Voices: the CMB Blog

A practical and innovative approach to new product development.

The Challenge

Tauck Worldwide, an industry leader with over 85 years experience in premium guided tours, wanted to create a new travel concept to meet the needs of a population increasingly comfortable with researching, planning, and traveling on their own. Tauck needed innovative thinking to define and build a new type of tour product – one that appealed to next gen customers, conveyed a unique brand identity while standing out from competitors in the crowded travel market space. What We Did

CMB and principals from South Street Strategy Group used a multi-method, multi-source approach to:

• Select top opportunities on which to focus

• Ideate across functions with executives and senior managers, leveraging insight and experience in the market

• Research and assess the competitive landscape and baby boomer’s core  travel goals and needs – particularly un-met needs

• Test alternatives to guide product development, pricing and identify target guests who are most interested in the new product line

• Identify acquisition targets in the travel industry, new business models, and new product offerings, by leveraging core competencies, that would create significant value for the company and address baby boomer’s needs

• Work with the CEO, CFO, and COO and the New Ventures Group to ensure recommendations were aligned with business constraints, addressed operational challenges and met business goals

How It Was Used

Tauck launched the Culturious brand as a totally new product line on time and with unanimous board approval. The new brand, which currently consists of 8 packages and destinations, meets customer needs by offering small-group tours geared toward active baby boomers with an interest in active, culturally engaging travel. The brand has won awards, including the 2010 Innovation prize from the Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnerships (CQIA).

To learn more about our approach to New Product and Service Development click here.

For more of our award winning case studies click here. 

We're looking forward to the New Year—new projects, new insights, and new ideas. But before we ring in 2013, let's take a look back at some of our favorite blogs from 2012:

Kristen Garvey talks brand loyalty, and why some brands have that certain something:
Creating a Brand Ritual Takes more than Points and Rewards

Andrew Wilson makes the case for Customer Experience research:
Is the Voice of the Customer the Death Knell of Innovation?

Diego Jimenez takes a delicious look at the importance of good questionnaire design:
One Sweet Approach to Questionnaire Design

A double header by Jeff McKenna, a practical look at Big Data:
How Target Knows You're Pregnant: A Predictive Analysis Perspective and "Big Data," Expert Systems, and the Future of the Market Researcher

Brant Cruz explains needs-state segmentation, and why people only seem to order tomato juice at 40,000 feet:
Why Boozers Become Juicers on Planes: Adventures in Segmentation

Thank you for a wonderful year. And, if you've got topics you'd like us to tackle in 2013, let us know in the comments!

From the CMB Light the Night Team:

Last Thursday, CMB employees, friends, and family gathered for our annual Light the Night BBQ and silent auction to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). While the LLS supports research for millions of people around the world who suffer from blood cancer, we started participating in Light the Night for reasons a lot closer to home. In 2008, Catherine Shannon, our Director of Finance, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. And when Catherine began what was to become two years of grueling treatment, CMB got walking.We went looking for creative ways to sponsor our team, and as luck would have it, CMBers aren’t just talented market researchers. Our Field Services Manager Jared Huizenga is President of the New England Barbecue Society, and for the past 5 years, he’s catered a full lunch including some seriously delicious pulled pork, corn bread, and macaroni and cheese, for over 60 enthusiastic ticketholders. This year, Jared started cooking at 4pm the afternoon before, eking out three hours of sleep, and showing us why he’s a champion competitive griller.

The silent auction was another chance to show-off the secret, and not so secret skills of other CMB team members. There were dozens of things on offer, including two hours of landscaping from Jonah and Sean, tech help from technology gurus Abdullah and Marc, custom designed party invitations from Stephanie, and of course a whole range of foods—from full meals like Rich’s chicken Vindaloo dinners and Tomoko’s Japanese curry to delicacies like T.J.’s homemade cannoli and ravioli.  All this eating (tough work) and bidding got us $4,000 closer to this year’s goal of $18,000. 

In the five years the CMB team has participated in the walk, we’ve raised over $36,000 and while it’s one of our favorite times of the year at CMB, we never forget why we started walking. Due in no small part to the advances made in cancer research, Catherine has been in remission for 2+ years.  We want to help more families have happy outcomes.  The LLS funds research with the goal of curing blood cancer and at the same time provides support to patients and their families.

From the LLS website:  When LLS was founded in 1949, a blood cancer diagnosis was almost always fatal. Thanks in part to innovative research funded by LLS, survival rates have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled for blood cancer patients. Today, cancer research in one area helps across all types of cancers.  One example of this is the approval of the revolutionary drug Gleevac. The 10-year survival rate for certain blood cancer patients improved from 1 in 10 to nearly 9 in 10.  Gleevac is also approved for patients with rare skin and stomach tumors, and is showing promise in many other cancers.

Help in the fight against cancer by donating to our team. Please click on the link below and give what you can.  Every dollar helps.  We want to kick cancer’s butt!

The CMB Light the Night Team Page

Posted  by Senior PM Lynne Castronuovo, Director of Finance Catherine Shannon, Office Manager Adrianne Economu, and Senior Associate Sean Kearney, who are constantly thinking up new ways to help us Light the Night.

One of the things I love most about the culture of CMB is the passion of our people, inside and outside the office. It inspires me each and every day.   Last week our HR Manager, Marlo Manning was named a CNN Hero for the charity she founded called Fairy Dog Parents. In Marlo’s “spare” time she managed to turn the loss of her beloved dog into a nonprofit that has helped over 400 dogs get the care they need when their owners have fallen on hard times.

Let’s face it, times are still tough for people. When unemployment hits and they are faced figuring out how to care for their family, pay the rent or mortgage and put food on the table, many people are forced to give up their pets. This is where Fairy Dog Parents steps in, easing the financial burden of caring for a dog so they can stay in their loving homes by paying for everything from dog food to vet bills.

A lot of us have ideas on how to make an impact or causes that we are passionate about, but time, jobs, family and “life” sometimes gets in the way of acting on those ideas or causes.  But for some that passion runs deep and inspires them to push on, to make it happen, to follow through and not give up. Passionate people do amazing things which often becomes contagious and inspires others to act.

Another cause we are all very passionate about here at CMB is the Light the Night foundation that supports the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Six years ago when one of our own CMBer’s was diagnosed with this terrible disease, I was once again taken back by how the company rallied together and acted on their passion to make a difference and support Catherine.  Through the last 4 years as a team we have raised over $35,000 for Light the Night by participating in the Boston Walk. And Catherine has been cancer free for 3 years. This walk has become a CMB tradition, part of who we are as a company and an important way we put our passion to work. We are gearing up for this year’s walk taking place on October 11^th. The CMB team is working hard to raise funds through friends, family and a silent Auction and BBQ. We would love your support for our team, please donate here.

For me personally it’s this passion that runs deep in our culture both in the work we do for our clients and in our personal lives. It gives me inspiration, motivation and my own sense of passion to make a difference. When you are surrounded by people like that every day it becomes contagious and is part of our company’s DNA. It makes us better researchers, marketers, accountants, managers… it makes us all just a little bit more passionate about life.

Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB's VP of Marketing, a mom of two, and an adjunct professor at Boston College Carroll School of Management. You can follow Kristen on Twitter @KristenGarvey

You have a loyalty program, you offer discounts, special rewards, and you track your growth.

Well so does everyone else.

Judy Melanson shares tips for optimizing your loyalty program so you can break away from the pack, and make the most of your loyalty investment.

Read more about our work with loyalty programs here.