December 3, 2008
[Black Friday]
Did you go shopping on black Friday? I did, but it was more out of coincidence of having a day off to shop than going out for sales. And surprisingly there weren’t any crowds at the stores I was shopping at.
Researchers at America’s Research Group wouldn’t be surprised by this lack of mall madness. Their prediction was a 3.5% drop from last year’s sales. They attribute this to the shopper’s behavior: sticking to a budget (70.2%) and a list, getting most of their Christmas shopping in three or fewer days (63%), and buying the basement bargains.
Black Friday is truly a yearly pulse on consumers. Their behaviors on Black Friday tell much about how the economy is really effecting families fiscally and emotionally. The freeze on spending is a reflection of the thousands of lost jobs but also the emotional tolls the suffering economy has on consumers. Consumers suffer from the psychological influence of all of the news articles about the suffering economy which in turn decreases the feeling of freedom they have to spend. However some consumers find ways around this, by buying more for less. These consumers have compromised on their standards and buy from retailers like Wal-Mart, who is believed to have the greatest price cuts. The number of consumers who shop Wal-Mart is up from 59.3 to 61.3 from last year.
I think everyone, especially retailers, are hoping for the recession to end and for spending to go up.
[Doom of Coupons?]
Adweek published an online article today about using coupons in the digital age. Their main statistic was:
Coupons are already well-established as a promotional vehicle in the U.S., with coupon-clipping Americans comprising 86 percent of households and driving 89 percent of all-outlet dollar sales, according to data compiled by Nielsen
Then the article gave 6 ways companies are beginning to use technology with coupons. Here are my thoughts on each of these research applications.
1. Reduced reliance on paper-based feature and coupon circulation. This is great for the environment but I see this overall transition coming slow for retailers. Much of their decisions are based out of competition. If their competitors are slow to move, some retailers may stay in print because of their competitors and their customers aren’t ready.
2. Electronic or store entrance coupon delivery. Whoa. Perhaps a little invasive? Nielsen experts suggest text messaged coupons while customers are entering stores or in specific aisles.
3. Smart appliances provide in-store shopping assistance. What’s for dinner tonight? Visit the produce or meat department and allow your personal chef avatar to generate some electronic menu suggestions and automatically create a shopping list with aisle and item locator cues. This idea I’m pretty interested in. I can see this really boosting sales.
4. Stores offering engagement and entertainment opportunities. Look for personal shopper holograms to guide you through the store or shelf talkers activated by your cell phone to offer special discounts. Walmart has pledged to invest $10 million and two years of testing to determine the optimal placement of in-store screens and special shopper programming. I’d like to see what the difference between TVs above the aisles and this is. I guess it is more personalized. But would this catch on in a store as big as Wal-Mart?
5. One-to-one personalized promotions. Stores will become increasingly interactive and consumer-specific, marrying data from multiple sources to deliver an involving shopping experience that reflects individual interests and buying preferences. Social networks based on shopping proclivities will be formed to build demand and drive sales.
6. Integrated strategic promotional planning. Shopper marketing comes of age, dominating the retail landscape, displacing product-centric marketing planning. Technology enables a holistic planning approach that puts the consumer front and center while “benefitting the brand, the consumer, the shopper and the retailer.”
Overall, these ideas are exciting and show strategic thinking of how to bring about a new age of retail. However, I’m not sure how quickly retail establishments will change. Maybe these changes are what consumers are looking for–and will re-incite excitement into the shopping experience.
December 2, 2008
[Predicting the Future]
An article from over a year ago predicted that China will take Japan’s spot for the 5th largest market for consumer research by 2012. This prediction was made because the amount of money spent with market research firms has doubled in the last five years in China. When the article was written, China was in the number 8 spot, ahead of Spain and Italy.
My first assumption was that China’s growth in the research industry would be to learn about their domestic consumers. Instead, the growth in marketing research is to inrease understanding of Western consumers to better advertise Chinese brands to them. The next frontier for China’s brands is to strengthen their identity, instead of relying on Western brands to sell their products.
It is wise for Chinese brands to invest in consumer research. This will help them to better understand cultures and consumers who are very different from themselves. We will have to see if China’s take over continues enough to raise their spot to #5.
November 25, 2008
[Content Analysis]
Content Analysis is one of the basics of qualitative research. While the concept is really simple, it was sort of fun to master over the summer at my job. Let’s dive in, shal we?
So, you send out a survey about the season of winter. You ask all sorts of questions about snow, the holidays, and hot chocolate, some with rating scales, some multiple choice, and some fill in the blank. One of your fill in the blank questions is “What is your favorite childhood memory during winter?” You get many different responses, but after a while you start to recognize similarities in the responses. Content analysis is a way to place these answers into categories, to enable you to run statistics and compare the responses, just as if it were a multiple choice question.
PROS: Content Analysis gives your survey responders a chance to speak their minds. They can fill in whatever they’d like and really be honest about their answer. Questions that require content analysis allow responders to surprise you with their answers. This type of answer, ones that the researcher couldn’t come up with on their own, are the responses they are looking for. Also, the researcher who completes content analysis feels emerged in the responders’ culture after reading response after response. It is a great way to get a sense for who you’re talking to.
CONS: Content Analysis takes a lot of time. Even when working diligently, the work itself just takes time. It also is inherently contradictory. The goal is to encourage unique responses, but ultimately each response gets put into a category, as if it were a multiple choice question. I suggest presenting the work of content analysis with a few representative responses with each category so that the feeling of the responses aren’t lost.
November 21, 2008
[Case Study: Got Milk?, Part 2]
Last time, we discussed the problem California milk producers were facing with low consumption rates and an overall bad image of milk. Now we will look at how the research done by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners influenced their creative work.
One of the agency’s first realizations was that much of the past milk advertising was aimed at consumers who were not using milk at all. GS&P knew that if their goal was to change behavior quickly, they needed to focus on persuading people who already use milk to use more milk, and use it more often. Once they decided on this, they moved on to do further research on how they used milk. Their interviews and focus groups revealed that many people didn’t even think of milk until they needed it with something else. Milk was always included in a formula that made something else shine. Whether it was cereal, cookies, or coffee, milk was seen as food’s supporting star.
When people described situations where they had the food but not the milk, we were intrigued by the level of emotion in their descriptions. It wasn’t merely inconvenient; they were angry, upset, frustrated.
This research lead to the creative team focusing in on a deprivation strategy. It would show milk in a dramatic way, increasing desire in the special food and as a result, increased desire for milk. This idea lead Jeff Goodby to 90′s gold: got milk?
The thinking of this campaign is so simple and was lead so easily by research. The research they did was so beneficial for their campaign; it breathed life into it and lead to a major success.
November 20, 2008
[Tried and True]
When taking advertising and business classes, hard and fast rules were rarely taught, but a few catchy sayings stuck with me. One was “you recieve 80% of your business from 20% of your customers.”
This saying is arguably a rule as well. What makes it a rule is how easily applied it is to so many different businesses. The best example I can think of are Starbucks regulars. People who hit up that place at least once a day, sometimes more. Not only that, but they get the same drink!
This rule even applies to banner ads. OK, well it doesn’t apply perfectly, but the idea of extremes is still in place. A recent study showed that 6% of internet users are responsible for 50% of the clicking on banner ads. The key to this information is that it allows you to zero in on your brand ambassadors (or in this case, media outlet ambassadors.) Their study showed that banner ad clickers are most often 25-44, have a household income average of 40k, and spent 4 times more time online than non-clickers.
Research on media outlets boosts their sales pitches when selling to advertisers. Now we just need to figure out what these people buy…
November 18, 2008
[Case Study: Got Milk?, Part 1]
One of the most influential sections for me in the book Truth, Lies, and Advertising by Jon Steel was the chapter he wrote about the Got Milk campaign and the research they did for it. I found their use of research to brilliant. Most importantly, their research inspired great creative. In this multi-part case study we’ll look at why this campaign was a success and became a pop culture phenomenon.
The Problem
Milk sales in California were at an all time low in the 1980s and early 1990s in California. The average per person consumption was only 30 gallons per year. Not only that, but the public’s perception of milk was that it boring, “a real yawner.” A Gallup survey further revealed three harmful perceptions of milk. Number 1 is that consumers saw milk as unhealthy because of its fat content. Number 2 is that it is seen as a kid’s drink. Number 3 is that compared to flashy sodas like Coke or Pepsi, milk was boring.
With this secondary research collected, the team at the agency decided the big problem was milk’s image. To uncover more about how the public felt about milk, the team engaged in focus groups in California.
Next, see how qualitative research is used to lead to creative work.
November 12, 2008
[Corporate Kitsch]
A few days ago Brandweek posted an article with recent research findings suggesting promotional swag including pens, mugs, t-shirts, bags, and more, are more effective than advertising.
• 84 percent of consumers remembered an advertiser based on a product they received.
• 42 percent had a more favorable impression of an advertiser after receiving a promotional product.
• Nearly one quarter (24 percent) indicated they are more likely to do business with an advertiser based on items they receive.
• The majority of respondents (62 percent) have done business with an advertiser after receiving a product.
• Writing instruments are the most commonly owned tchotchkes, with 54 percent of respondents owning them, followed by shirts, caps and bags.
• Most (81 percent) promotional products were kept because they were considered useful.
• More than three-quarters of respondents have kept their items for about seven months.
• Among wearables, bags were reported to be used most frequently, with respondents indicating that they use their bags on average nine times per month.
• Bags deliver the most impressions, with 1,038 impressions per month on average.
I think these findings are interesting, and sort of against what I would expect. Especially the one about having a more favorable impression of an advertiser after receiving a promotional product. Many times I think it cheapens a brand to use free stuff.
When, Why, and How is it best to use promotional swag?
1. When you want to get the word out: Having your name around in someone’s personal space will increase awareness and can move up the position of your brand is the consumer’s mind. The benefit of swag is that recipient owns it. It is their pen, their bag, their coffee mug they drink out of. It is a tangible reminder of the brand name.
2. When you are targeting a specific audience: If you know exactly who could be your next customer, swag is a great option. Swag cuts down on contacting too many people who aren’t interested, or those who your product doesn’t apply to. The best application of this is with business to business products. So often these products are intangible, service oriented products. Swag offers a tangible way to interact with the brand.
3. The bigger the better: With swag you need to find a balance of promoting with a product that is useful, but one that not all your competitors use. Obviously everyone can use a pen, but what company hasn’t branded a pen. I think this is why sling backpacks became popular swag, but now they are too popular. One must think, what, if any, swag is most applicable to your product? How can your swag stick out?
November 10, 2008
[Lyza]
I usually don’t find banner ads compelling enough to click on but recently one caught my eye. It was an ad for Lyza, a researching and analytics software. The ad read “Analyze Creatively.”
This line resonated with me because it is exactly what I think research should be. The idea you need photoshop to be creative is bogus. I think the best research is the kind that is creative in itself and therefore inspires more creativity.
Not that I’m in the market to buy researching software… but I think they’re on to something.
[Consumer Research]
An Introduction
Why research?
Research brings insight into creative strategies. Research confirms your thoughts, prove your thoughts wrong, and gives you brand new thoughts you would have never come up with on your own. Especially in advertising, where people are your target, you need to understand those people. They probably aren’t like you, so chances are you need to find out a little more about them. Thus, research. In advertising, research’s home is in account planning. Planning at its core is involving the consumer in creative strategies by better understanding how to communicate with them.
While I happen to think planning has its place at an agency, some do not. Some creatives find planners to be unnecessary, that any good creative person could easily do this research on their own and extrapolate just as much meaning. This account manager sees planning as part of the “brain drain” of advertising.
Responsibility for marketing strategy used to be in the hands of account managers. It no longer is. (Concurrently, there has been a general loss of confidence among clients in ad agencies’ abilities to provide strategic guidance. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but this loss of confidence has correlated almost perfectly with the ascendancy of account planning.)
Why did account planning evolve? Isn’t more specialization better? I think so.
