Integrating market research
This recent article outlines the state of market research in large organizations. Specifically, whether market research is seen as a partner or in a support role and why it should it should be more integrated into the company (to make full use of the information created, cost effectiveness, to name a few).
With organizations needing to justify every dollar spent – and needing to make the most out of the resulting findings – not integrating market research is a costly error.
While Corona is not a department within a larger organization, we have seen similar issues from our outsider’s viewpoint.
How can market research be more fully integrated into the strategic infrastructure? Some thoughts…
- Include market research from the beginning. When large strategic questions start to arise market research should already be at the table.
- Have market research assess your in-house data to see what questions you might be able to answer with your existing data that could guide future directions.
- Promote market research to be an equal partner, not just a support function.
- Market research should be an integrated member of teams, not an outsider.
- Finally, to build trust, the first steps of integrating the market research component should be to focus on “small wins” – starting small with little projects creating little successes and slowly increase the scope and participation of market research that will lead to greater successes on larger projects down the road.
What other issues do you see? What else can be done?
Social Media Research Ethics
I recently read a post on The Future Place Blog that got me thinking about social media research in a different light.
As we work to use social media for greater insights, from data mining to online communities, new ethical considerations come to light.
The above post raised concerns about quoting social network posts verbatim because of the potential to track down who said what through searches, thus revealing the poster’s identity.
This is just one more ethical consideration in addition to overall online privacy concerns, misuse of data/findings (e.g., allowing research participants to be targeted/contacted by marketers? … Reminds me of the Domino’s’ ads), and using online research as a guise for selling (i.e., Sugging).
What other concerns do you see cropping up that researchers need to be aware of?
Three recent projects from Corona Insights
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Corona presents at NAST conference
Corona conducts research with a wide variety of organizations, but we frequently find ourselves working with membership organizations to help them better understand the needs of their constituents. Recently, Corona was contacted by one such organization – the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST) – to help them understand how their members feel about the organization and identify ways that services could be improved.
Like many associations, NAST’s purpose is to help its members perform their jobs as well as possible through networking and education. The organization serves treasurers from all 50 states, as well as other treasury staff members. NAST helps its members to better understand the issues facing other states’ treasuries, as well as helps to keep members informed about legislation that will affect their work, through publications, conferences, and electronic forums through which members can share ideas.
In early December, Corona presented the results of our work to NAST’s members at NAST’s Issues Conference held in New York City. The presentation helped members to better understand the research and what it will be used for, as well as detailing some of the key findings of the research. NAST describes the research and some of the changes recently made in its recent newsletter.
Based on the research, NAST now has a solid base of knowledge about what they do well and what can be improved. This vital information about member perceptions will help NAST to improve its services to members in the future.
State of Our Cities and Towns for Colorado Municipal League (CML)
CML’s State of Our Cities and Towns was recently published drawing from research conducted by Corona. This report(pdf), in its second year, chronicles many of the successes and challenges Colorado municipalities have faced in the previous year and their plans to tackle these challenges in the next year.
Of particular interest, as of late, are the impacts of the current economy, economic development, and energy initiatives.
These findings have helped municipal leaders understand the issues facing similar communities (we reported overall findings as well as findings by community size), and also helped state government understand issues on a local level.
Summit County, Colorado Comprehensive Health Strategic Plan
While the research isn’t necessarily recent, it was recently placed online (we only show our work when our clients post it).
Drawing from research conducted by Corona for the Summit County health needs assessment, Summit County created their Comprehensive Health Strategic Plan. The research helped lay the foundation for a plan that effectively meets the needs of the community.
Customers: The ultimate judges
It’s funny to me that, watching the Olympics, I suddenly feel as though I am an expert on whatever sport I happen to be watching, even though it’s usually something that I only really ever watch, oh, once every four years. Let’s take ice skating, for example. There is nothing about my interpretation of what they are doing on the ice that stands as an expert opinion.
Of course it really doesn’t matter what I think anyway. I’m sitting on my couch eating popcorn while the experts are the ones judging the competition. They watch, and based on their expertise and experience, label the performances with their best opinion as to what it was “worth.” Then the Olympian sits down in front of a camera, and with an anxiety level that I will probably never truly be able to understand, receives their score minutes later.
How’s that for feedback? The athlete finishes a routine. He or she likely knows a few places where they could have done better and places where they excelled, but isn’t sure how other parts of the routine may have gone…they don’t know what the judges saw or felt, and furthermore, how that compares to the competition. As an analyst who is always looking for connections and meaning, I can’t help but think how this compares to a company’s desire to understand their own performance, and to have that kind of feedback from customers.
What would your score be? What would flash up on the screen after someone takes their first bite of your product, or visits your store? What do your fans think…and what do your biggest critics think? Why? You probably have some excellent hypotheses and reasons that you already know are true, but there are quite often others tucked away within both your current and potential customers. Enter, research.
Using research to learn more about your audiences is nothing to be ashamed of, especially when you want those gold nuggets of information in the form of feedback. Heck, even NBC is dropping some serious moola to learn more about media consumption among viewers of the Olympics. They’re combining classic research techniques such as interviews, with the monitoring of social media websites, among other methods. It’s interesting that a media behemoth like NBC still doesn’t pretend to have it all figured out. They use research to stay ahead of the game, and to know their audiences. It’s how they keep their “score,” so to speak, high. (Unless, perhaps, you speak with Conan O’Brien.)
Visa uses the slogan, “Go World” for their campaign. Me? As a huge fan of the Olympics as well as capitalism, all I can say is, “Go athletes! Go business!”
Want to understand your score? Corona can help you discover how you stack up among your competition.
Good data = smart decisions
Did you take a recent vacation this winter? When did you start planning? 6 months before? 3 months before? 3 weeks before?
When it comes to ski vacations, Vail resorts, through their own research, discovered that the lead time for planning a vacation has greatly decreased. No longer are people planning and researching in the summer and fall for their winter holiday – they’re doing it just weeks before.
As a result, Vail significantly altered how they plan and buy their advertisements. From long lead time print ads to short lead time social media, online ads, Vail is trying to get in front of the traveler with the right message precisely when it matters.
To see the AdAge video, click here.
A great example of how good data can lead to smart decisions.
Domino’s’ “Focus Group” Advertisements
By now you’ve probably heard that Domino’s Pizza has “fixed” its recipe.
Through “research” done in focus groups it was revealed that people didn’t like Domino’s pizza. (I put research in quotations since I have heard CPB – the agency who did the ad – has a great disdain for focus groups. Plus, I don’t think Domino’s would have taken the handful of opinions from focus groups alone to convince them to trash their recipe, but I digress.)
While “research” has been used in advertising in the past (remember Ford’s Swap Your Ride campaign?), I personally think this is on a different level. Will respondents take focus groups less seriously, use stronger comments to get attention, or just not want to bother with participating if they think they’ll receive unwanted attention (granted, all the people in the commercial surely signed releases)?
More than likely, this one ad, or even ad campaign, will have little lasting effect on focus groups. And it does show companies acting on customers’ feedback. But it’s important for researchers and end users to be aware of these pop culture uses and possible shifts in opinions towards research among participants, especially if we see more of this type of ad in the future.
What do you think?
(Reminds me of a previous commercial created for Windows Vista.)
Ad for Microsoft Office tools would have benefited from use of Microsoft Office tools
Marketing FAIL? You decide.
Microsoft is running a print ad for Microsoft Office 2007, which proclaims, “Things have a way of piling up. Here’s some tools to keep it all sorted.”
Every time I see this ad (primarily in my subscription to Newsweek), I cringe. Seriously?! “Here IS some TOOLS”? As Microsoft’s grammar checker (hopefully), or your elementary school teacher, will tell you, if your noun is plural (e.g., tools) your verb form must be plural to match (i.e., are, not is).
Ok, so I may be a little more grammar-obsessed than the average person. (Yes, I am a big fan of Lynne Truss’s book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.) But still, some percentage of people out there have been turned off by this ad (I ran across another mention on Twitter.)
Looking closer, I see that this ad is targeting moms. It includes a snapshot of a woman sitting on a bed with one small child climbing on her shoulder while she buttons the shirt of a second child, and the dialog beneath the photo says “Office 2007 helps with lots of household tasks. Sadly, changing diapers isn’t one of them.” It goes on to describe the things Office 2007 will help you with: finances, school projects, greeting cards and resumes.
Do you want resume help from a company with this kind of grammatical difficulty?
Here’s what I think Microsoft is trying to communicate: we’re non-threatening; we’re helpful; we get how hard it is to be a mom.
But did they hit the mark? Or did they sail a bit past and inadvertently insult the intelligence of moms everywhere?
My guess is that Microsoft skipped the ad testing before running this. Sometimes, all it takes to avoid potentially offending your target audience is a little marketing research.
2010: The Year of the Census
In China it may be the Year of the Tiger, but in the U.S. it is the year of the Census.
It’s like an Olympics for marketers only it happens once every 10 years. And its effects are far reaching — from government needs (distribution of congressional seats, federal funding, etc.) to consumer goods (where to open new stores, product mixes, etc.).
The Census will provide the data to confirm or refute large societal shifts and greater diversity among neighborhoods and communities. Better business decisions, better marketing, all with greater confidence, should follow.
So it should be no surprise given what rests on the outcomes that the Census is spending significant time and money getting the word out. In fact, more than twice the money (more than $300 million on getting the word out) and in 11 more languages (28 total) than the 2000 Census. New media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), traditional media (i.e., TV, radio, print), and even a traveling road show will play a part.
Given the importance of the outcomes for our clients, we’ll certainly be keeping tabs on how things progress.
Above ad is part of the campaign to get the word out about the Census. What do you think of it? More at AdFreak.
Twitter for market research – depends who you ask
We’ve mentioned using Twitter for research before as well as other tools such as Google Insights (love the name!).
Two opinions on the subject that I read back-to-back had slightly conflicting viewpoints. The first made broad, sweeping arguments for using Twitter as a real-time source for information on your brand, products, and research (since this article was posted, Google and Microsoft both announced they’re indexing tweets) . The second asked whether Twitter should be ignored, though was not outright dismissing it.
We tend to agree with the latter. While very useful at times – and particularly with the right demographics – Twitter will not likely be representative of your audience, regardless of how many users they currently have. Want to know what the general public is thinking? Not always so good. Want to know what young, social media savvy males are thinking? Better.
While size of the network isn’t the only factor, to put it in a different perspective, Facebook recently noted that their FarmVille app is larger than all of Twitter. Maybe food companies can harvest research from that app (sorry for the pun).
We’ll continue to keep an eye on Twitter, and use it when appropriate, but as always, be cautious where you’re mining your insights from.
Have you used Twitter for your research? What was your experience?
The Strategic Marketing Process (and how market research can inform it)
Thank you to everyone who attended today’s breakfast roundtable, Resonate with Your Audience: How Research Informs the Stages of Strategic Marketing, given by Corona’s Leo Lewis and hosted in conjunction with Colorado Business Marketing Association (BMA).
We had a great turnout and hope everyone took away at least one meaningful insight.
Click here to download the slides (pdf).
And if you would like to learn more about any step, please feel free to contact us.
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