tendency of people to stick with decisions they have made is manifest in the possession creates fondness that causes people to hang onto the many possessions they have and be reluctant to add to that store of things - unless the cost is right. And for a considerable portion of contemporary society, the terms of purchase are apparently quite often good - individually and collectively we must own more than any generation of people ever has.

The more we buy, the more information we share about ourselves, whether wittingly or not. Big data is extraordinarily big business - and it is a business that is fundamentally an undercover operation. Certainly, there are benefits to having access to mass stores of information - beyond the commercial reasons that seem to propel the industry. But there are also many important concerns that need to be addressed about big data. Privacy policy in the Euro Zone seems to be all-of-one-cloth. Europeans are not shy about enacting sweeping regulations - just what you might imagine from people with the vision to dissolve parts of their borders for the common good. In much the same way, Europeans regulate privacy quite robustly, leaving the U.S. in the dust...or in the fog...or in the rooms of smoke and mirrors. Transparency is a pivotal issue in discussions about digital privacy and database marketing. In the next few weeks, the discussion will move to the CISPA cybersecurity bills. Following the acts of terror in Boston, Americans are rumored to be looking at the immigration legislation differently, and doubtless the same sort of ripples will occur with regard to cybersecurity laws.

What do you think about CISPA? How do you handle your own digital privacy matters?

It's Not the Same Old Story - It's Your Story

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:30:05 +0000

It Was a Dark and Stormy Day © Dana Rothstein | Dreamstime.com

There is a certain kind of frisson in social media - an intense satisfaction engendered by a focus on one's own experience and world, coupled with an excitement borne of sharing all that self-referential information with the great big, wide world. And how much better is the experience when it is punctuated by images and videos? Consumers tell us that the experience is vastly different - hugely better. And so a robust industry has grown up around the capturing and sharing of photos and videos.

Mobile digital device users continue to demand engaging games to occupy their minds. While gaming and networking, while chronicling their lives - according to their assignments and interests - in video and photos, consumers are able to have meaningful conversations with brands. And they are able to influence the behavior of companies that manufacture a brand product.

Are you making the most of the new photo and video capture and sharing apps. What applications are you using?

How Do Brands Make You Laugh? Count the Ways!

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:06:52 +0000

Product Placement in Memories - Dr. Pepper, Coke, Pepsi, Nehi - What Soft Drink Brightened Your Childhood? Still Drinking That Brand? Courtesy The Coca-Cola Company ©

Competition for top commercial spots is nothing new. And although ad spending may be down for some companies - airlines, for instance - paid media has become an attraction all its own. Sports and music events are crowd pleasers, so naturally, brands want to get in front of these groups.

It's always a bit of a risk to re-brand products. When companies are under attack for manufacturing products that are considered harmful to people, a re-branding campaign seems even riskier. However, re-branding in times of turmoil can also serve to obfuscate some of the controversy.

Creating great marketing content can drive up consumer awareness and interest in a brand. Changing a long-standing logo or altering product appearance can freshen a brand and rekindle relationships between consumers and favored brands. Market research indicates that consumers expect to see multichannel marketing, and for an increasing number of product categories, market research also clearly underscores that consumers expect advertising to be entertaining. As companies monitor social media and track consumer multichannel behavior, they are getting a clearer idea of who their customers are and what they want from their relationships with their favorite brands.

Advertising associations have their evaluative eyes on the new commercials that fluidly enfold multiple media channels. Consumers - whether they are actually buyers, or not - are watching the ads and playing the games. Apparently viewers of these medley experiences are enjoying the interactive nature of the ads.

What about you? Do you like the embedded gaming in commercials?

Who did you cast your vote for in the CokeChase®? The cowboys, the bad-landers, the showgirls, or the sheik?

Come on. Fess up. It was the pink glitter canon and the feather headdresses that got your loyalty. Am I right?

The New Taste Test - Coke or V8

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:29:31 +0000

Coca-Cola Says Out of 650 Products, 180 are Low-Calorie or No-Calorie. But Still, You Could Have Had a V8. Courtesy The Coca-Cola Company ©

When something is difficult to change or steer in another direction, people say it is like turning a very, very big ship. It takes a long time to make the turn, progress is difficult to see, and if you over-correct, getting back on course is tough to accomplish. The anti-obesity campaign falls into the "turning a big ship" category. Habits are difficult to change. Motivation is often tied to ROI. And the disparate stakeholders seldom agree on anything of importance, except that...there is a problem.

It's much easier to market a company out of bankruptcy - like American Airlines has done - or into a merger than it is to shift a brand radically, something that soft drink manufacturers may have to do in this new health-conscious world. Is the world really ready to make the switch from sugary beverages to V8 juice? Unlike the famous dueling taste tests between Pepsi and Coke, a comparison between V8 and any favorite soft drink is a test taste of a different color.

It would be interesting to see The Coca-Cola Company and other soft drink manufacturers use the consumer persona approach to market its new beverages, against the backdrop of the anti-obesity campaign. American Airlines introduced viewers to Late Nate and the Win-Win associate. The personas of those consumers who drink several sodas each day might not be very flattering - even if the beverages are diet sodas.

Taking the long perspective, however, it is important to note that the 1960s heralded in a time of health conscious (remember macrobiotic?) eating and a mistrust of commercially prepared foods (or at least a mistrust of the corporations who claimed to be creating products for the general good of the population). Each generation, it seems, must determine how it will articulate its model of healthy living. Perhaps the problem is that a new threshold must be defined and reached every few decades

If you watch Mad Men on TV, you have probably considered that fewer people smoke today than they did in the 1950s. As tobacco use has declined, consumption of sugary drinks has increased. Are humans - as a group - always going to substitute one bad habit for another?

What do you think about the big drink ban in New York City?

Do you drink sugary beverages or diet drinks?

Have you watched and shared the Real Bears video?

Forex Blarney TV Ads & Tricky Leprechauns

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 02:40:54 +0000

Leprechauns are portrayed as sneaky, cranky folks who can't be trusted, but can be tricked into using their magic in your favor. Sounds quite a bit like a description of a Wall Street trader to me.

Forex has resurfaced a TV commercial that captures some of this same spirit. Although the ad is tongue-in-cheek, it is barely so. And it is that sentiment that seems so astounding, particularly in these times when the problem of what to do about the cavalier trickery of the traders has not been settled.

The Forex ad shows a currency trader talking - apparently to himself - about trading the world, finding his pot of money or some such blarney. The thing that distinguishes the commercial - because otherwise it is boorish and banal and boring - is that it features two building security people at the station near the elevator where the man is raving about himself. One of the uniformed security guards is a woman, and she delivers the only funny line (it is meant to be funny, one can assume, but disparaging of the intellect of the security people. The joke is supposed to reside in the high contrast between the currency trader who views himself as a gift to the financial world, and the security staff. The most tasteless aspect of the commercial is that one of the security guards is very homely and obviously disabled. This is an apparent theme that shows up in other Forex commercials, as well.

Forex obviously is marketing to its target audience. Frankly, when considering who these Forex consumers might be, and that this type of commercial appeals to them, it is no wonder that the theory about young (male) hubris and a propensity to self-referential behavior leading to the fiscal meltdown of 2008 surfaced

Unfortunately, the joke is on the investor who blithely makes funds available for these sophomoric boys. It might be a funny commercial if it weren't so deeply revealing of the crass and calloused attitude that prevails on Wall Street that we've all been reading about, and that many people have experienced up close and personal.

I really enjoy a funny, creative commercial. These Forex commercials are neither - certainly they must send investors to the competitors.

Have you heard the discussions about how Wall Street is trying to change their image so that investors trust the market again?

What would you say to Forex about whether their TV ads will help or hurt this effort?

Night at the Oscars Social Media Max!

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 01:46:25 +0000

There is only one brand of social media on people's minds tonight: The Academy Awards! A night at The Oscars is an opportunity to dream and celebrate. But it is also a time for big business to evaluate their cinematic decisions over the past year. The Academy made their decisions, though we often wonder - as in the case of best director for the movie Argo (hugely overlooking Ben Affleck's talent, in my humble opinion) - if those decisions were based on data or on whimsey.

This past week, I have been writing about the problem of dishonest survey respondents, particularly respondents who are members of a commercial research panel. These respondents act like they care about taking surveys, but they are careless and even dishonest in their responses. Strategies for mitigating the impact of dishonest research respondents do exist, and many of them are useful for small businesses as well as non-profits.

Consider this: If Hollywood is in it for the money, survey respondents may be too. So make them a better offer, give them the star treatment, and use incentives wisely and generously. Hang on to those survey stars, and let them know you will cast them in a role in another categorical survey soon. Very soon.