Announcement from The Market Research Event: TMRE 2009 Wrap-Up

Below is an excerpt from our LinkedIn announcement sent today. If you've not already joined us on LinkedIn, we encourage you to do so!

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We’d like to thank all of you at The Market Research Event LinkedIn group who followed us last week at the conference. In case you weren’t able to make it to Las Vegas, we’d like to share with you some of the most popular sessions from our blog:


TMRE Keynote Session – Yes! Proven Ways for Market Researchers to Become More Persuasive
http://bit.ly/4jclVe

Web 2.0 & Community Research Symposium: More for Less: Leveraging Research Communities to Maximize Your Budget
http://bit.ly/Z7Iur

TMRE 2009: Decision Pathway Modeling: Understanding How Your Customers Get To Yes
http://bit.ly/3SfkQa

TMRE Keynote Session: Why quality doesn't matter A report on the terminal illness of Survey Research
http://bit.ly/3y9fJ5

Creating "Delicious" Research
http://bit.ly/2vj2GI

For all of the sessions covered at TMRE, visit our blog:
http://bit.ly/GXcE9

Would you like to be more involved in TMRE 2010? Feel free to contact Krista Vazquez, Conference Director, kvazquez@iirusa.com for more information about speaking, Jon Saxe, Business Development Manager, at jsaxe@iirusa.com for Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities, Anastasia Ioannou, Senior Marketing Manager, at aioannou@iirusa.com for Media or Marketing Partnership Opportunities; and Kim Rivielle, Managing Director, krivielle@iirusa.com for strategic partnerships and new ideas.

Registration is now open for the 2010 The Market Research Event. You can register here http://bit.ly/3WwqtX and use priority code TMRE2010LINK. Keep up with the latest information on TMRE 2010 right here at the TMRE LinkedIn group, or on Twitter @TMRE.

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We’d also like to invite you to a web seminar we have coming up:
Unlock a Better Business Strategy with Text Analytics
Start Date/Time: Thu, Nov 19, 2009 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

With SPSS text analytics, you can read documents, blogs, wikis, tweets, e-mails, call center notes, surveys and other free form text – and turn the insight you gain into a true strategic asset. We’ll show you how to use text analytics with social media and other Web 2.0 sites to understand trends, and what your customers want, and how they’ll behave. We’ll demonstrate using text analytics in modeling to make your models better, and how to use automatic translation from more than 30 languages to make sense of your global customer base.
Featured Speaker
Jane Hendricks, Product Marketing Manager, SPSS, an IBM Company

Mention priority code MWS0026BLOG when registering:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/646359377

Cheers,
The Market Research Event Team
http://bit.ly/4mbFEC

Free Web Seminar - Unlock a Better Business Strategy with Text Analytics

Start Date/Time: Thu, Nov 19, 2009 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

With SPSS text analytics, you can read documents, blogs, wikis, tweets, e-mails, call center notes, surveys and other free form text – and turn the insight you gain into a true strategic asset. We’ll show you how to use text analytics with social media and other Web 2.0 sites to understand trends, and what your customers want, and how they’ll behave. We’ll demonstrate using text analytics in modeling to make your models better, and how to use automatic translation from more than 30 languages to make sense of your global customer base.

Your customers are talking about you, and you can gain a genuine advantage by knowing what they are saying. Attend this webinar and learn how you can “listen in” – and act on the information to gain a competitive edge.

This webinar will show how to:
- Use text analytics to make sense of any text, including Web 2.0 sources such as social networking sites
- Use the information to get a better understanding of your customers, your products, and your competitors.
- Make sense of free-form text resources, and act on the insight you gain
- Unlock predictive secrets from text sources, and combine that information with structured data to build powerful predictive
models that can inform decision making.

Featured Speaker
Jane Hendricks, Product Marketing Manager, SPSS, an IBM Company

Mention priority code MWS0026BLOG when registering:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/646359377

TMRE 2009: Get Stimulated: Innovating Through Challenging Times

Get Stimulated: Innovating Through Challenging Times
Andrew Pek, Author, Stimulated!

Andrew Pek presented in the "Proof" track at last week's 2009 TMRE, and looked at how people could become more creative in the work that they did. He focused on three ways to get stimulated, focusing on The Vibe, The Value and The Verb. We've got to work on better exploiting the brain in order to be more creative and innovative at work. Creativity is essentially a survival skill.

When audience members were asked about their best moments of creativity took place, they responded in the shower, while sleeping, driving, or even at conferences.

The Vibe, one of the core parts becoming creative, is all about managing your energy. Innovation is a vibe, and relies on tuning and turning your thoughts and feelings into a creative energy. Being aware of your thoughts and feelings is key to having a good vibe.

The Verb is to act, pair ideas with your actions. Pursuing ideas is the key to successful innovation. A great way to do this is to pair random words together. What do you need to come up with a creative idea for? One audience member suggested a new flavor of beer. Te audience then came together to think of different flavors of potato chips. This can introduce new flavors that one had previously never thought of.

And finally, Pek looked at Value. What impact do your new innovations have on your company and society?

TMRE 2009 - Interview with Communispace CEO Diane Hessan

We were able to catch Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace, and ask her some questions about some of Communispace’s new research initiatives and what lies ahead for market researchers of tomorrow. Take a couple of minutes to view the video below. Enjoy!

Research communities can be as Communities can be easy on the purse strings

For the first time this year, Gongos Research decided to raffle away a handbag that this year's TMRE. They wanted to create something that showed who they were as a company and that aligned with their presentation with Domino's Pizza. So with the motto of "Research communities can be easy on the purse strings when you know how to leverage and be creative with them," they gave away a Burberry handbag. Susan Scarlet, the director of marketing and public relations at Gongos Research, said this was the perfect raffle prize to match the Gongos brand and their presentation with Domino's Pizza. The lucky winner of the raffle was Debbie Lunsford, of The Coca Cola Company, pictured in the middle, along with Susan Scarlet (left) and Christi Walters (right), both of Gongos Research.

TMRE General Session: Why quality doesn't matter A report on the terminal illness of Survey Research

Why quality doesn't matter A report on the terminal illness of Survey Research
Stan Sthanunathan, Vice President , Marketing Strategy & Insights, The Coca-Cola Company

Stan is presented us with two vital slides. As different people have different styles, and he doesn’t want to offend anyone.

Vital slide #1: Why quality doesn’t matter. You must think about the future. If you don’t have quality, don’t come to the party. This is the reason why quality should matter, but it shouldn’t be the only thing.

Vital Slide #2: It’s beyond quality. What’s the next frontier? This slide could be considered less offensive than the first.

85% of research leaders indicated that they are either ”Neutral of dissatisfied with the impact of marketing research in their company. How can we take respondent engagement to the next level?

Is only debate getting us in the way we focusing on urgent versus important. We probably spend a disproportioninate amount of time on the urgent as opposed to the important. There is hope for the industry going forward, the question is is innovation happening at the pace its suppose to happen?

It’s about helping the company to change shape. Not following the change as quickly as possible. Leaders create change. Followers follow change. Our role as leaders and market researchers is to light the way, and show a beacon of hope for what can change in the future. End user expectations bring value to the table.

Expectations are changing quite dramatically. Going forward, we must put money behind research, innovation, and technology changes that accelerate change. We need to think about how we can bring dramatic changes to the world of our research? How can we use technology to do so?

What’s blocking our way for innovation?
We can’t agree on the definition of insight in the industry.
We don’t ‘know what we don’t know, and we don’t know how to know what we don’t know.

What will our final frontier look like?
The speaker can’t predict the future, but Facebook will become the insight provider for the world. There are 300 million individual users, each have given an extensive amount of personal detail. So we can get a great understanding of human conditions. It’s the best source in the world for information on the human behavior. What is your loyal fan base thinking about your product? What do they do, when do they enjoy coke; all can be found if used Facebook correctly. They’re consumers who love your brand.

Here’s what a company needs from clients and research agencies.
-creative problem solvers,
-Story tellers
-Disruptive thinker
-Visionaries
-Act before the change comes to shape change
-Imagine the world where date becomes a commodity
-Agencies are rewarded for business results delivered.

Focus on: outcomes, inspiring change and creating the future

Keynote Session – Innovation & Growth: Cultivating the Game Changers

Presenter: Ram Charam, Author of Leadership in Times of Economic Uncertainty & Co-Author The Game Changers

Here are a few takeaways from his informative presentation.

Ram Charam begins his keynote session by asking the question “Why do 90% of accountants not turn into CFOs? Most accountants can’t make the linkage to the outside business and do not see the connections. There are many CFOs who do not have an accounting degree, but they are able to see the bigger picture.

Innovation is different from invention. Invention is the generation of an idea. Innovation, though, is conversion of an idea into money making. That is the viewpoint of a CEO.

Innovators must follow business acumen
1. Will this idea engage more revenues or acceleration of revenues
2. Will it accelerate profit margin and growth margin
3. Will it enhance the brand

How do you convert insights into revenue into margins? Ram Charam takes a look at the iPod which has no new technology in it. Brands also need people to view and see their social responsibility.

TMRE Keynote Session 2009: Lessons from the White House from Joel Benenson

Lessons from the White House: Stories From Obama’s Lead Pollster & Strategist
Joel Benenson, Lead Pollster & Senior Strategist, The Obama Administration

What does a politics pollster know about market research’s issues? While looking at the agenda, he saw a session doing with inspired performance, and it’s contending with a session on online communities, as well as building a teen brand, and finally one about leveraging knowledge to prepare for and outwit the competitors. For nearly a century that campaign teams have understood political marketing and how it combines with brand marketing.

In a world of politics, they’re driving by a world that corporate don’t embrace, and they have one measure of success that’s determined on one day. They win or lose. And they’re driving by competition, and they face competitors.

YouTube didn’t exist when Bill Clinton left office, and now consumers can post a video about whoever they want whenever the want. George Allen’s senate race campaign was crippled by a handheld camera taken by an intern in his party. 27million people watch a speech by Obama in February of 2007. This technology creates turbulence that’s new.

Creates
-Risk takers
-Challenge convention thinking
-Embracing heated debates to get to the right strategy

If you’re a pollster and want to have an impact in the debates, you must be there to tell them where the numbers are coming from and why. What are their underlying attitudes that make them determine why voters are voting for a certain politician.

There would not have been a campaign if Obama wasn’t willing to challenge the conventional thinking of the time. In politics you’re never as smart as you look when you win, and you’re never as dumb as you look when you lose. You have to be willing to take the loses, and continue to be daring to keep winning.

Beninson realized that any democrat would be change from Bush. They had to make it so that the only way there was change would be if Barack Obama was the change. They set out to define Clinton’s experience as irrelevant.

What they wanted to do to define change with Obama as the answer . They could gain more quickly and convince voters that they represented change, than trying to convince with democrats that they could compete with Hillary on experience. This set up a template. They defined a change that they could believe in. People were hungry in America, and they wanted to end partisan conflicts, and they wanted a president that they could believe in. A speech in November 2007 in Iowa set up a situation where the candidates had to give a speech. There were no teleprompters, they made an ad of this speech, this message shared the campaign where Obama wanted to create a unified America. Next in South Carolina, and they were holding back.

They took this ad and put it in front of focus groups for African Americans in South America, then it lead to the backing of Obama by African Americans in South Carolina. Campaigns are all about the delegates. The delegate gain is very complex. They have to go down to the congressional districts. Strategy for the Obama campaign was to build up a delegate lead for Obama. On February 5, 2009, the critical day in California, they’d be targeting specific congressional districts. On February 18, 2009, there was a caucus in Idaho. In the last week, they had to decide where to send Obama? They took the risk and sent Obama to Idaho on February 1. There were 14,000 people lined up to see Obama speak at the Boise State arena. They focused their efforts in Idaho. Clinton got a predictive win in California, and she did win, but by marginally less. They neutralized Clinton’s gains in California with Obama’s huge gain in Idaho.

From this, Beninson stated that it’s not about knowing who your customers are, you must understand who your valuable consumers are. You should spend your dollars on them so that profitability is high when they spend their dollars.

The public wanted someone who was strong and steady in the crisis, so when John McCain wanted to cancel the debate the week the stock market crashed, Obama wanted to continue on with the debate because the commander and chief must be able to multitask.

So today, where are we? Obama won by 50% in the popular vote, which hadn’t been done in a long time. Today, Obama’s approval ratings are high, as well as confidence, which is important. He’s also dealing with education, health care and energy.

Parallels between polling and market research client on marketing side: if you’re a researcher on a client side, how can you be more strategic player. Maybe you’re asking yourself the wrong questions.

Clients with strategic research partners should wonder why they aren’t hiring them. How does your organization react when someone comes up with an out of the box solution. What kind of constraints are you placing on thoughts and ideas? You have to breakthrough unfamiliarity. Take a leap, do something different. How many risks have you taken with the data you have in front of you.

Have you let science restrict your creativity? Vendors sell things to people, strategic partners bring something to the table that no one else can. Do you need to reevaluate what you’re addressing your services as?

TMRE General Session: Toyota: Continuous Improvement Through Research

Toyota: Continuous Improvement Through Research
Steven Sturm, Group Vice President, Americas Strategic Research & Planning and Corporate Communications, Toyota Motor North America, Inc.

Toyota runs their business according to the Toyota Way which relies on two principles:
-Continuous improvement
-respect for people

Toyota entered the US car market over 50 years ago. Their first car, Toyopet Crown, failed; it did not meet the quality or expectations of the US customer. This became the stimulus to meet more of the Americans needs

Toyota is the #1 brand in the US, and Lexus is the #1 luxury brand. Toyota is expecting affluent homes to grow over the next few years.

Lexus: best car and best ownership experience. So they then determined they’d sell Lexuses in their own dealer networks, and they would treated each customer as if they were a guest in their own home. Of 1,600 dealers that applied to be Lexus dealers at the beginning, only 80 were selected.

The #1 selling luxury brand in the US is the Lexus RX.

Toyota’s Concept of Sustainability
Core of what Toyota does is to have respect for people and the environment. They’ve capitalized on this with the Toyota Prius.

It has two power sources: gas engine and electric motor. A computer chooses which to use for maximum use, and the batter never needs recharged because it’s automatically recharged when the car breaks. It went on sale in 1997, and was not a success. They began using a family demo program. They did real road testing and got feedback directly from the customer. This also created buzz. Families felt that they were participating in a breakthrough, and also were getting attention.

People needed to be educated on how the Prius worked, as the technology for the car was unknown. Early adopters began to get their information about the Prius online. It was launched in 2000, and they exceeded their sales expectations from that year on. Media coverage, partnerships, and government incentives to purchase the car have since followed.

TMRE Day 1 in pictures

The TMRE crew had a chance to take pictures throught the day. Check out some of the sessions we jumped in on:

TMRE Conference Chair: Trend Surfing: Creating Waves of Change

Trend Surfing: Creating Waves of Change
Kelley Styring, Principal, Insight Farm, Event Chairwoman

How can we grow market research? There’s a dimension missing in market research, and sometimes when you damage something you learn. Kelley’s been creating intense personal experience that’s changed the lense through which she looks at the industry. Last year, Styring presented about what people carry around in their car. Cars are now a habitat, and to do this study, she spent 30 days in a car traveling around to find out more.

She embrased a the idea that bias can contaminate one's work. When she lived the experience, she understood more of what the consumers were talking about.

Things are happening very quickly on the technology and social network side, and it’s very important to understand what’s going on. Styring is now looking at Twitter.

How does one slice all of the information you can gather on Twitter? In market research, you don’t really know what you’re looking for. You’ve got # signs some are using in Twitter (#TMRE for this conference!), which can be empirical learning, as well as theoretical panels. You can learn about anything. All of this information is collected then graphic and descriptive analysis reveal innovation and insight opportunities. Embrace your inner bias.

TMRE 2009: Decision Pathway Modeling: Understanding How Your Customers Get To Yes

Decision Pathway Modeling: Understanding How Your Customers Get To Yes
Mike Mabey, CMI
Anne Hale, Pfizer, Inc.

For Pharma, key metrics are adoption (will a physician prescribe this product), patient adherence and compliance, intent to fill and prescribe, brand perception and brand loyalty. Many drugs will go off patent, and the patients will still want to continue takig the name brand product.
Decision pathway modeling is structural equation modeling at the practice level.
The structural model, using It combines factor analysis and regression analysis, shows new strategy. It shows how constructs interrelate, such as quality service price value satisfaction and loyalty. What strategies can you put together to make the best product?

Key steps to pathway modeling:
1. Identify brand/business objectives – entire team must be on same page for results
2. Build a hypothesized brand model – they started small to find out “the big idea,” created a hypnotized patient model: ad awareness, condition awareness, information seeking, symptom severity, impact on activities, diagnosed with co-morbid condition, pill burden, length of relationship with physician – these lead to the intent to consult with a doctor (which is not the end point, jus the first step)
3. Drafting the survey – critical, best price is validated multi-item scales
4. Data Collection and Model Building – sample should match business objectives
5. Model interpretation and result read-out – larger than the path coefficient, the stronger the relationship

The only way they could increase the intent to prescribe, they had to go back to the inquiries from the patients.

Advantages of DPM
• Can be used on a wade rage of models
• Allows brand teams to leverage existing knowledge in drafting the hypothesized models
• Caputured indirect effects
• Permits simple or complex models

DPM can –
-Maps your customers entire journey, from the beginning to the end how you can influence customer behaviors
-Helps your prioritize resources,
- Revels impact on key marketing elements
-Help you understand the impact of early events in the decision pathway impact on eventual actions and outcomes

TMRE 2009: Measuring and Improving the Long-term Impact from Marketing

Measuring and Improving the Long-term Impact from Marketingfor Fast Moving Consumer Goods
Rick Abens, Conagra Foods

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the value to the companies see on the P&L of measuring marketing efforts over time. Conagra Foods was trying to link marketing to P&L. CLV is a forward looking metric, it’s value is measured starting now until the end of the customers lifetime.

What’s the value have for teh entire supply chain for ConAgra foods? Their goals is to measure and improve marketing and drive long-term customer value and loyalty.

The mew Marketing Accountability Standards Board invited many individuals to join in the conversation including finance, marketing, researchers and academics. It was founded to help increase that status of marketing in the boardroom.

Key issues for packaged goods companies
-How do we drive long-term growth with marketing?
-How do we develop customer acquisition and retention marketing strategies that are impactful?
-How do we match the right offers of the most responsive customers?

Standard marketing mix modeling output: total volume and subdivide it into the volumes that are driven into trade, promotion, advertising and baseline.

If you look at the baseline as a function of long-term marketing, you can begin understanding it.

Sources of growth: acquire new customers, retain more customers or increase purchasing size. Many customers are flat lining, new customers equal lost customers and retained customers, includes Healthy Choice, and Maxwell.

Summary:
-Marketing is not about getting the next incremental sale, it’s more about getting new customers and making them loyal to your brand.
-Understand whether or not your strategies are working.
-Back to targeting, more aggressive media happening every day in the household. Cut some advertising and target the right people. Television is very important.

Creating "Delicious" Research

Carol Fitzgerald of BuzzBack and Amelia Strobel of Kraft gave their story of "Exploring Dimensions of Delicious with Kraft Foods" in the Explor Awards track this afternoon.

The project developed in order to build a corporate theme for Kraft. They wanted to develop a company positioning around the idea of: "make today delicious."

They wanted to know how they could communicate delicious and whether or not there was an emotional connection to a theme that tied closely to food.

They used a variety of techniques offered by Buzzback and found that delicious is: warm, intimate, and highly positive. They have extended "delicious" throughout their organization and are now sponsoring "Make a Delicious Difference Week" working with two organizations: Feeding America and Save the Children.

Please view the video because every view helps feed the hungry....

April Bell

Explor Awards at TMRE 2009: Running the Olympics Reseach Marathon: An innovative measurement of Multi-Platform Audiences

Media Mix Measurement at the Olympics
Horst Stipp, NBC Universal
David Tice, Knowledge Networks, Inc.

Beijing Summer Olympics Summer 2008 was presented on five cable networks and two broadcast channels. The 2008 Olympics were also on mobile and the internet. There are 52 million unique viewers on the internet and 6.5 million users on mobile. For television, there was 16.4 HH rating.

Advertising and broadcasting rights are very expensive, and it was important that NBC be successful with the Olympics financially. There is no “currency-based” solution to meet NBCU’s needs of measuring the number of end users across the platforms. They wanted have hard numbers in order to sell sponsorship beyond a currency value. There was no definite measurement to capture all of the different platforms viewer numbers in one single source. This was the challenge to NBC, so they turned to the Knowledge Network’s Multimedia Mentor single source methodology as the foundation to measure this.

NBC Universal set out to record numbers on the daily Olympics cumulative watchers, to-date Olympic cumulative, projected total Olympic cumulative, times spent watching the Olympic games, and more.

This system was tested during the NBA in the Finals in June 2008 in preparation for the games later that summer. NBC wanted their sample to consist of 500 Olympic media consumers for each of the 17 days. Interviewed for 23 hours, then went on and compiled them.

All goals for collecting information on the Olympics viewers met or exceeded all goals: 605 people a day, a consumption rate of 33%, Olympic media use rate of 81%, interview length was 16 minutes, and delivered report to NBC on time every day.

How did this help NBC? They saw how media was immediately used. They also saw how people used media out of home, and after the games, they used it as a benchmark for establishing audience duplication across media. NBC Universal also used brand and category specific assessments for Olympic media sponsors and usages.

What they saw: 99% of all people watch Olympics on NBC Networks. Nearly everyone watch the games on TV. Those online or on mobile did not give up on television, they still watch the games on television.

So, now NBC Universal is looking to the 2010 Vancouver Olumpics. Their challenge for this year is getting younger audience to watch the Olympics. Through this tracking, they now know that younger new media users watched more Olympics on TV. The information on media platforms heightened their Olympics.\

TMRE Keynote 2009: Crowdsourcing: Unleashing the Power of Crowds to Unveil Rich Insights

Crowdsourcing: Unleashing the Power of Crowds to Unveil Rich Insights
Jeff Howe, Author, Crowdsourcing



In 2005, Jeff Howe sent a story about MySpace to the Village Voice. MySpace had created a culture with musicians, which lead Jeff Howe to follow the Warped Tour to write a column for Wired Magazine. The Tour is about the music, but features a carnival culture. The Warped Tour kids engaged in amazing creativity throughout a summer tour of 30 bands traveling and playing in a different city every day. They published poetry, web design, paintings. None of the kids defined themselves as one certain thing like "musician" or "artist". The technology was not the story on the tour, it was what they could do with the technology. Their emphasis was on the products and the processes and how they released their creativity.

When Howe wrote this article, the public's obsession for user generated content was immense, but he realized that people were missing was the larger tectonic shift, which were the underlying dynamics of different shapes and sizes and reality. Howe needed something that would capture not just the media, but all industries. He wanted to find a way to outsource to the crowd. The column, Crowdsoucing, was first published in June 2006. It came into use first with technology, but then branched out. There was a fundamental shift beneath the surface between consumers and producers.

Crowdsourcing was not a strategy designed by academics, instead it was an accident. Two friends came together and created a shirt design business, the designs were voted on by the Internet users. This way, you don’t have to be a designer to be a part of the system, but just like designs. Threadless came about this way. You have to give users tasks that take less than a minute to accomplish. They started this business because they loved people and wanted to share it with other users. It’s a global community, and the shirts are sold to individuals around the world.

A key to Threadless was they get free marketing. Via street teams, users posting images of their shirts, in addition to personal designs from the users. They also see what consumers want. They have an “I’d Buy It” box. They know which shirts will sell. They’ve never had overstock or sold out due to this function.

Another example: stock photos. This is a photo that’s already been commissioned by a person to take, then same photo over and over again for promotional purposes. The creator opened his own site where he uploaded his stock photos, and let others download them as long as they uploaded their own. This popular service exceeded what he could pay to. Bruce charged people to post images, and others began to realize the the value. You could download a picture for $300 or $.25. The model worked. Today it's known as Getty Images.

The Cardinal Rule of Crowdsoucing is: Ask not what your community can do for you – Ask what You Can Do For Your Community.

One member of the audience posed the question "How can businesses build their own communities to create these items?" Howe responded communities came together because they were being offered something, the crowd was being offered something. For example, if you are a grocery store, give the community a way to see if you have things in stock, give them specific coupons that apply to your users, etc.

Using Neuroscience for Marketing Research

Mark Potts of MindShare and Dr. Andrew Pradeep of NeuroFocus gave an excellent presentation about the process of using neuroscience for marketing research in their workshop presentation titled: Neurological Testing Reveals the Truth of Audience Engagement.

Here are the basics:

Who:
Respondents are recruited based on research objectives (as in traditional studies).

What:
Respondents wear a "full cap" on their head with 64 sensors attached. These collect data 2000 times every second. This coupled with eye-tracking is the "data collection" methodology.

Why:
Consumers can't tell us everything they're sensing. For example, a consumer may look very closely at something on a grocery store aisle that grabs attention but the subconscious areas of the brain don't "tell" the conscious what they think, feel, etc. But it can, however, be measured through brain activity.

How:
3 metrics are measured directly at the brain.
1) Attention: what are you paying attention to....this is based on the science behind ADD/ADHD clinical diagnosis
2) Emotion: how are you emotionally engaged ....this is based on the science behind mania & phobia clinical diagnosis
3) Memory Retention: what is it that you're experiencing that activates your memory....this is based on the science behind Alzheimer's

When:
As with all new technological tools in research, this is not a catch all approach but 3 of the areas where it can be used is when trying to measure:
1. Purchase Intent
2. Novelty
3. Awareness

You can learn more about it by watching one of NeuroFocus' scientists here:

Cool! April Bell

TMRE Session - Knocking Down Silos to Drive Innovation Momentum

Presenters:
Mike Maddock, Maddock Douglas
Javier Flaim, Maddock Douglas

Mike Maddock begins by stating "You can;t read the label, when you are sitting inside the jar" which many employees find themselves inside. It is important to understand that we all have different perspectives and see things differently. That is why it is important to not throw away ideas.

In the innovation process, Maddock Douglas has a Global Expert Network (GEN) of 6,000 innovators that they can look to for external ideas and innovation. It is not necessary though to have a GEN in order to have external ideas, as long as you are looking outside of the box. The speakers then moved on to an interactive session called the "toothpick" test where attendees had to remove toothpicks from a board in order to create squares. The purpose of the test was to see if anyone asked helped and no one did. The reason why they didn't ask for help was because before the test Mike mentioned to everyone that they are smart and didn't need help. This proves that by motivating employees and keeping their spirits up, much more can be done.

TMRE Session – Managing Knowledge: Maximizing Returns

Presenters:
Luke Allen, MD, Nunwood
Katrina Rochowski, Orange

Luke Allen began by explaining that there are 4 key pillars in insights systems


- Creation of the knowledge
- Identify what is relevant to you when making key decisions
- Distribution
- Measurement

Katrina then explained that 3 different areas feed into insights which are: competitive intelligence, research teams, and strategic insights. They used the agreed approach which included:

- Getting signoff to see if certains things were ok to do from a business standpoint
- Getting technical signoff with IT to make sure that requirements fit with IT roadmaps and infrastructure
- Ensuring the final solution will actually work

The first phase was to figure out requirements of what was needed which included content, IT specifications, and website usability to name a few. The 2nd phase was implementation, which meant developing software to map out the requirements needed. The 3rd and last phase was the launch, which made sure everyone was able to use it easily and maximized exposure.

TMRE General Session – Cohabitation: Rethinking the Client/ Consultant Relationship

Presenters:
Tina Brogdon, Psyma International
Laura Bernier, Kraft Foods

When working with a client and a vendor, it’s important to understand roles. Client brings a deep, rich understanding of the brand. The supplier helps keep the project objected throughout the whole process. A partner helps to keep things on an organized timetable. The vendor needs to dig deep and figure out what has to come out from the research.

Laura was in charge of conducting the ethnography and so she was responsible in choosing a team. There were participants with a wide role of functions. The team was divided by market and industry so that they would have a clearer understanding on the research. Having a cross-functional team was vital in collecting the right information.

When the field work happens, make sure to debrief after each session. The reason behind this is to hear the stories because everyone has a different role in the process. Igniting the spark with teams is crucial because at times they can be working for 12 hours so snacks will be important in keeping staff motivated.

Cons

- The vendor needs to learn the history & business in a short period of time
- Tight timelines
- Communicating across a large team can be difficult and time consuming
- Senior management is involved
- Objectives and consumer targets cannot change during research
- Projects can be long

Usually clients fall in the trap that we are the consumers, but we are not. Make sure to remove these biases.

Here’s a brief clip from the presentation below.

Don't Forget to Visit the Booths at TMRE 2009

There's a lot going on in addition to the many workshop presentations at TMRE 2009.

Several exhibitors are showing their stuff in between sessions and during the cocktail reception coming up this afternoon.

Here are just a few of the "tried and true" exhibitors. Make sure you stop by and check out their booths--many are offering an opportunity for goodies in exchange for your business card!

And here's a glimpse of a few of those taking advantage of networking opportunities while you're here.

April Bell

Keynote Session – How Consumer & Market Insights Steers Company Strategy & Innovation

Presenter: Joan Lewis, Global Consumer & Market Knowledge Officer, The Proctor & Gamble Company

Lewis starts off her presentation by mentioning that P&G has done a lot of work on trying to get natural ingredients products on shelves. P&G has spent a lot of time to figure out what products would be beneficial for consumers and what really matters to them in different countries. Because of this P&G has created products such as the natural ingredients in dog and cat food which has saved many animals with enzyme problems just to name one.

P&G doesn’t always get it right all the time because some products fail. P&G is able to innovate through their Global Growth Strategy:

“Touching and Improving More Consumers’ Live in More Parts of the World…More Completely”

Consumer and market knowledge helps drive company strategy, innovation, and competitive advantage. This has sparked P&G to hold over 15,000 research studies per year and spends over $350 million each year on consumer research. P&G also spends a lot of time connecting with consumers across 80 countries and has about 5 million consumers with whom they do resaerch.

Joan Lewis gives us an example of a case study with Pampers and UNICEF. Moms and dads want to help infants around the world but feel like they are helpless. Realizing this, Pampers launched the “1 pack = 1 vaccine” campaign where tetanus vaccines are giving to underprivileged children around the world. The purpose of the campaign is to eradicate the disease by 2015.

The 2nd case study is about Olay Pro-X. A pretty large contingent of women are interested in skincare, they are interested to spend money and time on research, and are interested in products that actually work. P&G was faced with the challenge of make it shine in order to convey their benefits of working better than $350 priced prescription medications. The packaging of Pro-X and the work done before the product hit shelves added to its credibility at $40-$50 an item. Even though there was skepticism of the product, it has been the largest launch in Olay history. Olay was able to provide consumers with a product that is valuable to them.

The 3rd case study is about Secret Clinical Strength. There was a small group of women who struggled with heavy sweating and a team listened to their problems. These women had a need that P&G could help improve on and deliver a valuable product to them. P&G had the challenge of creating a great quality product and delivering messaging to reach this target. The product has won many product awards and has received many accolades which have made it a huge success in store shelves.

Joan Lewis closes with a quote from P&G CEO, "Our Purpose inspires us. Our Values Unite us. And all our innovation capabilities and culutre focus us on making small but meaningful differences every day..for the consumers who have ALWAYS been P&G's boss and our inspiration."

TMRE Keynote Presentation from Joan Lewis, P&G Officer, Global CMK

Joan Lewis' keynote presentation was great! As a researcher who strives to present complex insights in a very simple way, I appreciated her storytelling ability. She drew the audience in through three well-articulated case studies on: Pampers, Olay ProX, Secret Clinical. She described how meaningful consumer insights helped them develop and execute a very clear message and full advertising campaign.

The Pampers UNICEF case study she described resulted in this one message: 1 pack = 1 vaccine. You can see the result of this campaign here. Believe me, the video is worth the 1 minute watch time. I want to buy Pampers, and I don't need them!

And in typical P&G fashion, she concluded with a very simple, meaningful, clear message about their company belief: "We believe consumer passion brings innovation and competitive advantage."

And with a quote from their President and CEO, Bob McDonald, "Our purpose inspires us. Our values unite us. And all our innovation capabilities and culture focus us on making small but meaningful differences...every day...for the consumers who have ALWAYS been P&G's boss and our inspiration."

Thank you for your inspiration, P&G CMK April Bell

TMRE 2009 Keynote: Martin Lindstrom: Buyology

Buyology: The Truth & Lies About Why We Buy
Martin Lindstrom, Author Buyology

Martin Lindstrom starts out by pointing out many of the irrational things we do. From taking the second magazine when purchasing one and that there is no 4th floor in the hotels here in Las Vegas. Studies show that 8 out of 10 new products fail. Until the age of 65, Americans watch 2,000,000 hours of commercials.

One of our fundamental problems is that our non-consciousness brain is making many 85% of our irrational decisions. Lindstrom is going to spend his keynote presentation discussing neuroscience. He took the concept of peoples buying behaviors and combined it with a scientific technique that looked at what people are really thinking about when they’re buying products. This is called the SST methodology.

We have various regions in the brain that can tell us what’s going on. Neuroscience tells you what goes on, not necessarily why it goes on. For this experiment, they used to methods to measure what was going on in the brain. If you look at a brain from a different angle, you’ll get different results, this is why two methods were combined. They took the show “Quizmania” and asked people around their world if they liked it. The general response was that they didn’t like it. After a brain scan, they found out that what they really thought. They looked at other shows brain scans response, like American Idol, and found out that people really liked the show. Then they looked to distribute the show worldwide.

Lindstrom also looked at why people smoke. They looked into the craving spot of the brain. Countries across the world have banned their advertising on television, in movies and on the radio. So they’ve had to find alternative ways to promote their products. They’ve started promotion in other ways, such as Marlboro and their promotion of race cars, designs of the race tracks, and a barcode on the racecar.
Lindstrom is now looking at Coca Cola, which much of the world can recognize from simply their glass bottle. After showing a promotion, Lindstrom points that rituals are created with brands. He points out Apple iPods, McDonalds . If you build a powerful brand, you don’t even need a logo.

Lindstrom then took four different brands and test their smells. A branded smell activates the same areas of the brain that a brand logo does. Kids have an amazing ability to smell different bands and identify them. Non-conscious handshakes sell the signal of a weak person. We automatically assume that, and it may not be true. Less than 1% of brands today don’t have a powerful brand. We should not forget the power of sounds, casinos installed speakers that projected the coin machines into casinos to increase those gambling.

The non-conscious mind makes decisions for us in many cases. As marketers, we need to find a way to get around this. We must understand what goes on in the human mind.

TMRE Keynote Session – Yes! Proven Ways for Market Researchers to Become More Persuasive

Presenter: Dr. Noah Goldstein, Professor, UCLA Anderson School of Management and Co-Author of Yes!

The session first opened up with opening remarks from the managing Director of The Market Research Event, Kim Rivielle. Kim mentioned that this event first started off 15 years ago and it has grown into a very industry encompassing event since then.

“We are here to exchange stories…sometimes best practices and sometimes worst practices.”

After her opening remarks Kim introduced the Conference Chairwoman, Kelly Styring, who is a principal at Insight Farm. She went on to officially introduce this morning’s featured speaker Dr. Noah Goldstein.

Dr. Noah Goldstein begins his presentation by stating that attendees will learn how to better persuade messaging through many scientific ways. Dr. Noah gives an example of how Tony Little recently saw much more success by changing this statement “Operators are standing by, please call now” to “If operators are busy, please call again”. The first statement leaves an impression that operators are just standing by twittering, not paying attention, and cleaning their fingernails as opposed to the second statement which leaves the impression that operators are taking phone call after phone call trying to answer questions and fill orders.

The second example explained how some studies show that up to 75% of hotel guests re-use their towels at least once if they see signs like this around the hotel. In the study, there were two different signs showed at the hotel. One sign mentioned “Help save the environment by re-using towels” and the second sign mentioned “75% of people are re-using towels”. We always heard the term follow the herd but there is a strong persuasion figure in similarity. If people see similar people re-using towels in their room then there is a strong chance that they will also follow suit,

The best communicators recognize when they are not the best communicators. How do they do this? Testimonials are key!

What is optimal is to get other people to do the persuading for you, but there are many times that you will have to do it yourself. When you don’t know people though, people question whether or not they can trust someone or believe what they say. Progressive for example, gives you quotes from their insurance company as well as many other companies. At times they do have the best quote but at other times they do not. Since implementing this innovation, Progressive has done fairly well contrary to popular belief.

“To immediately gain credibility in the eye of your audience, argue against your self interest.” (E.g mention a weakness in your case)

Common mistakes people often make is to:

- follow positive information with a negative qualifier, occasionally negating that positive information. Small weaknesses should be mentioned before your strongest qualifier in order to make up for it.
- focus on what the audience stands to gain from the opportunity they present. Companies should tell the people they are trying to persuade what they stand to lose if they don’t take the opportunity they present.

Gifts and favors are most powerful when they are:

- significant and meaningful
- personalized
- unexpected

The Future of Retail by Herb Sorensen

If you missed Herb Sorensen's presentation on on Retailing: The Return to Personal Selling, you should check out his book and blog. No one doubted his passion for the subject as he walked us through the "history of retail" before giving us his take on the "future of retail." "The need for efficiencies" he claims, is the reason the retailer/consumer relationship has evolved to where it is today. "It has always been about efficiencies and where we are today is simply because of this."

The following quote summarized his point: "One hundred years ago retailers ran their stores by watching their customers closely. Somewhere during the last hundred years, spread sheets, slotting allowances, and quarterly performane replaced the basic principles of the business." Norm Myhr, Group Vice President Sales and Promotion and Marketing, Fred Meyer.

He mentioned P&G's early "Soap Opera Ad" and Sears "Wish Book Catalogs" as examples of how we began getting consumer's attention outside of the store when it became difficult to do so inside the store.

And now, "everyone is realizing the system of communicating to consumers 'outside of the store' is not working due to the fragmentation we have" {due to MTV, facebook, etc.}

Statistics he cited include:
In 95, 3 commercials reached 80% of women 18-49
In 2000, it took 92 commercials to do the job

He concluded with how he sees the future of retail, titled: the "Amazonification" of Retail. "Because Amazon gets it, that the selling is always about the closing... Amazon understood that they had to 'close the sale fast.'" And now, "the real battle in retailing is between Wal-Mart and Amazon." So, how will we get personal selling back in the store? By "pulling the internet into the store," he claims.

Also, other tips he gave for "closing the sale" in the store included:
1. Provide only a few "Top Seller" tags in the aisle
2. Brand call out tags on packaging: "Shoppers #1 Choice"
3. To make it clear, you can only do that with 1 or 2 items

I think I'll buy the book. April

Sustainable Packaging Trends: Consumer Perspectives and Product Opportunities

Ecological issues are undoubtedly firmly in the mainstream of society with over 75% of consumers stating that protecting the environment is important to them. However, there is a pronounced attitude / behavior gap with around 25% of consumers not acting on their beliefs by buying environmentally-friendly products. Click here to find out more.


Datamonitor

Datamonitor is pleased to present its new report that makes extensive use of Datamonitor's proprietary consumer survey data, along with leading secondary data, to explore the issues related to sustainable packaging and its importance to various stakeholders. Use this report to re-visit the core role of packaging and explore the current and future importance of sustainability."

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words or Researchers

Among all our great coverage, here on our blog, our twitter feed, and our shared twitter discussion, and LinkedIn group, we've also been sharing great moments during the conference through our Flickr group. Here's a look at our photos as the conference kicks into gear. If you're in attendance, have a camera and are taking candid shots, be sure to join the group and share your photos. Participation is always welcome!

Updated: Symposia Session – Looking Under the Hood of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Nestle and BuzzBack Market Research Study

Speaker: Brendan Light, BuzzBack Market Research

Brendan states some research conducted in conjunction with Nestle that helps answer some of these “fuzzy” questions.

• Does the effort resonate with consumers?
• Do we know how to communicate to consumers?
• Do consumers believe it?
• Which efforts work globally which works better locally?

The research was done across 3 markets: USA, UK, and Germany.
A big concern that came from the results is that more than 2/3 of people are disappointed with how companies are conducting business.

How should companies act in terms of CSR issues? It should be seen as voluntary for these companies, but just because it is voluntary now it doesn’t mean that in 20 years these CSR issues won’t be regulated in the future. The definition of CSR should not come from the marketers, but it should come from the consumers so it is important to have conversations with them.

Consumers in Germany view being a good employer as a big issue for CSR, whereas consumers in the USA think more externally and view broader issues as important CSR issues. BuzzBack used their patented eCollage system which allowed consumers and all respondents to pick images for analysis.

From the analysis, we learned that consumers are aware of CSR but their buying decision is not affected by CSR.

Brendan was able to share with us some insights from his presentation. Check out the clip below.




Updated:

For those of you not at TMRE 2009, you can view the recent archived webinar recently presented by Buzzback that looks at this presentation.

Learning What's Good at Goodyear

Kim White presented on how Goodyear used a variety of qualitative research techniques:

immersions, peer focus groups, and learning connects to fully understand their consumer's retail experience.

The techniques, developed by MarketVision Research, were creative and insightful...and combined, they allowed the consumer voice to be loud and clear to their c-level management as well as their dealers.

One of the many creative qualitative exercises utilized Grove templates. I have also found these templates helpful in a number of different research projects. (You can go online and download the smaller deck of cards ... or you can order larger, wall-size templates for group facilitation exercises.)

The specific template used in Goodyear's research was an Idea Wheel that helped convey consumer's wishes and ideas around the buying experience.

Another very cool exercise included a "Retailer Personality creation" where participants had to "create" the personality of retailers with available supplies. This was an interesting way to gain insight on how retailers are perceived.

Taking this to CEO gave their upper management an understanding of how consumers view them as a retailer and thus, drove change throughout the organization.

April Bell

Keynote Presentation: How Do You Research A Tsunami? A New Era For Market Research

Presenter: Jim Dator, Professor, University of Hawaii & Director of the Hawaii Research Center for Future Studies

Jim Dator begins his keynote presentation by mentioning that this is a great time for transformation in market research, and that the economy will bring forth new opportunities that were not available before.

To be truly effective in future studies, forecasting has to be done continuously instead of one-shot only.

Jim explains the way the Three “components” of the future used to be
1. Continuations – 80%
2. Cycles – 15%
3. Novelties – 5%
Then he goes on to explain the three “complements” as it may be now
1. Continuations – 5%
2. Cycles – 15%
3. Novelties – 80%

In order to make predictions and assumptions on the future you must be ready to sound ridiculous, to be laughed at, and even to be wrong at times. The definition of Future studies does not mean studying the future but instead images, ideas, theories, and methods of the future. Jim has discovered that billions of images of the future can be categorized into 4 alternatives.
- Continuation
- Collapse
- Disciplined Society
- Transformational Society

Jim Dator mentions, “Humans are able to do things they could not do before and thus develop new ideas, new values, and new social institutions.”

State of Men and Gamers

Kimberly Maxwell, Spike

Gamers are predominantly men. There are 70% of the US population who are gamers. The video game industry was up 20% in 2008. There is a very small targeted group who are the gamers. They drive the gaming development. Spike wanted to know who these people were so they could develop television shows for them.

The hardcore gamers are defined as playing games 10+ hours a week, paid for video games in the past month, played more complex games, 72% male, and an average age of 33 years old. They also spend a full day a week gaming.

What have gamers become? They’re media consumers who shape culture and a launch pad for living their lives. Spike TV spoke to core and light gamers through online surveys. They also conducted online facebook discussion groups, as well as in-home ethnographies. The sample is 14-44 for this study.

Gaming is a way to stay connected, as the gamers are playing with others 2/3s of the time. Rock Band and Wii are driving this aspect. Gamers spend a lot of time online looking for the next big thing, such as movie trailers. They’re also plugged in everywhere, from music websites to entertainment magazines. Music was also a very integral part of the gamers.

Types of core gamers:
- Gamefluentials
- Go-to geeks
- Trend riders
- Basement brigade

Marketing Research Momentum: The Scale Effect of Leveraging Global and Cross-Category ROI Research

Mike Menkes, Analytic Partners
Greg Rogers, Procter & Gamble

It's important to thinking outside the box to try and leverage your current market research strategies. Market and model mix studies with Proctor and Gamble. Its allowed P&G to see the variety ROI for different companies through the globe.

What drives differences across the different case studies?

When you do a study, most of the learning comes initially, and it’s most valuable at the beginning of the study. We’re trying to build off all of the studies. P&G knows they need to capitalize on their scale. It provides an advantage when you have something that size.

In the case of market mix modeling, it has become a key piece of market research to help spending on all brands. Mixed models is a way to identify that each marketing element is having on your sales: trade, media, etc.

When you start to see constant ROI that is higher, it can help you inform your decisions and move where your assets are allocated. Getting more out of what you already have is starting to become a really for P&G.

By using benchmark information, P&G can start to quantify the reasons why certain ROIs are higher than others. By extracting more and more information from the database. We are often looking at a fine level of detail, by starting small, like certain consumers, then back and look at cities, then countries, and a clear pattern can be seen as to what you can do for your business.

Changes Needed in our Surveys to Improve Quality

Bill MacElroy, Socratic Technologies
Bernie Malinoff, element54

Research needs to be interactive to get consumers more involved with products. Usability is important. If a user doesn’t understand the survey system, they can’t or won’t complete it. Telephone surveys are now online on computer screen and now they’re getting boring.

People want take fun surveys . Researchers will get better results. Data consistency and respondent usability will also improve. Data is not consistent, and usability matters.

How do we get consumers engaged? If people are having fun doing a survey, they’re more likely to be engaged with it. The challenge is not to make a “cool” survey, but how does this affect your results? Radio buttons are the traditional way to look at a survey layout. Another option is a slider, and this can be changed throughout the survey.

We write complex survey questions, and how are consumers suppose to get through these surveys? If a consumer can’t get off a page, they could create information to get off of the page. Do you filter out data after an error message is given?

If there’s an error message, highlight the row. That’ll provide more reliable answers.

We must understand usability principles
- There are ways to make all questions/surveys more appealing, intuitive and future-relevant
- Responsible innovation is the key
- Questions around interfaces, not just one common set of variables, must understand interface and the guidelines.

They key reason people decline a survey invitation is they say the last one they took was boring. Surveys have got to be more like video games. As an industry, we’ve got to be more engaging and through.

Largest reason people take surveys is because they want to be a partner, both acknowledged and treated like one. Respondents are people, and they need respect, not an input into a machine. No need to over invite them. They need to be compensated realistically. They also want to feel like what they’re giving is of importance.

We have to get back to basic research. All of the technology is great, but if you don’t get the question across and the right answers, the market research question isn’t getting answered.

Updated: Conventional Wisdom/Perceived Reality About Consumer Media Behavior versus The Simple Facts

David Marans, A&E Networks

Updated: David Marans speaks about his presentation

Media personnel are very different in consuming media than the rest of the public. Like Harry Warner believing that no one wanted to hear actors talk in movies in 1927. Today, there are 305 million people who are consumers of media.

How do we deal with the new American consumer?

The concept of the average American is gone. This is a rich idea, as there is no typical person. The simplistic mass consumer only exists in people’s minds. Programmers can gain traction and zero in on the target, but how do you pay for that?


Many people assume all consumers have access to DVRs. In reality, 65% of consumers do not have DVRs. Reader’s Digest is still the largest read magazine. Game Informer is the most read magazine by people aged 18-24. The #1 show last year for adults was The Bachelor. No one in attendance watches this show. Neither for The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a very widely watch show by young audiences as well.

Popular myths in Media:

-TV is on the decline
It is actually on the increase. Why? HD is making TV watching attractive, DVRs are expanding watching videos, and multiple media usage. Those 18-24 have actually increased the most.

-Nobody watches commercials anymore
94% of viewers do not turn away from commercials

Updated Video:

Symposia Session – Segmentation reveals new ways to Connect Optimally with Consumers in an Economic Downturn

Speaker: Tony Cardinale, Bravo, Oxygen, & Women at NBCU, NBC Universal

Tony begins by stating that the problem that they first encountered. There were hundreds of pieces of intelligence about consumers in the economic downturn, but they weren’t sure of the validity of the information. To replace the information they had about a demographic target and replaced it with more dynamic intelligence. They did mixed surveys and asked questions like how are you doing a year ago, how are you doing now, and how do you think you will be doing in year.

There were over 4,000 respondents to the questions and they created several segments. Based on the survey people were quoted as a 1, 2, and 3 depending on how optimistic they were about the recession. What they found out was that consumers that had digital cable were more recession-proof than those consumers who had satellite.

By utilizing the economy scales, marketers can send personalized messaging and offerings to consumers. Also, just like the scale 12 category scales were created including nightlife, style, food, etc. The tool allows to separate the categories and economy scales which helps companies understand if they have to create a new product line to reach the 1’s who are most at risk because of the recession or change their messaging.

Tony summarizes my mentioning that demographics and product usage history aren’t enough to efficiently target in this new economy and that there are measurable benefits to optimizing against a target that’s economy sensitive.

Getting Shopper Insights Off the Ground at Dr. Pepper Snapple

Jacob Ratner, Research Director at Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (DPSG) gave an awesome presentation on the organization's road to developing a shopper insights strategy! He touched on some of the trends evolving with retailer/manufacturer relationships.

He remarked on the trend I have also seen the last few years in the relationship between retailers and manufacturers. Retailers are creating their own insights projects vs. leaning as heavily on manufacturer's research findings. They are wanting to be a bigger decision-maker in every stage of research.

He also talked about one of their big 'aha moments' when moving to a shopper insight focus vs. a heavy brand consumer focus: The Shopper is Not (always) the Consumer. Knowing the consumer is one thing....but what if that consumer is not the shopper? Likewise, the shopper is not always the consumer. This insight alone has driven much of their work in the last year. His passion for looking at the shopper and consumer in different ways yet holistically (as shown in his Venn diagram) was a key take-away. Thanks, Jacob, for sharing!

Here's more from Jacob regarding the presentation:

April Bell

The Skinny on Marketing Research at Facebook

Well, I am here for my first session at The Market Research Event in Las Vegas. What a great first session to blog about: Facebook. Meg Sloan, research lead at Facebook and Brant Cruz of Chadwick Martin Bailey shared a little glimpse of what life inside Facebook is like.

Currently, Facebook has 300 million users worldwide and at least 1/2 of their users go to the site daily! Wow! How do they do it? Here's a tidbit....

Their guiding principles include:

Proactive

Scalable

Expertise

New School

Synthesis & Story-telling

Meg also gave us insight into how they view their small marketing research team:

1. Try our best to act like the rest of the org

2. Radical focus on the roadmap and prioritization

3. Making sure we all are doing things we feel strong at each day (staying motivated)

4. Supporting each other/sharing information/work etc.

5. Be nimble and use our resources and relationships to their fullest.

And last but not least: Ruthless Prioritization as well as Have Fun and create an awesome workplace. Their Q3 planning meeting involved pedicures--sign me up!

You can see more about life inside the marketing research team at Facebook. Check out this video about "life at facebook." Oh, and by the way, they currently have a marketing research position open for anyone who is interested...

I'm now a little more motivated to spend time on my facebook page...

Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

The Front End of Innovation Europe 2010 Event is the world’s only unbiased platform for Front End of Innovation best practices. Along with the multi-national, cross-functional advisory board, we’ve matched best in class speakers recognized for making strides in the Front End with topics that address your current innovation challenges.

February 8-10, 2009
Amsterdam Hilton, Netherlands

New for 2010! Along with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, we are happy to announce a collaborative session - VISION 2050. Explore.

The 2010 Front End of Innovation team has identified unique Critical Factors that your organization requires for Balancing Short-term Profitability with Long-term Sustainability. There is no other European program with a similar event format. You will explore each factor throughout the event including:

MEET CUSTOMER DEMANDS Tap into unfulfilled needs
FOSTER ORGANIC GROWTH Continue long term strategies
DESIGN THINKING In Order to Solve Business Problems
PERFORM CREATIVE EXECUTION Do More with Less
AVOID COMMODITIZATION Move Beyond Product Innovation
GENERATE PARTNERSHIPS Make Open Innovation & External Collaboration Work
LEARN FROM THOUGHT LEADERS On Moving from Today to Tomorrow

Event Page: http://bit.ly/RyRrC
Brochure: http://bit.ly/3N3REU
Registration: http://bit.ly/2zgtei

Web 2.0 & Community Research: How Entertainment Weekly Created a Hybrid Community

Karen Bakos, Entertainment Weekly
Sean Holbert, KL Communications

How has Entertainment Weekly changed their online community throughout the years?

The communities were originally treated as respondents. There wasn’t much engagement. After a year of the panel, the response rates were falling but respondents were growing. They added features: movie ratings, interactive polls. They were slowly stepping towards a community instead of a panel. Karen thought the panel was going to compete with the website, but then they saw the potential in creating a micro site for support.

In 2006, Entertainment Weekly need a panel who understood the EW brand and community. They created Backstage with Entertainment Weekly Advisory board. They had the panel to do quant research and this. Both were maintained separately. In 2009, they found a few challenges with these two communities. They had both the advisory board and the editorial panel.

They realized that they could combine the two communities. The touch points were increased with editing issues and content issues. They’ve created a bulletin board and are now able to view the conversations going on between the members.

A forum was created, and the advisory board was given an exclusive section. The members connected with the social networking part of this experience. There was no loss of respondants, and editors connected with the pulse, while the panels still connected with research for categories and magazines. There were more discussions, and entertainment discussions and it was a natural fit. The VIP section was very important, so transitioning them into the community was that they still had the VIP room, but could connect with more members of the entertainment communities.

EW’s community is about the brand – a fun experience. They’ve been able to continually improve the experience and make the panel better each year. They develop ideas and then throw it back to the panel. Everyone in the company appreciates having the resource.

Symposia Session - Bayesian Marketing Mix and ROI

Speakers:
Rafael Alcaraz, The Hershey Company
Mark Garratt, In4mation Insights

Rafael begins by taking a poll of the audience of how many are familiar with traditional approaches of the marketing mix. The marketing mix is essential for all business, the aggregation is no longer sufficient. We need to understand the performance of the skew level and we also need to account for merchandising and advertising. With the traditional approach, we miss and don't account for certain elements in marketing. Leveraging the Bayesian model provides estimates for things that don't exist yet.

Symposia Session – Updates on the Impact from Two Paradigm Shifts on Quality

Speakers:
Rahul Sahgal, Annik
Tom Anderson, Anderson Analytics
Kumar Mehta, Cross Tab


As with any industry cost is important and that is why we outsource but here are some areas where it is important to have someone there internally to make sure that all areas are being met:

• Productivity
• Reliability
• Responsiveness
• Quality Measurement

Positive impact on quality of offshoring and outsourcing
- Faster turnaround time
- More time to spend on thinking of the numbers
- Allows business to be more relevant

Negative impacts of offshoring and outsourcing
- Checks and balances
- Understanding the cultural differences
- Communication styles

When businesses are looking to outsource they must be sure to introduce quality tools to the process. It is important to know what your suppliers are doing in this industry. Internal training gives you the ability to collect insight on what issues they are facing in that country.

Live at TMRE in Vegas

Well, hello. Here I am, blogging again for IIR live at The Market Research Event 2009 in Las Vegas. We are at the Red Rock Resort and Casino and it is rockin'! Wow, what a great conference site--here's the view from my room!

It is cool to be back for the 2nd time. Last year was my first Market Research Event. This

year, I recognize a few faces and have met a few of you throughout the year.

So, if you're reading this and you're here in Vegas for the event, please let me know if you have something valuable to add to the blog.

Hope to meet you. April Bell