Corona has worked with CML for several years and this is the third year in which Corona has conducted the research to inform the State of Our Cities and Towns annual report.

Visit the Denver Post to see a recent article by CML referencing the State of Our Cities and Towns report.  To learn more about the Colorado Municipal League, visit their website.

We were pleased to learn that lucky project #1001 was for the Iliff School of Theology. Corona has engaged with Iliff since 2007 when we created an influential Strategic Enrollment Marketing Plan for the institution, as well as a strategic business plan . Since then, Corona has led various research projects for Iliff, looking into new market segments, student enrollment opportunities and testing new curriculum ideas.

Our ongoing relationship with Iliff is a hallmark of Corona’s brand – combining our market research and strategic consulting expertise in the higher education field to provide ongoing data-driven insights that lead to proven results. Learn more about Iliff’s success as well as their 2010 and 2011 awards. Click here to read a testimonial from their VP of Marketing Communications & Strategic Partnerships.

Cheers to project 1001!

A recent survey from Deloitte found that one in five U.S. residents say they have either cut the cord (i.e., cancelled cable or satellite service) or are thinking about doing it. Nine percent of survey respondents indicated they have recently “cut the cord” while another eleven percent are thinking about it. Cord cutters are turning to services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, to name a few.

Interesting and a considerable percentage, but probably not true.

The problem?  The TV industry reported flat subscriptions last year.  As this article notes, even with a large margin of error, the numbers don’t work.

What happened?  Assuming the TV industry is not misleading their subscribers (a 10% drop would be hard to hide in earnings reports) or there isn’t a flood of new subscribers hiding the cutters (though the article seems to discount that, too), the one culprit is likely poor sampling.

The survey was administered online, and while more and more Americans are online, biases are still likely.  While they didn’t reveal how they sampled respondents online, my initial guess is that they skewed towards early adopters and people with faster, more consistent access to the internet.  The exact population you would expect to be shunning cable in favor of online options.

If you’re not really surveying a representative sample of the population you’re interested in, then you’re not really surveying them.

Working with big databases is hard work.  It’s not just the mechanics of data manipulation and calculations, but also knowing where the data come from, what they mean, and how to interpret them.  You have to have a feel for data, and the ability to recognize the little clues that point to problems.  Mistakes happen, and kudos to the National Association of Realtors for finding these problems, fixing them, and being forthright about the changes that we’ll be seeing in their numbers.  And if you sold your home twice in their database, we hope you can get back some of those Realtor fees.

David touches on changes in the market research industry that he is seeing and how those shifts have impacted our work here at Corona Insights.

Read his interview here.

The Colorado Nonprofit Association began the Generosity Project back in 2007. While Coloradans have a relatively high average income, they lag behind other states in terms of charitable contributions (financial and in-kind). The Generosity Project strives to expand expertise on Colorado’s charitable sector with the ultimate goal of making Colorado a more generous state.

Since 2007, they’ve engaged in various initiatives, from publishing best practices to communications strategies. Our friends at the Association are also strong believers in research and data-driven messaging.  Corona Insights was previously retained in 2008 to conduct analyses on the economic impact (pdf) of giving in Colorado and Why Donors Give (pdf).

We look forward to more from The Generosity Project and its positive impact on our state’s charitable sector.

You might be able to guess the two largest populations of foreign students, particularly if you went to an engineering college – Chinese, then Indian.  But what countries occupy Spots 3 through 10 on the list?  Some of them may surprise you.

1. Chinese
2. Asian Indian
3. Korean
4. Japanese
5. African (no detail)
6. Sudanese
7. Russian
8. Colombian
9. Taiwanese
10. Serbian

Serbian?  Sudanese?  We’re guessing you can win some friendly wagers with this information.  And we’re wondering if the Colombian students disproportionately attend the University of Missouri-Columbia in a lucky marketing coincidence.

• Everyone knows about the whole “aging boomer” thing, so we won’t belabor that point. However, it’s interesting to see that another fast-growing segment is the 18-24 age category. While the senior population grew 15 percent over the past decade (and the 45-64 age group at a whopping 32 percent), our traditional college-age segment of 18 to 24 year olds grew by 13 percent.
• The median age of the nation has risen from 29.5 in 1960 to 37.2 today. The oldest state in the nation? Maine, at a median of 42.7. The oldest states are clustered in the northeast other than the notable exception of Florida.
• Throughout the United States, the county with the highest ratio of men to women is our own Crowley County in southeast Colorado. But single women probably shouldn’t flock there. The ratio is high because of the presence of a state prison for men.

What trends are interesting to you and your work?

About the awards:  Hosted by the Colorado Chapter of the American Marketing Association (CO-AMA), the 23rd Annual Peak Awards “are the one opportunity for the entire Colorado marketing community (B2B, B2C, traditional to direct to digital marketing) to be recognized for exceptional marketing.”

The event was held at the ever-changing Museum of Contemporary Art.  Several members of the Corona team were present to accept this award.

An extra congratulations to some past Corona customers and familiar faces who received awards this year: Iliff School of Theology and The Space Foundation.

Click here to read about Corona’s Silver Peak award last year for our rebranding.

Now, read the article before reading the rest of my thoughts…

Done?  Next, regardless of the topic, the way this “research” is written is engaging.  It gives the explanation peppered with short stories (meaning a sentence or two) that bring the research to life.  Finally (though actually the first thing I thought when I read this), some research may have answered this question with an answer like “they’re pretty” or “they read about them in children’s books”.  But that isn’t at all what you get here. You get the underlying emotional connections girls make with these animals.  That’s the kind of insight all research should strive to achieve.