Voices: the CMB Blog

By Heather Magaw

It's Oscar week, time for me to reveal a few of the lesser-known parallels between two glamorous industries—Hollywood and Market Research.

Just as the Academy is abuzz about Lincoln and Argo, market researchers can't get enough of two topics: 1) Big Data and 2) Storytelling. You can’t go to a conference or read a blog without hearing at least 5 new takes on both concepts. For us, figuring out how to tell a compelling story with massive amounts of data is exciting stuff. Maybe we should recruit some big-name, box-office talent, like Steven Spielberg, to join the CMB ranks for our next Blockbuster client project.

What? You’re not convinced Mr. Spielberg is cut out for the life of a market researcher? Movie producers and directors sift through mountains of footage, leaving the vast majority of it on the cutting room floor; an extensive team effort transforms hundreds of hours of film into 90 minutes of entertainment. Really, it’s very similar to what we do every day at CMB: analyze mountains of complex data, synthesize it into a focused story, ultimately crafting a business decision focused research report.

At first blush, you may think that research reports don’t stack up to a movie for entertainment value, but for our research junkie clients and information needy executives, a well-written research report that helps them tackle their most difficult business challenges is often even more compelling than the latest blockbuster flick. The art of storytelling in a research report is just as important as it is to movies. Just as audiences would never willingly sit through hours upon hours of raw footage, business leaders have little appetite for sifting through reams of data tables.    

So, I ask, why shouldn’t we be recruiting Steven Spielberg as our next great Practice Leader or Senior Consultant at Chadwick Martin Bailey? As my colleague Athena mentioned last week, our neighborhood has served as a backdrop for a number of well-known movies, he might feel right at home.

Heather is VP of Client Services and always makes a point to read and finish the book before viewing movie adaptations.

Can't get enough excitement? Register for our upcoming webinar, February 28th at noon: Segmentation as a Strategic Change Agent, with Jeff VanDeVelde of SunTrust Bank.

The next time you attend a market research conference, listen very, very carefully. That dull buzzing sound you hear is the collective whine of hundreds of market researchers lamenting their inability to get a seat at the big kids' table or even just some recognition for all the value they provide.

 I know it hurts, but it’s time to do some soul searching and address the all too common ways market researchers get in their own way:

• over-reliance on statistical significance

• inability to put oneself in the business partner’s shoes

• focusing on research objectives rather than business objectives

• unwillingness to commit to a point-of-view regarding what the data means

I’m not the only one who’s picked up on these industry-wide weaknesses; witness the popularity of the mysterious Angry MR Client on Twitter and GreenBook.  There isn’t a silver bullet that will fix all of the issues facing our industry, but I am sure of this: we need to communicate better.

Over and over I hear people lament that researchers need to do a better job “telling stories.”  I agree completely, and it’s something we have prided ourselves on at CMB for the last 5-10 years.  Lucky for us, while there’s always been and always will be a “story” to tell, there are now so many more tools to help us elicit that actionable insight from the stream of data.  Say what you will about the rise of the quants but there’s much to be said about the art of data, and that can mean taking a visual approach to data—no, not a pie chart.

At CMB, we have graphic designers who, in addition to making our PowerPoint reports look great, have also designed some great infographics.  There are so many more mediums for storytelling available to us and it would be crazy not to take advantage of them.  Maybe there’ll always be an audience for the traditional PPT report/presentation, but I’ll bet there’s also an audience for an infographic, like the one below, highlighting key takeaways:

We’ve provided these for Customer Experience and Brand Tracking engagements and our clients really enjoy them. Easy to read visuals, like infographics, are a great way to socialize key takeaways across an organization where not everyone needs to go through a huge deck. 

We’ve also gotten great feedback on our Prezis – mini movies that add energy and emotion to the story.  Check out this one that we’ve dummied up to tell the story of a fictitious bank. 

ABC Bank Video from CMBinfo on Vimeo.

We’ve given these in advance of an annual presentation and the result has been increased attendance, improved engagement, and better solution-brainstorming. 

These are just two really simple examples of how you can take storytelling to the next level, engage your audience in the insight, and perhaps get that seat in the C-Suite.

Jim is Managing Director of CMB’s Financial Services practice. He enjoys sweeping historical dramas and is working on his Downton Abbey infographic.

Stephanie Kimball, our Marketing Operations Manager, created the infographic and Prezi you see here. She gets her inspiration from many places, including the 3 million Redbox movies she rents every week.

Last week I attended the FutureM conference here in Boston. There were a lot of sessions to choose from and some great speakers, but one presentation was so simple it caught my eye. The session was called Future: Simplicity with Chris Colbert (@cmcolbert) from @hollandmark. The session was an hour and a half, which seemed long, but it flew by and I was even disappointed when it was over.  Chris is a definitely an engaging speaker, but it was the content of his presentation that gave me a lot to think about, both personally and professionally.  His session reminded me even with all the technology available, sometimes “it” just gets complicated; “it” being everything from crafting your value proposition to explaining a TV ad about Massachusetts' Question 2 to your 7 and 9 year old.  Sometimes life is just complicated.  When it comes to the future of marketing, I believe having an eye for simplicity and the discipline to focus are key success factors.Throughout the presentation, Chris saw the simple in the complex, understood the need for focus, valued the currency of time, talked about the human need for comfort, and the fact that comfort is often found in simplicity. I thought a lot about where simplicity breaks down in my world as a marketer, and for me it is often when there is a loss of focus.  I would say I am a pretty goal oriented person and staying focused on those goals and how to achieve them gives me the discipline I need to stay on target. That being said one of the biggest things that can challenge my focus is the sheer volume and variety of data I have coming at me real time. Social, CRM, financial data, customer experience…I have a headache just thinking about the sheer volume of it all.

How do you connect all the dots? How do you uncover the story? How do you focus on the data that matters? It all comes back once again to simplicity and focus.  Focus on the business problem you are trying to solve, the key questions you need to answer and the ability to go from data to insights and deliver those insights in a way that makes them relevant to those who need to make the decisions. That’s a lot of what we do here at CMB.

This brings me to the next quote I jotted down that really hit home; “less is more, but less is harder.” It takes discipline to focus on the one or two things your product or service does really well because the temptation to try to be all things to all people is so great.  It also takes that same kind of discipline to focus on the key data sources and points you need to make a decision, and the confidence tune out the rest.

Simplicity requires focus, and focus often drives results.  This point rang true again in a recent study from the Marketing Leadership Council. They reported the best performing marketers are the “Focusers,” those who prefer depth of focus over breadth. Unfortunately, the same study also found that most CMOs’ are looking for someone very different from the Focuser. They are looking for the “Agile” marketer, those who are early adopters of technology who embrace change and are fast movers. Ironically, the Agile marketer often suffers from lack of focus and fell to the bottom of the list when rated by their manager on performance.

We all desperately need simplicity and focus, but how do you find it within this complex (and growing more complex every day!) world?  The answer is not to rely solely on the “agile” person who embraces every change and is quick to bounce from technology to technology.  Instead, the answer is cultivating a culture where people can be focused, and not become distracted in an ocean of data and by shiny new objects.

Kristen is CMB’s VP of marketing, an adjunct professor at Boston College Carroll School of Management and a mom of two. You can follow her on Twitter at @KristenGarvey

As an everyday user of the criminally addictive social networking site Facebook, I rolled my eyes when I saw the new “Timeline” design. Why fix something if it’s not broken? Didn’t I just get used to the most recent interface?  While I sat absorbing all the new features, Facebook was busy launching a revelatory tool for marketers.

Previously, the popularity of a business’ Facebook page was driven by the number of “likes” and “comments.” Businesses could hide behind the “like” button.  Now, marketers are forced to tell a story about their brand (and if you know anything about CMB, we LOVE to tell a story). Customer engagement is now driven by a personal connection developed through captivating storytelling as opposed to an unimpassioned click of a button. Users can follow their favorite brands from conception to the present through the Timeline layout.

With the new layout, fans and visitors now see the same landing page. Everyone is privy to the same content, and it must be appealing enough to convert the “lurkers” into “likers.” Marketers need to achieve this through good storytelling, and Facebook has developed several new tools on the Timeline that allow users to make their stories unique.

New features like pinning and starring posts allow developers to anchor their most important posts at the top of their page for seven days. This ensures that the best stories don’t get lost in daily posts. Videos and pictures are now amplified on the pages, helping drive deeper engagement by existing fans, and piquing interest in potential ones. Milestones can now be defined by the business and posted publicly when they are achieved; allowing companies to share their successes with the people who helped get them there.

The most controversial of the new additions, is the ability to privately message people. This tool is being viewed as a way to individually engage with fans, and allow for quicker and more personal responses. However, companies should proceed with caution in using this feature. Bombarding their fans with an abundance of messages is a surefire way to turn off their support base. This tool should be used to help foster, and not strain, the relationships between businesses and their consumers.

A common driver of the old Facebook interface was quantity of content. The new Facebook Timeline pushes the focus to quality. Developers are encouraged to optimize the content they have in order to engage fans by telling their story during their fans’ “peak” usage periods and pinning popular posts. 

As professional story-tellers, we are excited here at CMB to launch our Timeline here

Posted by Keri Ibbitson. Keri is an Associate Researcher with the Travel and Entertainment team. When not writing about the complexities of Facebook, you can find her watching the Bruins, wrapped up in an Intervention marathon, or dreaming of going back to London.