Voices: the CMB Blog

Since we recently attended the New England Market Research Association’s (NEMRA) Fall Conference, “Advancing Market Research: Challenging the Norm,” we wanted to share our five key takeaways:1. Don’t forget the importance of non-conscious decision-making. 70% of the decisions we make are non-conscious, meaning our brains automatically activate associations outside of our awareness and control. This is often described as "System 1" thinking (coined by Daniel Kahneman), which are our fast, emotional, and more instinctive thoughts. Non-conscious decision-making is often used. . .

• When making low-involvement or low risk decisions 
• In quick evaluations
• In impulse purchases
• To efficiently include or exclude brands from our consideration set

We need to be looking for opportunities to use methodology inclusive of the non-conscious. It is particularly important to understand its impact on brand evaluations, given that. . .

2. Brands are non-conscious creators of reality. We must strive to understand a brand’s stereotype. There are many similarities between the construction of stereotypes and how we use or think of brands. Both stereotype and brand associations are largely mental representations that are socially communicated through media and culture and encountered passively over time. They are automatically activated by ‘System 1’ thinking and mediated by conscious thoughts or endorsed beliefs. In order to understand a consumer experience, we must aim to understand the brand’s stereotype. We choose to engage with brands in the same ways we choose to engage with anything else. We gravitate towards people, places, and brands that relate to some aspect of ourselves, and this association is most often done unconsciously. For example, we both do not painstakingly think about which brand of detergent to use—we always reach for All. Even at a more granular level, All has about 10 types of detergent options—Fresh Rain, Oxi Booster, Regular, Baby, and so forth—and if we seriously took the time to narrow down brands and options rather than using a heuristic to help make the decision, we’d never have clean clothes again. 

3. The power of brand identity. The relationship between brand identity and the way we interact with brand stereotypes can have powerful consequences on behavior, mainly because, as Charles Swann said during his talk, “the ability for a brand to impact our identity is the biggest factor in a brand’s social presence.” We use brands to define who we are and who we want to be perceived as. For example, just think about the clothing you wear and the car you own. Many of the choices we make are influenced by how we interact with the brands around us—the brands that drive their own identity and stereotypes for better or for worse. This all comes down to one key theme—social identity—and the ability for a brand to help drive who we are. The age old saying “consumers own the brand” is truer now than it has ever been. Additionally, there is now a collaborative relationship between the brand and consumer—consumers define what a brand should be and brands become the stereotype that later defines consumers’ identity.

4. Storytelling. Brands are a large part of consumer identity, and, as such, there has always been a deep need to bring insights—research and otherwise—to life and to develop a face of the consumer. At this conference, a researcher from a national company pointed out that because consumers are dynamic, the need for powerful storytelling in research and branding is pivotal for understanding how these consumers behave and move through the purchase funnel. What drives these consumers? What makes the most loyal customers so loyal? Why do we lose customers? Deep insights into consumer behavior can be derived from both quantitative and qualitative research—it’s a matter of presenting the story in a way that humanizes consumers and personifies who a brand is trying to reach. 

5. So what? Throughout the NEMRA conference, there was a plethora of information on non-conscious decision making, brand identity, and socialization of research. The theme that ended every presentation was “So what?” That’s the infamous line we’ve all heard 100 times from various professors, colleagues, and our own minds. So what? It all came down to making any research we do actionable so that brands can adapt to a changing consumer environment. As researchers, we need to think about the behaviors and experiences consumers have and allow those insights to inform the questions we ask and the hypotheses we develop. Doing this will not only lead to more effective branding, advertising, and marketing but to happy consumers as well.

Alyse is a Senior Associate Researcher on the FIH/RTE practice. She is fascinated by Behavioral Economics, Psychology, and what makes people tick.

Hilary is a Project Manager at CMB. Her New Year’s resolutions include how to activate “System 1” thinking about hitting the gym in 2015.     

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Are you conducting research among mobile respondents yet? Autumn is conference season, and 1,000 of us just returned from IIR’s The Market Research Event (TMRE) conference where we learned, among other things, about research among mobile survey takers. Currently, only about 5% of the market research industry spend is for research conducted on a smartphone, 80% is online, and 15% is everything else (telephone and paper-based). Because mobile research is projected to be 20% of the industry spend in the coming years, we all need to understand the risks and opportunities of using mobile surveys.  

Below, you’ll find three recent conference presentations that discussed new and fresh approaches to mobile research as well as some things to watch out for if you decide to go the mobile route. 

1. At IIR TMRE, Anisha Hundiwal, the Director of U.S. Consumer and Business Insights for McDonald’s, and Jim Lane from Directions Research Inc. (DRI) did not disappoint. They co-presented the research they had done to understand the strengths of half a dozen national and regional coffee brands, including Newman’s Coffee (the coffee that McDonald’s serves), around 48 brand attributes. While they did share some compelling results, Anisha and Jim’s presentation primarily focused on the methodology they used. Here is my paraphrase of the approach they took:

• They used a traditional 25 minute, full-length online study among traditional computer/laptop respondents who met the screening criteria (U.S. and Europe, age, gender, etc.), measuring a half dozen brands and approximately 48 brand attributes. They then analyzed results of the full-length study and conducted a key driver analysis.
• Next, they administered the study using a mobile app for mobile survey takers among similar respondents who met the same screening criteria. They also dropped the survey length to 10 minutes, tested a narrower set of brands (3 instead of 6), and winnowed the attributes from ~48 to ~14. They made informed choices about which attributes to include based on their key driver analysis (key drivers to overall equity, and I believe I heard them say they added in some attributes that were highly polarizing).

Then, they compared mobile respondent results to the traditional online survey results. Anisha and Jim discussed key challenges we all face as we begin to adapt to smartphone respondent research. For example, they tinkered with rating scales and slide bars by setting the bar on the far left at 0 on a 0-100 rating scale for some respondents and then setting it at the mid-point for others to see if results would be different. While the overall brand results were about the same, the sections of the rating scales respondents used differed. Further, they reported that it was hard to compare detailed results for online and mobile because different parts of the rating scales were used in general. Finally, they reported that the winnowed attribute and brand lists made insights less rich than the online survey results.

2. At the MRA Corporate Researcher’s conference in September, Ryan Backer, Global Insights for Emerging Tech at General Mills, also very clearly articulated several early learnings in the emerging category of mobile surveys. He said that 80% of General Mills’ research team has conducted at least one smartphone respondent study. (Think about that and wonder out loud, “should I at least dip my toe into this smartphone research?”) He provides a laundry list of the challenges they faced and, like all true innovators, he was willing to share his challenges because it helps him continue to innovate.  You can read a full synopsis here.

3. Chadwick Martin Bailey was a finalist for the NGMR Disruptive Innovation Award at the IIR TMRE conference.  We partnered with Research Now for a presentation on modularizing surveys for mobile respondents at an earlier IIR conference and then turned the presentation into a webinar. CMB used a modularized technique in which a 20 minute survey was deconstructed into 3 partial surveys with key overlaps. After fielding the research among mobile survey takers, CMB used some designer analytics (warning, probably don’t do this without a resident PhD) to ‘stitch’ and ‘impute’ the results. In this conference presentation turned webinar, CMB talks about the pros and cons of this approach.

Conferences are a great way to connect with early adopters of new research methods. So, when you’re considering adopting new research methods such as mobile surveys, allocate time to see what those who have gone before you have learned!

Julie blogs for GreenBook, ResearchAccess, and CMB.  She’s an inspired participant, amplifier, socializer, and spotter in the twitter #mrx community so talk research with her @julie1research.

We’ve been gearing up all season for two conferences later this month, and the time has almost come. Will you be at the QRCA conference or TMRE? If so, you should check out our presentations!

Anne Hooper, our Director of Qualitative Services, is headed down to the one and only New Orleans, Louisiana for the QRCA Conference! She’ll be enjoying the warmer weather, experiencing Cajun food, and giving a presentation entitled Get More Business by Partnering with a Full Service MR Firm. Her presentation will explain how QRCs get on our radar and what is required within the vetting process when working with a full service firm such as Chadwick Martin Bailey. Attendees will also obtain insight into how CMB chooses our partners at the outset (RFP stage) and/or after a project has been won. This presentation will address the logistics of working together from multiple points of view (i.e., sales, project management, accounting)—focusing on what works (or doesn’t work!) for CMB in this context. The session will conclude by addressing what a QRC can do to keep the relationship moving forward, thus increasing the chances of getting more work from full service firms on an ongoing basis. You can see her present on tomorrow—Wednesday, October 15 at 2:30PM.

Next week, we’ll be heading down to sunny Florida for TMRE! We’ll spend our time catching up with our wonderful clients, sharing insights, networking, and hopefully catching a glimpse of that bright Florida sun. If you’ll be there, you should check out a presentation from our own SVP of the Financial Services Practice, Jim Garrity, and Aflac’s Senior Market Research Manager, Kelly Bowie. Their presentation, entitled Quacking the Code of Customer Loyalty: An Aflac Case Study, will discuss why old benchmarks are no longer as meaningful for companies tracking customer satisfaction. In this presentation, you’ll learn how Aflac has adapted its customer loyalty program by leveraging dynamic benchmarking and other storytelling components to ensure that it drives the change necessary to maintain a strong market position. You can catch them in the Brand Insights & Engagement track on Tuesday, October 21 at 11:30AM.

We can’t wait to see you!

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Later this week, we’re packing our bags and jetting off to the Windy City for the Corporate Research Conference! There, you’ll find us sharing insights, networking, catching up with our fantastic clients, and sneaking a piece of Chicago-style pizza.

While you’re there, don’t miss a presentation from our very own Chris Neal and Research Now’s Melanie Courtright on an industry hot topic: mobile! Their presentation, entitled Modularized Research Design for a Mobile World, will discuss the collaboration between CMB and Research Now that allowed us to modularize a traditional purchasing survey, which will enable researchers to reach mobile shoppers en masse. They will also review sampling and weighting best practices and study design considerations as well as what works—and what doesn’t work—to impute and/or to “data-stitch” the resulting data file together for different types of variables to work with a “whole” data set that minimizes error. You can catch them on Thursday, September 18 at 4PM at the Research Now Genius Lab.

Make sure to use hashtag #CRC2014 to join the conversation and the excitement. We can’t wait to see you!

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Recently, I attended the CASRO Technology & Innovation Event in Chicago and came away with a fantastic cocktail recipe.  But this isn’t a recipe for an exotic mixed drink or even a unique twist on a classic G&T.  It’s a recipe for innovation, and it’s made with ingredients we all need to have in our organizational “bar”:Ingredients needed:

1 part Big Data

3 parts insights

2 parts socialization

Step 1:  Start with a healthy dash of Big Data. While Big Data can give us a whole lot of “so what?” and “who cares?” information, it’s also a tremendously powerful tool.  In case you’re thinking it’s a fad, think about the growth of wearables and virtual immersive technologies—both are growing industries based around Big Data. While a deluge of information can create a challenge, there’s also a major opportunity for companies who can parse, integrate, and leverage it. For those of us working with Big Data, the focus has to be on depth rather than on breadth. Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), author of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook and guest speaker at the CASRO event, noted that we already have the ability to do this with data from social media.  We should be leveraging the massive amounts of free data already available to us via social media sites—like Facebook and Pinterest—to help us better understand customers at a personal level and engage them even more directly over the same social media sites.

Step 2: Mix in a healthy dose of those meaningful, relevant, and contextual insights. And I’m talking the good stuff—insights that are deep, accurate, and actionable. The kind that pair with recommendations and address real challenges.

Step 3:  Fill the rest of the glass with a heady mix of socialization and distribution. At the CASRO event, I had the opportunity to see and hear about a lot of great technologies for mining and connecting data as well as for distributing results.  Two themes emerged: 1) the importance of socializing your insights and 2) the importance of getting your insights into the hands of the decision makers. One of the easiest and most effective ways to deliver this is via online dashboards. David Mazva, from Infotools, spoke about the journey his company had with a global client and the advancements they had to make in their dashboards to meet this client’s evolving needs.  He specifically noted that people and companies are spending less time analyzing and more time acting on the data, which is something we at CMB have been focusing on for the past decade and is now more important than ever. It’s why we’ve spent a great deal of time developing dashboards that merge the strategic with the tactical.

As head of our Technology Solutions team, I’m the first to shout that dashboards are great—especially our dashboards—but I know they have more of an impact when delivered over the right medium.  Increasingly, this medium is becoming the mobile device. Convenience is no longer just nice to have–it’s a must-have.  We see this playing out now as we design for mobile first since respondents are taking more surveys on their mobile devices today than ever before.  Let’s take this one more step.

Now, you have insights on a dashboard and delivered to you on a mobile device, which enables you to make business decisions faster.  Why not squeeze additional value out of these insights by putting it out on your social networks?  And once it’s on social media, see what connections are out there to drive new insights and opportunities.  There are free tools, like NodeXL, which can map hubs, bridges, groups, and peripheries of a socially connected network.

Step 4: Stir vigorously until innovation is part of your long-term strategy. Jon Puleston, VP of Innovation at Lightspeed GMI, gave a great presentation on companies that have thrived from innovation.  He spoke about GE, Amazon, and others all having a very similar approach to delivering growth through innovation.  These companies all actively search and plan for innovation.  They integrate it into their long-term financial models, which allows them to react quickly to great ideas versus waiting for funding to become available.

The takeaway? If you’re looking to innovate, you’re going to need more than creativity served neat—you’ve got to have the right ingredients mixed just the right way.

Simon leads CMB’s Technology Solutions team. In between developing dynamic and engaging dashboards, he occasionally enjoys a real cocktail.

Join us at The Market Research Event! Use the code CMB2014 and receive 25% off your registration.