Pizza is one of my most favorite foods and a staple in my household. I have my favorite places from local spots to the chains, but Domino’s was never on my list for a number of reasons. Mostly, I just never liked their pizza, but I thought I should reconsider after reading Josh Mendelsohn’s blog post a while back about their new ads…
“Coming off of last year's social media disaster, that painted them as unknowing and unhealthy, Domino's ads are sending a message that says, "We hear what people have been saying and we've dealt with it. Now give us a try, you might like us more than you think." I know that they have at least re-entered my consideration set, the first step to becoming a customer and potentially (with some free bread sticks, perhaps) an advocate.”
While it took five months, a couple of weeks ago I had a house full of hungry kids and I took the leap and gave the “new” Domino's a try. I was not disappointed, however it wasn’t the pizza that will keep me coming back, it was the customer experience.
To start the process, I went online and was easily able to navigate through the various sauces and crusts as well as special offers to add to my order. With just a few clicks, dinner was ordered. But what came next not only surprised me, it won me over and put Domino's at the top of my pizza list.
It’s called the Domino's Tracker and it updates your pizza status as your order moves through the production line. I knew exactly where my pizza was at all times from my order being received to what time “Megan” put my pizza in the oven, it even told me that “Corey” left to deliver my pizza at 5:27. It was very cool and I have to admit I kept checking to see where my pizza was and being able to answer the timing questions of hungry children made it even better and highly differentiated from the standard “it’ll be there in 30-45 minutes” I get from the local pizza shop. Not only did we know when the pizza was coming, we were engaged the entire time (cross-messaging/up-selling time, anyone?)
Certainly, the pizza was pretty good but it was the entire customer experience that won us over. Kudos to Domino’s for taking advantage of new technology; easy online ordering and the very cool Domino’s Tracker took a run of the mill and often frustrating process and made it an informative, engaging and personalized experience that will keep us coming back.
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two,and loves a veggie pizza and a cold Sam Adams Light.
We recently conducted a webinar that featured Chris James, AMD’s social media strategist. Chris talked about using market research to develop a social media strategy and some common barriers to investing in social media. This blog post is inspired by his words along with some of my own perspective…
When it comes to brands engaging in social media there can be a lot of internal barriers to making this investment of both time and money. It is a big investment (especially in time) and should not be made without a clear strategy and commitment behind it. And it’s really not worth doing unless you are prepared to give it 110%.
Communication: One of the biggest barriers Chris talks about is evolving people who are not “natural” communicators. Many times a social media strategy may involve people (individuals and brands) who are hesitant to actually put themselves out there. It’s important to guide them along in the process and invest in the training to help them succeed and become more comfortable. In the end, participation in social media will not be for everyone and it’s best not “forced” on anyone, but many times people find they enjoy sharing their expertise and opinions.
Fear: For many larger companies there are legal and investor relations hurdles to cross. There is a common fear that too much information can create a competitive disadvantage or the wrong information will leak out. This is why having contributor policies and guidelines in place are so important. Intel is a great example of a company that has done a good job outlining their social media guidelines.
Budget: Money is one of life’s constant barriers, there never seems to be enough. Chris stresses the importance of being judicious of the time, people and tools that are used to not only develop, but to sustain a social media strategy. It’s important to take a step back and figure out where you can make the biggest impact. For one, not all social media outlets are created equal. (Watch our social media webinar with AMD to hear how they developed an efficient and streamlined social media strategy delivering on their objectives.) It is essential to align your resources around what’s important first, rather than letting the hype or constant articles professing social media love drive your social media strategy.
Content: Social media is all about contributing good content regularly. Often there is a fear of not knowing what to say or having enough to say. This is why it is so important to not “go it alone” and have a team of people who are willing to contribute content on a fairly regular basis. Here at CMB we have regular contributors to our blog, each add their own style and expertise, and each adds their own flavor keeping the blog fresh.
It’s important to understand who you are targeting, where those people live online, the best way to reach them and who within your organization will be best at speaking with them (virtually).
In the end, as with any new tactic or investment there are always barriers, but having a clear strategy helps to break many of those down and move forward.
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and is a regular contributor to the CMB blog.
Want to learn more about social media research? Watch our webinar featuring Georgeanna Liu and Chris James from AMD as they present a case study of h ow CMB conducted market research to support key social media strategy decisions and how AMD is using it today. Watch here.
Despite the media focus on new, cool technological devices, content seems to be what is really on consumers' minds these days. In today's CMB press release: Consumers Are More Excited About Content Than Devices we shared some very interesting insights collected earlier this year about which of the recently hyped technologies consumers are most excited about. I expected to see the iPad or Droid phones at the top of the list, but content was king with movie rentals via the internet topping the list and internet via TV also ranking relatively high.
Even many of the new features and enhancements for the iPhone 4 seemed to be all about content. From video conferencing and editing to streaming movies via the new Netflix app, it's no wonder AT&T stopped offering unlimited data plans. This could be a slippery slope for consumers as they now need to become more educated on their data consumption, but that's a whole other discussion.
In a recent Ad Age article Michael Learmonth talked about the new Netflix iPhone app which streams movies either over the AT&T network($$$) or Wifi. I have to say Netflix always seems to be one step ahead of consumers, from DVD's by mail to delivery to the Wii and now streaming movies on the iPhone, they are in a great position to take advantage of this segment of the market. The presentation below shows that they have staked their claim and are clear and deliberate about their focus and their slice of the content pie.
In 2010 Netflix is expecting their subscriber base to grow to over 17 million. Although DVD-by-mail movie rentals are expected to continue to grow over the next few years, Netflix expects it to peak in 2013 and then steadily decline, eventually being replaced by online streaming. Hey why walk to the mailbox when you don't need to leave your couch!
Are you clear about how your key target audiences are evolving and what their technology needs are?
Better Understand the Needs of Your Segments: Segmentation Best Practices webinar
Watch Brant Cruz and Jeff McKenna's recent presentation best practices of market segmentation. Brant and Jeff shared tips and case studies based on their years of experience working with clients like eBay, Electronic Arts, GE Healthcare, Plantronics, and Avis-Budget. Watch here
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and is seriously debating making the switch to AT&T for the new iPhone 4
In this week's issue of Marketing News, Lightspeed Research released a really interesting study on Americans' usage and attitude towards mobile phones and mobile phone marketing. The study of close to 1200 US consumers shows 54% of smartphone owners say they have downloaded a mobile app in the last 6 months. And over 40% say they access the internet at least once per day. 
The fact is consumers are using mobile devices for so much more we ever imagined and in a wider array of both functional and mindless ways. Open up Shazam and you can identify and buy the song you are listening on the radio on your Blackberry or iPhone. Scan the bar code at Target and see if you can get a better deal somewhere else. Apple (and now Droid) got it right when they said "there's an app for that". Just like we are now "trained" to turn to the internet for information, we are not far from regularly turning to our phone to do the same.
As mobile devices change consumer behaviors and expectations, more and more businesses are tapping into this marketing opportunity and connecting with customers to provide a better service experience and the convenience mobile technology offers.
Along with retail/e-commerce, banking has been one of the most affected industries that we serve. Jim Garrity, CMB's managing director of our financial practice, just wrote a fantastic article in the May issue of ABA Bank Marketing that talks about how smaller regional banks are using mobile apps like ATM locators to better serve their customers and better compete with the big guys. It used to be the larger banks had the competitive advantage because of the sheer convenience their vast ATM networks offered.
Smaller community banks then joined larger ATM networks to better compete by offering more ATM's in more locations, but customers often could not find them or could not easily identify which ATMS were in their network. Now smaller community banks are using mobile technology to help customers find ATM's in their network all from the convenience of their mobile device. Good examples are MyATM and Allpoint's mobile app called Go-Everywhere which helps customers find over 37,000 surcharge-free ATMs.
Using mobile apps has leveled the playing field and allows the community banks to better compete and requires bigger banks to respect their smaller competitors. Read more of Jim's article ATM Locators: Your Lead-in To Full Mobile in the May issue of ABA Bank Marketing.
Where is your opportunity in the mobile market? Surely "there's an app for that"!
Also, check out Josh Mendelsohn's post 1 Topic, 5 Blogs: Mobile Surveys in Market Research to read more about using mobile technology as a research tool.
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and loves mobile technology.
Posted originally on our Technology Pulse Blog by Chris Neal
We recently conducted research on social media to look at why people become fans and followers of certain brands. We wanted to get a high level view of why people become a fan/follower. Our gut (and some of our own personal experience) told us that many people that become a fan or follower do so because they are already customers of that brand. For the most part our instinct was right. Our research found 49% of people who become Facebook fans do so because they are already a customer.
The really interesting part is we found over half of those people who are engaged stated that they are more likely to buy and recommend that brand since becoming a fan/follower. It's clear that using social media as an engagement strategy helps cut through the online clutter and keeps brands "top of mind".
This makes a lot of sense for consumer companies, but is a social media engagement strategy right for harder to reach B2B audiences? The short answer is yes, but not without digging deeper to learn more about who you are trying to reach and where they "live" online. There are so many social media outlets available today and they are not all created equal and they're not a "one size fits all" answer.
Truly using social media as an engagement strategy may not take a lot of money, but it does take a lot of time. So the best place to start is prioritizing who you want to engage with and then look for the best places to find them and figure out how they want to be engaged in the various social media outlets available.
Recently we worked with AMD, a leading processor company to re-evaluate their social media effectiveness and develop a more optimized and targeted strategy to reach their widely disparate target audiences. It was important to start by looking at each of those targets and then systematically evaluate the true extent and impact of social media usage on each of those audiences.
- Audience: We used separate research modules for each unique target audience, spanning from extreme B2B to consumer segments
- Recruiting: We did not use social media to recruit research participants as to prevent sampling bias
- Techniques: Both qualitative/open-ended and quantitative research
This approach really allowed AMD to refine and optimize their social media content and tactics based on the different behaviors of each target audience. Learn more about this AMD case study at the Social Media and Community 2.0 Strategies event coming to Boston May 3-5.
Understanding B2B Social Media: An AMD Case Study
CMB's Chris Neal and AMD's Georgeanna Liu will presenting a case study of how CMB helped AMD better understand and capitalize on social media to drive their business. In this session, we'll explain the steps that AMD took to review and refine their social media strategy focusing on very specific target audiences.
Read more about social media
by downloading our report:
"Why Social Media Matters for Your Business."
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Once again my hopes and dreams for an iPhone have been squashed right along with the rumor that Verizon was getting the iPhone by the end of the year. Mashable reported this week that AT&T has the iPhone exclusively until 2012. This isn't the first time my hopes have been dashed and I am debating joining the Android camp, which Marketing Daily reports is taking a bite out of Apple .
The NPD Group reports Google's Android OS edged out Apple's OS for the number-two position behind RIM in the first quarter of 2010. So I'm not the only one getting tired of the wait, and quite honestly I'm not sure what I'm waiting for anyway. After all, Droid Does have a lot of apps.
So, are consumers willing to switch carriers to get the mobile device they want? Recently, in our online Consumer Pulse we asked over 1500 consumers "How likely is it that you will switch carriers to access a device that your current carrier does not offer?" While 72% said a switch is not likely, 28% reported they are either moderately or very likely to switch carriers for a specific device. Personally, I think I fall into the 72% camp. And in a different set of research we conducted in March using Toluna's phone-based omnibus we found only 13% of the 1004 US consumers surveyed said they would pay the fees related to switching carriers to get a specific mobile device.
I don't think I'm willing to switch carriers. Maybe all the Droid Does marketing is working. I'm becoming convinced that I can do everything I want with a Droid that I could have done with an iPhone.
What do you think? Would you switch carriers for a specific mobile device?
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and loves mobile technology.
Through the years and two kids later we certainly have accumulated a lot of "stuff" around our house. Apparently I'm not alone! We recently worked with Kijiji.com,
eBay's free online classifieds to conduct research with an online sample of over 1000 US consumers. We asked these consumers what happens to all the duplicate items when couples move in together. After all you don't need two toasters! For many the basement or attic starts to fill.
Some of what we learned:
- 54% of Americans admit to having up to 10 duplicate items when they moved in with a significant other
- The most common unused household items include electronics (42%), kitchen appliances (36%), cookware (29%) and furniture (23%)
Each time we have moved through the years I make a concerted effort (often unbeknownst to my husband and kids) to reduce our "clutter footprint," but I never thought of profiting from my "junk." As the old adage goes "one person's trash is another's treasure!"
I'm a big fan of sites like Kijiji.com for both buying and selling, and not just because they are a client. Online classifieds are a great way to sell those bigger items that can't be shipped easily and I need out of the house. Not too long ago I posted my double jogger stroller to an online classifieds site in the morning and a mom from the next town over was at my house by 3:45 with $100 cash!
As a consumer, are you thinking about non-traditional places to sell the stuff you don't need and save some money buying what you do want? As a business, are you thinking about ALL of the potential sales channels for your product?
For more informaiton on this research check out the Kijiji.com press release.
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and is looking forward to making spring cleaning profitable!
I'll admit it, every time I watch the Olympics I tear up at least once, sometimes tears of joy and sometimes tears of shared disappointment. I can't help admire the sheer dedication, determination and desire for success these athletes display, and I feel a renewed sense of pride and unity watching the Olympics.
For those same reasons, I love the ads during the Olympics, even more so than the Super Bowl. I watch the ads during the Super Bowl expecting to laugh or be shocked in some way, but when it comes to the Olympics I expect to be reaching for the Kleenex. The Olympic ads tug at my heart more and leave me with that "feel good" feeling. My favorite series that tugs at my heart is the Proctor and Gamble Proud Sponsor of Mom's Winter Olympic campaign by Wieden & Kennedy
To Their Moms, They'll Always Be Kids (P&G Commercial)
P&G takes this campaign way beyond traditional advertising; they are subsidizing the cost of mom's travel and accommodations allowing more moms to see their kids realize their dreams of competing in the Winter Olympics. As a mom I think that's awesome, as a marketer it's brilliant. What a great way to reach out and support their target market.
Read more from Jeff McKenna's post earlier this week where we looked at the impact of Olympic sponsorships.
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Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and lover of the winter olympics.
With Valentine's Day around the corner 
the ads and jingles are everywhere, from "Every kiss begins with Kay" to "He went to Jared." I'm sure you've seen them all. Yet even with millions spent on these ad campaigns the truth is that most women don't seem to care about brand when it comes to jewelry. We recently conducted a market research project asking women how meaningful the "brand" is in a number of categories including electronics, clothing, jewelry, products for the home and cosmetics/skin care. Jewelry ranked the lowest with only 18% of woman saying the brand is "meaningful" to them when they receive (or give) jewelry as a gift.
The reality is more than twice as many women (38%) care about the brand of electronic gifts. So even with ads like the ones from Jared, it turns out brand matters more to Dave's GPS than it does to most women.
I think for me when it comes to jewelry brand isn't very important to me because I can't tell the difference between a Hearts on Fire diamond or a Hearts of Desire diamond. They both look beautiful to my amateur eye. But then again maybe I'm not their target market because I'd be happier with iPhone!
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Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and is stil hoping to get jewelry for Valentine's Day.
Like any custom market research firm, the vast majority of our work is proprietary to help our clients make decisions around branding and communications, product and service development, customer loyalty or segmentation.
We invest a lot of resources in making the results of our projects easy to read, understand, and share throughout client organizations. This not only promotes the value and impact research has on business decisions, but in some cases it can extend the life of the research and create opportunities for others to see something in the results that you didn't and find stories that can help drive the business from another angle.
For example, I look at research findings with a different hat on, with a different mission in mind. I'm always looking for the story, a reason to blog, tweet, and communicate with our customers and key media contacts. And I often find the best opportunities are right under my nose in the data we already own.
In fact, we have several clients that do an amazing job at maximizing the PR opportunities found in their research results including MetLife, Kijij
(eBay's online classifieds), Cisco Systems, and PNC Bank.
In every research project there are opportunities for stories to be uncovered... so where you can, go ahead share the results and see what's uncovered!
Do you share your research results with your PR/communications departments?
Interested in learning more about Marketing Effectiveness? Join us for a webinar on February 24 from CMB and our friends at CMG Partners: The Marketing Performance Advantage: Best Practices for Measuring and Managing Marketing Performance.
Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's Director of Communications, a mother of two, and loves a good story.