TMRE: Shifting to an Emotional Lens in the Drive-Thru

The majority of our thoughts take place in the subconscious mind. Usually, we don't know WHY we are doing something if we are asked directly, but there is usually an emotional reason for it hidden in our subconscious. The folks at Coca-Cola were curious to learn about people's experiences in the drive-thru. Instead of conducting this research ethnographically, which would involve being right there with consumers in the drive-thru to observe their actions and emotional reactions, Coca-Cola decided to take a different approach and do 30 one-on-one IDIs (in-depth interviews). 

The way they did this successfully was by asking respondents to go through the visualization process, to mentally bring them back to their drive-thru experience. "If you ask them to tell you about one of their memories or experiences, they tell you something you might not have heard otherwise," says Kristian Aloma from Brandtrust. His team even asked respondents close their eyes while answering some of the questions for better recall of the event. "The key is NOT asking them why. There are ways a trained researcher can get past the surface to uncover their actual experience," Aloma states.

To Coca-Cola's surprise, many respondents revealed very emotional experiences at the drive-thru. For some it was a place where they could go in the morning to brighten their day; for others it was a get-away from their hectic routine where they could have someone else take care of them. It was a part of their ritual, and it made them feel good.

The presentation was definitely intriguing, and it was also very educational. I learned a lot about the different techniques that can be used to get respondents to open up about their experiences, especially if an ethnographic study is not possible. I'm eager to tell my team members about the interesting findings of this research!

Mayuri Joshi isResearch Magician at April Bell Research Group, a boutique, full-service marketing research firm, committed to delivering fresh insights you can act on! Learn more at aprilbellresearch.com.

Live from #TMRE13: The Pragmatic Brain

"Brands are stereotypes within themselves," he states. When you hear the word Disney, you might immediately start thinking of Mickey Mouse or your favorite Disney movies and feel some kind of emotion. What you may not realize, is all of those thoughts and feelings that the word Disney brings about is the stereotype that you have of the brand. And in this scenario, the word "stereotype" is not necessarily a bad thing. 

A great example Sack provided is of a prank that Jimmy Kimmel pulled back when the iPhone 5 was about to be released. The phone had not actually come out yet, but Kimmel surveyed people on the streets by showing them the iPhone 4S and telling them it was the new iPhone 5. He asked them, "How do you think this is different than the previous iPhone?" And to my surprise, these people were convinced that they were actually holding a new iPhone 5 and described it as "lighter" and "sleeker" than the iPhone 4S. It just had to do with the perception or stereotype they already had in their minds about the new and improved iPhone 5, and it was affecting their reality. 

All of us have ideas and images that come to mind when we think of certain brand names. So, when thinking about your brand as a whole, it is important to understand the stereotype that it holds in the marketplace. 

Mayuri Joshi isResearch Magician at April Bell Research Group, a boutique, full-service marketing research firm, committed to delivering fresh insights you can act on! Learn more at aprilbellresearch.com.

Live from #TMRE: Turning Facts into Ideas

Christopher McKinney with Mead Johnson and Cynthia Ryan/Shari Morwood with Ideas To Go presented on how they turned facts into ideas.

It's always interesting to hear new ways for generating ideas for innovation, especially when the company has a  "new science or technology" and need to ensure the ideas will work with overarching brand positioning as well as benefit the consumer.

The speakers walked us through the process of how this came to life when innovating for their brand, Enfamil.

They began with a team of  "experts" who ideated, giving a variety of perspectives:

• a futurist who could give a  "Big Data" perspective
• a brain imaging specialist who provided a view about brain development
• leaders in pediatric medicine
• creative consumermoms

Then, they utilized a list of  "general facts" about the brand or category as creative stimuli, and from that, the team created 3000+ ideas. Wow!

Utilizing this process, they were able to restate, categorize, and select a series of 28 potential ideas to move forward with for further testing.

Live from #TMRE13: How CareerBuilder Builds Research Advocates Internally

Kassandra Barnes, Research and Content Manager at CareerBuilder began her presentation giving us her definition of "viral" --

"The art of making something popular and shareable with minimum effort (or at least making something look like it's minimum effort)."

Her "viral" goal was to create an internal buzz for research at CareerBuilder.  As a single researcher in a sales organization, it was not the easiest thing to do.  Because, she said, "In a sales organization, the typical research timeline doesn't fly!  You have to be extremely agile!"

She gave us 6 steps to create internal advocates in an organization which needed extremely quick information:

1.  Do research "they" care about:

Create the purpose before the research: 

What's the headline, So What?, Who Cares?

2.  Build a Braintrust:

 (from cross-functional departments…including sales!)  This creates a group of brand ambassadors before the research even starts!

3.  Create Content:

 Using "The Four A's" (Audience, Assets, Assess, Advertise)

4.  Be Your Best Salesperson

5.  Train People on Research

6.  Build Partnerships

Live at #TMRE13: Synthesizing Multiple Data sources at Panera Leads to New Insight

Yesterday, I enjoyed listening to the presentation give by Shawn Utke, VP, Brand Insights & Research, Panera Brand.

He discussed how marrying attitudinal segmentation data with behavioral data revealed interesting insights.

At Panera, they originally identified a singular target through their segmentation research:  The "EFI" (female oriented, higher income target) who had a propensity to fall in love with Panera and acted like brand advocates.

Panera wanted to do something different than what many in the category call "food porn."  So, they targeted their messaging and called it, "Make Today Better" which was about leaving Panera better than when you came in.  They also added some of the yummy items I love (I guess I'm an EFI:)…Strawberry Poppyseed dressing and Fuji Apple Chicken Salad, Egg White sandwiches.  Yummy!!

However, after collecting and analyzing behavioral data along with their segmentation data, it suggested their customer target might not as valuable as they originally thought.  

"Once you have 'big data", he said, "it's a blessing and a curse because you start learning what you don't know." 

The next question became "why the gap?"

Is the former target still the right target?

Is there a secondary target we should be directly serving?

This gave them the opportunity as an organization to strategically search for a solution based on their most important dimensions:  media buying, time of day, specific menu items.  And ultimately, led them to a more focused strategy.

Good "food" for thought regarding segmentation, big data, and bringing it together for greater insight!

April Bell is Principal and Founder of April Bell Research Group, a boutique, full-service marketing research firm, committed to delivering fresh insights you can act on! Learn more at aprilbellresearch.com.

Live at #TMRE13: We're Not Just Researchers

Dan Pink's keynote this morning was great!  He talked about his new book, 

To Sell is Human:  The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

His primary points included:

1. Like it or not, we're all in sales now. 

 He described what we all know -  that most people had negative connotations of "salespeople."  Note the word cloud of adjectives generated when 7000 Americans were asked the question. 

"When you think of "sales" or "selling", what's the first word that comes to mind?"

2. Sales of anything is not what it used to be. 

 It's a move from "buyer aware" to "seller beware."  The old way, he stated, was like Alec Baldwin's 

Art of Selling in Glengarry, Glen Ross.

• A - Always
• B - Be
• C - Closing

Whereas, the new way is about:

• A - Attunement - can you get out of your own head and understand where someone else is coming from?
• B - Buoyancy  - can you stay "afloat in an ocean of rejection"?
• C - Clarity - can you curate (edit, distill, determine relevancy of information)?

He also made an insightful point about how power leads individuals to anchor too heavily on their own vantage point, insufficiently adjusting to other's perspective (Adam Gallinsky). And that there is an inverse relationship between feelings of power and perspective.

He suggested one way to increase your effectiveness is by briefly reducing your feelings of power.  And that the really sustaining kind of influence is by lessening your "muscle."

When negotiating, it's less about emotional intelligence, but about understanding the other side's interest.

Live from #TMRE13: Trend Spotting: Trends that Define a More Discerning Consumerism

How awesome would it be to work in the liquor industry and have the word "Vodka" in your job title? Well Janu Lakshmanan, Head of Global Vodka Consumer Insights for Beam, does exactly that. 

Based on her presentation, it was easy to see how passionate she is about her job (and who wouldn't be?) and how hard her team has worked on figuring out the 5 current trends in the vodka industry. 

1) Think Global, Get Local - People have started to care about where their food/drink comes from. Chipotle is a company that does a great job with emphasizing that it only uses local ingredients.

2) Maximized Moments - This is all about taking things to the next level and enhancing the overall experience. Heineken put a chip in their beer bottles that would light up based on the energy in the room (for example, it would light up to the beat of the music).

3) Collaborative Lifestyles - There is something special about sharing and making the world a better place. Lyft is a car service program where people offer rides in their personal cars to create an interactive experience of helping out others, while getting the chance to meet new people. 

4) Synthesthesia - Engaging all of your senses to make the overall experience better. Salta is a beer company that wanted to tie together Rugby and beer by having vending machines that men have to tackle, and based on the strength, the machine gives out bottles of Salta beer. 

5) Made for One - Customized just for you. CustomMade is a company that can make anything (from tables to toothbrushes) custom made.

I loved the presentation! Her passion and energy, as well as her use of creative examples, made this one of my favorites! 

Mayuri Joshi isResearch Magician at April Bell Research Group, a boutique, full-service marketing research firm, committed to delivering fresh insights you can act on! Learn more at aprilbellresearch.com.

Live from #TMRE13 - Billion Member Focus Group: Using Social Media Analysis to Understand Today's Real-Time Customer

Social media has become a part of daily life, and in today's world, it's hard to find someone who does not have either a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account. Consumers are constantly on their computers, tablets, and mobile devices, posting and tweeting their thoughts and opinions. 

When you think of the number of people on these social media sites, it's difficult to even comprehend the magnitude of data that is generated on a daily basis. In fact, according to Wayne St. Amand, Vice President of Marketing at Crimson Hexagon, there are 1 billion posts that go up every 48 hours! 

Social media is the single largest source of unsolicited consumer opinions, and very few companies are doing a good job capturing and analyzing this data. All of this data is already readily available at your fingertips, and there is much opportunity to utilize it to uncover meaningful insights.

St. Amand provided an example of a large automotive brand that sought to decode this social media data by initially categorizing the comments and posts into positive, negative, and neutral segments. But simply looking at the data in these segments did not provide the level of insight desired because the WHY piece was missing. It is not as powerful to know WHAT consumers are saying if you don't know the reasoning behind it. Once the brand dug deeper into this data to figure out WHY the customer comments were positive, negative or neutral, the company was able to uncover the detailed insights necessary to successfully complete their rebranding efforts.

The large amount of information being created on social media still might be hard to wrap your head around, but what is clear is that this data is already being captured, and it's up to you how you want to use it!

Mayuri Joshi isResearch Magician at April Bell Research Group, a boutique, full-service marketing research firm, committed to delivering fresh insights you can act on! Learn more at aprilbellresearch.com.

Live from #TMRE13 Fast Future: The Rise of Millennials

I had the pleasure of listening to David D. Burstein talk about his book, Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation is Shaping our World. Our generation is the largest one to date and the first to have a globally connected culture and set of ideas, not confined by borders.

With 96% of our generation having daily and regular access to the internet, our possibilities are limitless. We are coming together with a sense of community all over the globe and are becoming empowered to push the limits and affect global culture.

60 years ago, our grandparents were most likely married by age 21, buying homes and starting families. Very strange for someone like me, 25 years old in 2013 and focused solely on my career, with no plans for marriage or a family in the near future. Women especially are changing society norms by questioning what truly makes them happy and becoming familiar with what they really want out of life. 

In the next five years, 100% of our generation will own a smart phone. With technological advances and a rapidly changing society, the future will rely heavily on keeping consumers more engaged than ever before. 

Live from #TMRE13 Consumer Behavior & Consumption Across Media: The Digital State of Play

Remember the days when you put down your pen and paper, turned off the TV and enjoyed what you called "computer time"? Listening to that dial up internet static was something I looked forward to all day because it meant I got to explore and "play" on the computer. I'm sure you remember the AOL running man icon right? Classic.

Fast forward to 2013 and you'll find that there is no such thing as "computer time" anymore, because computer time is ALL the time. Your phone is not just a phone anymore, its become your life - its your email, your calendar, your notebook and your entertainment. Everything you need in one small portable device and the world at your fingertips.

We are constantly connected and usually in several different ways. Have you ever found yourself walking through a store, shopping for groceries while talking to your mom on the phone while browsing your phone's calendar to let her know if you are free for dinner tomorrow night? I have. 

According to Yahoo's Tony Marlow in his presentation on Consumer Behavior & Consumption Across Media: The Digital State of Play, our brains are re-wiring themselves in order to help us navigate our digital lives, which is why younger people are significantly better at multi-tasking. This explains why my grandmother can't seem to figure out what a "tweet" is or how to "tag" someone on Facebook. She wasn't wired for this kind of activity.

I won't hesitate to admit I would be LOST without my phone and I get anxious when I don't have it right next to me. Makes me wonder how we ever functioned before cell phones and the internet. And I certainly don't know how we ever survived without iPhone's handy navigation!