Voices: the CMB Blog

Did I snag you with the title? I hope so—it took me quite a while to come up with it. As our regular readers and esteemed clients know, each of CMB’s employees contribute to our blog by writing at least once annually. In the past, I’ve used my posts to tackle the real-world applications of complex mathematical topics, including statistical significance, Maximum-Difference scaling, and stated vs. derived importance.Today, though, I’d like to introduce you to my true research passion: brand positioning. My first job in the research field took me all over the world as my team and I worked to determine and deliver the most effective positioning for a multinational insurance company. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Most of you reading this have probably heard the term “positioning” before, but for those who haven’t, here’s a definition from the guys who (quite literally) invented the field: “An organized system for finding a window in the mind. It is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances.” - Ries, A. and Trout, J. (1977), Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.

A simpler definition, also from Jack Trout, would be this: “the place a product, brand, or group of products occupies in consumers' minds, relative to competing offerings.” Pretty simple, right? You define your brand as the collection of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors you want your consumers (whomever they may be) to have about you, relative to your key competitors (perhaps the most famous “opposition branding” of this sort is 7 Up’s classic “The Uncola”).

So, we need to identify the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors we want consumers to have and then make a big, direct marketing push to communicate those aspects to them. Right? (Obviously, there’s a lot more to it than that.) In a future blog post, I’ll tackle aspects like value statements, foundational benefits, key goals, and the like, but for now, I want to focus on one major sticking point I keep seeing come up: emotion.

These days, marketers talk endlessly about “big data” and “connecting on an emotional level.” How can we convince so-and-so to love our brand? What emotions do we want associated with our brand? Are we happy? Exciting? Stoic?

Research firms, including ours, often tackle these questions and try to help clients be seen for the right emotions. But here’s the rub: unless your product or company is brand-spankin’-new, the basic emotional reactions to your brand are already defined. Try as we might, changing an idea in someone’s mind is by far the most difficult task in all of marketing, and if people in a focus group are saying your brand reminds them of a Volvo, the odds that you can convince them to think of your brand as a Ferrari are virtually nil. 

So how can brands connect with consumers on an emotional level, convey the right emotions, and do so effectively in an already over-communicated world? Well, that answer would be too long for this blog post, but let me start with a simple analogy: brand positionings can be thought of as a ladder—you have to climb one rung before you can move on to the next. The very bottom is your foundation (what industry you’re in, when you were founded, etc.– just the facts, Jack), and the very top is your emotional connection to your consumers, inasmuch as one exists. In between is an array of needs, including functional benefits, the value statement, goals, and a few others I’ll cover in a future blog. 

Brands have to build up to that emotional connection, which is usually the most difficult component of branding (and why it’s at the top of the ladder). Brands or products can do so by delivering across the entire spectrum in a consistent, thorough way that speaks to the emotion you want to own. If you have major delivery issues, you won’t be thought of as reliable. If you’ve only existed for 2 months, you probably can’t own trustworthy. Oil companies can’t be fun. If you want to own reliability, you need top-level customer delivery, including responsive employees, a reputation for customer service, and a culture that rewards proactivity. You get the idea.

By now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with my new Prius (good timing!). Outdoorsy, environmentally-friendly folk like myself have been long-devoted fans of Toyota’s original hybrid fuel cell vehicle for its emissions-slashing, fuel-saving engine among other things. But those aren’t emotions, and no one could think the Prius’ historical sales records could be accomplished without more than a dash of emotional connection thrown in. 

So how does the Prius make me feel? Like I’m making a difference. The “hybrid” stamp on the back reminds me not to be wasteful. The constantly-cycling energy meter not only encourages me to drive less aggressively, but also turns reducing emissions into a fun little game I play driving around Boston. (54 mpg? Psssh. I can do better.) A solar-powered climate roof reminds me not to waste energy and makes me smile when it unexpectedly turns on. A cynic might say that what the Prius really does is allow people to feel better about themselves, and I don’t deny there’s at least a kernel of truth there, too. 

You can see how the positioning of the Prius fits the ladder example: the foundation is the hybrid engine, 14 years of existence, and Toyota brand. Functional benefits include cutting gas costs and reducing emissions (the proof points are well-known) while supporting the goal of living a low-emission life. All of these things add up to that simple, good feeling I have whenever I slide behind the wheel, which connects me with the product in a way that the individual features cannot. The cycling energy monitor is cool, but I wouldn’t have assigned point values for efficiently driving away from stoplights around my neighborhood if it was just a toy. The solar roof not only helps keep the car cool in the summer, it reminds me to be energy-conscious at home, too. Seamless alignment between functional and emotional.

Let this be the first lesson then: brands can own emotions, but not without much effort. If you want someone to love your brand, you have to give them reasons why they should, and all of those reasons need to work in tandem with one another to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. In a future post, I’ll show you how.

Nick Pangallo is the Senior Project Manager on CMB’s Financial Services, Insurance, Travel, and Hospitality team. He’s an avid poker player and an occasional lecturer at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. You can follow him on Twitter @NAPangallo, though be warned: he often tweets about the Buffalo Bills. 

After nearly a decade working on highly complex and strategic research projects, I’ve learned the one thing you can count on when dealing with massive amounts of data is Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. No matter how much planning we do (and we take planning very seriously), the nature of market research means there’s bound to be a hiccup or two along the way.One of the best ways to deal with Murphy's Law is to accept that issues will arise but to make sure they don’t get in the way of the end goal—actionable insights. At CMB, our ability to seamlessly execute projects hinges on our capacity to adjust and course correct (when needed) to keep things on track. We put a lot of preparation and time in putting together solid project plans, focusing on business decisions, and conducting stakeholder interviews, but we also place a lot of emphasis on hiring and training strong problem solvers. We do this because we know that even the best laid out plans can still go awry, which is why it's important to manage problems proactively. For example, CMB firmly believes in conducting stakeholder interviews at the beginning of nearly all research engagements. This allows us to proactively re-shape/re-think the questionnaire design based on the information we’re hearing from the stakeholders. This helps prevent getting to the final presentation and delivering insights that are not relevant or useable for the key stakeholders.

Even the Patriots, as successful as they were this season and in the Super Bowl, run into problems and issues in each game that they play, regardless if they are playing the worst or best team in the league. If you read Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column the day after the Super Bowl, you'll remember that he highlighted Bill Belichick's pre-Super Bowl game meeting with his staff. Josh McDaniels, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, summarized the meeting and said that Bill's main message was this: "This game is no different than any other one. It’s a 60-minute football game, and whatever issues we have, let’s make sure we correct them, coach them, and fix them. That’s our job." During that meeting, McDaniels, wrote two notes on his game play clipboard, "adjust" and "correct problems and get them fixed." Going into the game with those mantras was a reminder for him that the game is dynamic, and even the best laid plans need to be adjusted throughout the course of play.

While we can’t rely on Tom Brady, our approach to research engagements is no different. We encounter complex challenges day in and day out, and as our clients' needs change, we continue to think creatively and provide new and better solutions. When working with CMB, you can feel confident that we're putting together a solid project approach while simultaneously planning for the problems that may lie ahead. We might not be the Patriots, but we’re champions at execution just the same.

Cara is a Senior Research Manager. She enjoys spending time with her husband and dog, and she is STILL reveling in the "high" from the Patriots Super Bowl win.

Are YOU a strong problem solver? Come join our team!

Diversity in the workplace has proven massive benefits for organizations that rely on innovative thinking. Contrary to what most people believe, however, diversity in business is not just about surrounding yourself with people who look different. It’s also about equipping your team with a wide array of approaches to a common challenge.You can imagine each of us having a diversity score – based on 3 dimensions – that fluctuates depending on the collective characteristics of the team. However, the score isn’t static: each of us can increase our individual and team diversity score at will. Let’s take a look at the three common dimensions of diversity to understand how we can do this:

1. Inherent Diversity

Inherent diversity includes race, ethnic background, gender…hardwired traits that we are born with/into and cannot be controlled. For better or worse, these traits can influence the way we perceive the world around us, and vice versa.

A McKinsey study shows the difference inherent diversity can make, finding that executive boards in the US with inherently diverse members enjoy a 95% higher return on equity than those without. Impressive! On the flipside, what is an example of the drawback to sameness? Ask Bertelsmann, whose all-male team turned down Bethenny Frankel’s pitch to launch a low-cal alcoholic beverage for women. They simply could not relate to the target market, and the unseized opportunity gave rise to Skinnygirl, the fastest growing spirit brand in history.

2. Acquired Diversity

This dimension involves the ingrained experiences we collect throughout our lives that train us how to think and behave, such as educational background, professional expertise, and even experience abroad.

An Art History class might allow you to understand the context surrounding important works and to fully appreciate the artist’s vision. Raising children helps you value an uninterrupted night’s sleep and wholeheartedly empathize with new parents in a way that others simply cannot. Though we cannot dictate all life events, we do have a great deal of control over the diversity we acquire over time.

According to the Harvard Business Review, companies with leaders who exhibit 2-D diversity (that is, each leader possesses at least 3 inherent traits and 3 acquired traits) are 45% more likely to report growth.

While this is all wonderful, raising the level of inherent and acquired diversity at your organization (especially at the leadership level) is not something that is easily achieved. We believe a third dimension is needed; a dimension to help you raise your overall diversity score immediately with the human capital you already have: that third dimension is Inspired Diversity.

3. Inspired Diversity

Through the development of our subject knowledge over time, mental models begin to take form and solidify in our minds. That’s natural, but these biases can also blind us to new opportunities and challenges. In order to increase our openness and mental agility, we must constantly identify opportunities to branch out from our immediate environment and learn how others might solve interesting challenges, focusing on how we might apply their insight to fit our purposes.

For example, touring a manufacturing facility can give fresh insight to the way we think about our internal processes and workflow. Interviewing an exceptional street performer could provide wisdom on courage and leadership. Perusing an exhibit at an art museum can help you reimagine your brand’s image through the artist’s lens.

When I run rapid innovation programs with clients, there is a clear trend among the super creative folks who consistently ideate at a higher level: They are renaissance people. They have many interests, are curious about many subjects, and partake in many activities that all contribute to having a wide array of perspectives. They have the unique ability to create using their past experience (acquired diversity) and also in-the-moment when they bring a specific business challenge to an outside activity (inspired diversity). They challenge themselves with new experiences and perspectives as often as possible.

When business requires innovation, pulling novel ideas out of thin air is simply not a realistic expectation; it’s about attacking a challenge from angles that have never been considered. And this level of thinking requires diverse individuals, with diverse minds, stimulated by diverse activities.

Andy Cole is a consultant for South Street Strategy Group where we use a multi-method approach to identify and test growth and innovation strategies for increased commercialization success. 

Dear Dr. Jay,

We’ve been testing new concepts for years. The magic score to move forward in the new product development process is a 40% top 2 box score to purchase intent on a 5 point scale. How do I know if 40% is still a good benchmark? Are there any other measures that might be useful in predicting success?

-Normatively Challenged

Dear Norm,

I have some good news—you may have a big data mining challenge. Situations like yours are why I always ask our clients two questions: (1) what do you already know about this problem, and (2) what information do you have in-house that might shed some light on a solution? You say you’ve been testing concepts for years.  Do you have a database of concepts already set up? If not, can you easily get access to your concept scores?

Look back on all of the concepts you have ever tested, and try to understand what makes for a successful idea. In addition to all the traditional concept test measures like purchase intent, believability, and uniqueness, you can also append marketing spend, distribution measures, and perhaps even social media trend data. You might even want to include economic condition information like the rate of inflation, the prime rate of interest, and the average DOW stock index. While many of these appended variables might be outside of your control, they may serve to help you understand what might happen if you launch a new product under various market conditions.

Take heart Norm, you are most definitely not alone. In fact, I recently attended a presentation on Big Data hosted by the Association of Management Consulting Firms. There, Steve Sashihara, CEO of Princeton Consultants, suggested there are four key stages for integrating big data into practice. The first stage is to monitor the market. At CMB, we typically rely on dashboards to show what is happening. The second stage is to analyze the data. Are you improving, getting worse, or just holding your own? However, only going this far with the data doesn’t really provide any insight into what to do. To take it to the next level, you need enter the third stage: building predictive models that forecast what might happen if you make changes to any of the factors that impact the results. The true value to your organization is really in the fourth stage of the process—recommending action. The tools that build models have become increasingly powerful in the past few years. The computing power now permits you to model millions of combinations to determine the optimal outcomes from all possible executions.

In my experience, there are usually many attributes that can be improved to optimize your key performance measure. In modeling, you’re looking for the attributes with the largest impact and the cost associated with implementing those changes to your offer. It’s possible that the second best improvement plan might only cost a small percentage of the best option. If you’re in the business of providing cellular device coverage, why build more towers if fixing your customer service would improve your retention almost as much?

Got a burning research question? You can send your questions to DearDrJay@cmbinfo.com or submit anonymously here.

Dr. Jay Weiner is CMB’s senior methodologist and VP of Advanced Analytics. Jay earned his Ph.D. in Marketing/Research from the University of Texas at Arlington and regularly publishes and presents on topics, including conjoint, choice, and pricing.

I once again had the pleasure of attending the CASRO Digital Research Conference this year. It’s the one of the best conferences available to data collection geeks like me, and this year’s presentations did not disappoint. Here are a few key takeaways from this year’s conference.

1. The South shuts down when it snows. After having a great weekend in Nashville after the conference, my flight was cancelled on Monday due to about an inch of snow and a little ice. Needless to say, I was happy to return to Boston and its nine feet of snow.

2. “Big data” is an antiquated term. Over the past few years, big data has been the big buzz in the industry. Much like we said goodbye to traditional “market research,” we can now say adios to “big data.” Good riddance. The term was vague at best. However, that doesn’t mean that the concept is going away. It’s simply being replaced by new, more meaningful terminology like “integrated data” and “multi-sourced data.” But one thing isn’t changing. . .

3. Researchers still don’t know what to do with all that data. What can I say about multi-sourced data that I haven’t already said many times over the past couple years? Clients still want it, and researchers still want to oblige. But this fact remains: adequate tools still do not exist to deliver meaningful integrated data in most cases. We have a long way to go before most researchers will be able to leverage all of this data to its full potential in a meaningful way for our clients.

4. There’s a lot more to mobile research than how a questionnaire looks on a screen. For the past three or four years, it seems like every year is going to be “the year of mobile” at these types of conferences. Because of this, I always attend the mobile-related sessions skeptically. When we talk about mobile, more often than not, the main concern is how the questionnaire will look on a mobile device. But mobile research is much more than that. One of the best things I heard at the conference this year was that researchers should “follow the humans.” This is true on so many levels. Of course, a person can respond to a questionnaire invitation on his/her mobile device, but so much of a person’s daily life, including behaviors and attitudes, is shaped by mobile. Welcome to the world of the ultra-informed consumer. I can confidently say that 2015 is most definitely the year of mobile! (I do, however, reserve the right to say the same thing again next year.)

5. Researchers need to think like humans. It’s easy to get caught up in percentages in our world, and researchers sometimes lose sight of the human aspect of our industry. We like to think that millionaire CEOs are constantly checking their emails on their desktop computers, waiting for their next “opportunity” to take a 45-minute online questionnaire for a twenty-five cent reward. I attended sessions at the conference about gamification, how to make questionnaires more user-friendly, and also how to make questionnaires more kid-friendly by adding voice-to-text and text-to-voice options. All of these things have the potential to ease the burden on research participants, and as an industry, this must happen. We have a long way to go, but. . .

6. Now is the time to play catch-up with the rest of the world. Last year, I ended my recap by saying that change is happening faster than ever. I still think that’s true about the world we live in. With all of the technological advances and new opportunities provided to us, it’s an exciting time to be alive. However, I’m not sure I can honestly say that change is happening faster than ever when it comes to the world of research. I’ve been a part of this industry for a very fulfilling seventeen years, and sometimes my pride in the industry clouds my thinking. Let’s face the facts. The truth is that, as an industry, we are lagging far behind as the world speeds by. Research techniques and tools are evolving at a very slow pace, and I don’t see this changing in the near future. (In our defense, this is true for many industries and not only market research.) I still believe that those of us who are working to leverage the changing world we live in will be much better equipped for success than those who sit idly and watch the world fly.

I’m still confident that my industry is primed and ready for significant and meaningful change—even if we sometimes take the path of a tortoise. As a weekend pitmaster, I know that low and slow is sometimes the best approach. The end result is what really counts.

Jared is CMB’s Field Services Director, and has been in market research industry for seventeen years. When he isn’t enjoying the exciting world of data collection, he can be found competing at barbecue contests as the pitmaster of the cooking team Insane Swine BBQ.