Voices: the CMB Blog

This week we released a new Consumer Pulse report highlighting 10 Quick Facts You Should Know About Facebook. In collaboration with our friends at Constant Contact, we asked nearly 1,500 Americans over 18 about their Facebook habits. While it may not surprise you that 75% of American adults who go online have used Facebook, how they use the site to connect with companies and brands just might. Here are a few of my favorite facts:

56% of consumers said they are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan on Facebook (tweet this)

Mark Schmulen @mschmulen, Constant Contact’s GM of social media and I were chatting a lot about this point.  I loved that Mark calls Facebook a “recommendation engine,” I couldn’t agree more. While I would normally think of Yelp and other online review sites, Facebook is playing a big role in today’s social word of mouth and is indeed becoming a recommendation engine. Facebook users are not only creating a more personal relationship with a brand, they’re sharing that relationship with their friends and family.  Brands have the opportunity to deepen and better relationships with consumers even after they’ve gotten their “thumbs up” on Facebook.

78% of consumers who “Like” brands on Facebook said they “Like” fewer than ten brands (tweet this)

Those who choose to fan a brand don’t do it to every brand that catches their eye.  As consumers we tend to like brands we feel connected to and are happy to put our name against. Sure we have all different motivations for liking a brand from discounts and coupons to showing our support, but the good news is for the most part when we like a brand we tend to keep it that way; 76% of Facebook fans say they’ve never “un-liked” a brand.

45% of consumers said they spend most of their time on Facebook in the newsfeed (tweet this)

As a marketer I think this is one of the most important points to understand. A key ingredient to successful marketing on Facebook is consistently posting in the newsfeed. The research tells us 77% of those who are fans of a brand spend their time in the newsfeed. This is the opportunity brands have to engage in a two way conversation. Listen to what your fans are saying and contribute to the conversation.

Tremendous opportunities wait for brands that can provide engaging content and conversations with their fans. The chance to create a base of loyal, influential, and active consumers is too good to pass up for businesses of any size. I’d love to hear how you engage with brands as a Facebook user, and how your company makes its Facebook presence known. 

Download the full report: 10 Quick Facts You Should Know About Consumer Behavior

Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's VP of Marketing, a mom of two and she “likes” of The Wildflower Inn in Vermont because vacationing there was a great experience and she recommends it to friends all the time.

Picture yourself pushing your cart down the grocery store aisle, you’ve planned your meals and are making choices that suit your family’s tastes and budget. The decisions you make are rational and logical. But as anyone who’s ever felt a sense of nostalgia over a chocolate chip cookie, or empowered by their choice of the natural peanut butter, can tell you, they are also emotional.

As market researchers we’re interested in knowing what decisions consumers make, how they make them, and why. Traditionally, we’ve used quantitative (survey) approaches to discover the “what” and the “how,” and turned to qualitative methods (IDI’s, focus groups) to understand the “why,” including the emotions underlying these decisions.  But merely asking people to name their emotions is not enough, language biases, the tedium of having subjects choose from lists of 50 or more emotions, and the dangers of self-report for something so nebulous, are all difficulties faced by researchers. To address these biases, scientists and quantitative researchers have come to recognize the extent to which decision-making takes place in the subconscious mind. The question is: how can we apply rigorous measurement to what seem like the most irrational, unpredictable human characteristics?

Medical science has offered new possibilities using relatively established technologies to gain insight and understanding into the relationships between human emotion and brain activity. EEG’s, eye tracking, and even MRI’s have helped us understand the nuances and complexity of the brain’s response in very concrete and visual ways. An fMRI like the one pictured below, and other technologies, are valuable in their ability to measure brain responses that the subject might not even know they’re having. But there are limitations, beyond being prohibitive from a cost perspective, the results lack the nuance and detail necessary for effective application for market researchers.

Researchers from AdSAM, a research company focused on Emotional Response Modeling, have developed a methodology using non-verbal techniques to identify and measure emotional response to understand consumer attitudes, preferences, and behavior. This approach uses pictorial scales to capture emotional reactions and predict behavior while minimizing the language biases common in verbal approaches and contextualizing the results of more costly brain imaging approaches.

Want to know more? Please join us on September 21^st as CMB’s Jeff McKenna and AdSAM’s Cathy Gwynn discuss the development and application of this new approach to emotional response measurement.

Posted by Megan McManaman. Megan is part of CMB’s marketing team, and she isn't proud to say buying ketchup makes her happy.

Ten years ago this Labor Day weekend, I moved to Boston from Upstate New York. I had dreams, a ’94 Chevy Cavalier that looked like a sneaker, and MapQuest directions carefully taped to my dashboard. For those familiar with Boston, its pre-colonial lay out and slightly aggressive drivers, it’s still a wonder I made it to my apartment. As I recently let the soothing voice of Roger (my GPS) guide me to a meeting outside the city, I reflected on how far we’ve come since the days of the road atlas and printed directions.

Although I’m fond of Roger, it’s already clear the iPhone has made him obsolete, I don’t need both.  This Labor Day weekend I’m traveling to the Adirondacks and Roger is staying home. And according to Richard Read at All Car Tech’s Taps for TomTom: The Standalone GPS Unit is Dead, I’m not alone. Read looks at research from our most recent Consumer Pulse and finds the GPS device may be going the way of the road atlas. Findings from our survey of 1,461 people, found 38% of mobile device users are using their GPS less, since getting a smartphone or tablet.  

And those aren’t the only findings to ponder as we head into one of the busiest driving weekends of the year: nearly all (89%) mobile device owners are using their devices for mapping and directions. Mobile devices are “go-to” devices in every sense, with 67% of mobile device owners eschewing printed directions, and 60% stopping less at gas stations, due to GPS and mapping capabilities on their device

For more on how Smartphones and Tablets are changing everyday behaviors, download our latest Consumer Pulse The “Go-to” Device: Smartphones and Tablets Change Consumers’ Entertainment Behavior

How are you finding your way to your Labor Day destination— GPS, map, Smartphone, Tablet, compass?

This post was written by Megan McManaman, who has a perfect driving record.

Be honest. How many times, in the past few years, have you been completely “unplugged” on vacation? No email (work or personal), no cell phone, no internet, no TV. If you’re like me, it seems hard to even imagine!

A recent Wall Street Journal article, When Hotel Guests Check In, Their iPhones Check Out, describes the “digital detox” programs that some hotels and resorts are beginning to offer their guests. Upon check-in, guests hand over their digital devices to hotel staff for the duration of their trip. In some cases TVs will also be removed from rooms and the hotel will offer a discounted stay.  In return, guests are provided with “old school” entertainment options such as books and board games. Hotels in Washington D.C., New York City, and Wyoming are offering this low-tech option.

 Totally unplugging, however, can be very difficult on vacation. It’s especially tough for busy professionals tied to their email, and with family commitments back home. A recent American Express study found that 79% of travelers expect to remain connected on all or part of their next vacation; 72% will read personal email and one-in-five will check work email. With technology devices increasingly at your fingertips, it can be hard to escape but the benefits of being unplugged are numerous – time to rejuvenate, relax, escape and ‘digitally detox’ after months or years since your last vacation.

 Perhaps it is impractical or even impossible for you to surrender all computer and cell phone access while on vacation, but here are a few tips for how to do a “digital detox light” on your next trip:

• Set a time limit for use of social media and the internet each day, and stick to it.

• Leave your phone in your room, and then of course, get out of your room.

• Get colleagues to provide coverage for you while out and promise to pay back the favor on their next trip.

• Use cell phones only for emergencies or quick check-ins with friends and family back home.

Each traveler needs to tailor use of digital devices to their own needs. But if a digital detox sounds good to you, make sure to search for these types of offers before booking your next trip!

This post was written by Amy Leathe. Amy has been with CMB for three years and is a Project Manager on the Travel and Hospitality team. She is happy to report that she was successful digitally detoxing on a trip to Germany and France in August - she only logged in to work email once!

Nearly a year ago, my friend and long-time client Chris Frank (formerly of Microsoft, now Vice President, Global Marketplace Insights at American Express) told me he’d been approached to write a book.  Several good-natured digs and a decent steak later, I learned that Chris was serious. By the end of the meal I had been sworn to secrecy. Over the course of the last 10 months I’ve gotten a sneak peek at the title (Drinking from the Fire Hose) and its contents (based on a proof copy Chris sent me last month).  Now the book, a clarion call for smart effective data use—not just more data, is officially available for sale. The time is right for me to tell the world about it.

• I wanted to see if I could do it.

• I consider Drinking From the Fire Hose a “must read” for anyone who either uses data to make decisions, or who provides data, insight, and recommendations for decision makers to use in their decision making. 

“Fire Hose” asks researchers and decision makers to step back and siphon the jet stream of data most of us have at our fingertips, and to be parsimonious about which insights we bring to the decision makers we support to help them act confidently.  One of my favorite sections was the description of the Customer Impact Assessment (CIA).  I’ve seen versions of this standard used at most great companies with outstanding market research/consumer insights teams.  Jeff Resnick (formerly of eBay, now at Zynga) always asks the question “Okay, so who wins here and how do we make sure they know it?  Who loses here, and how do we help them win somewhere else.” It’s a great reminder of questions we should always be asking ourselves as researchers whenever we frame up recommendations. 

I’ve read some of Fire Hoses' predecessors in this “making sense of a data-driven world” genre. "Fire Hose" goes beyond the field, providing an important contrast to books like Ian Ayers' “Super Crunchers” and Stephen Baker’s “The Numerati,” books whose fascination with the amount of data obscure the importance of analysis in real world application.  While these books do fabulous jobs of describing the possible, Frank and Magnone do an equally great job prescribing what is practical.  If Ayers’ and Baker’s approach is the excitable young resident eager to make the most exotic diagnoses; Fire Hoses’ is your trusted primary care doctor who gets your diagnosis right because he understands the science of what ails you, and because he’s treated the ailment before.

Note:  I am very tempted to insert a whole slew of equally bad analogies here, but will wait until my next post.

But, who is this book for?  My guess is that most of the concepts in "Fire Hose" will feel familiar to all of us.  But that few or none of us practice all of the concepts as thoroughly and habitually as we should.  For me personally, I learned a number of new tricks.  But at least equally important, I was reminded of some key “rules” that are very familiar, but that I don’t follow as religiously as I should.  The book has left me energized and re-committed to nailing some of the fundamentals that can separate very good research from great research.  I hope you all feel the same when you read it.

Now, for those of you who prefer a more whimsical Brant, I provide the following “sneak peak” of my next Drinking from the Fire Hose blog post…

“I didn’t realize he had such kind eyes.”  That was my wife’s initial reaction when I plopped this month’s issue of the Market Research Association’s “Alert” magazine in front of my wife.  And you know what, I think she’s right.  I never expected to see a nearly life-sized photo of Chris Frank’s mug quite so close up.  But truth be told, I must admit he’s pretty photogenic.

Posted by Brant Cruz. Brant is a VP and resident segmentation guru at CMB.