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| In an article in the New Yorker today I read about the concept of innovative consumption. One sentence especially grabbed my attention: 'Venturesome consumers also provide companies with feedback that helps improve products, and often even repurpose them, in ways their inventors hadn’t imagined.' Dynamic engineering, so to speak.
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While my colleague Jerry is currently leaving for Chicago, the great finale of the '76 movie Silverstreak came to my mind:
Still great! They did use a real engine, no computer graphics at that time, this shows again how technology evolves. Enjoy... |
| In 1986 the BBC launched an ambitious project to record a snapshot of everyday life across the UK for future generations. A million volunteers took part…
Should be interesting to compare everyday life 25 years ago with today, I wonder if other countries in the world tried something similar? |
| This time I found something for the tech experts. It may be something to consider for supplying a large number of panelists with, could add a nice feature at low costs. Well, if you are interested, have a look:
And it would be nice if you send me a video of your own IR tracker, once you built it. Thanks! |
| Watch this video, and you will find how it expresses numbers in visual form that otherwise become more and more meaningless:
Problem with market research results is often the same, the research community doesn’t have a stellar reputation for its ability to present data visually. Clients are trying to push researchers away from presenting all the findings in hundreds of slides and towards putting just the information you need upfront, but researchers are relucantant to follow, after all, if someone has paid a lot of money for research, you want to prove there’s a lot of work behind it. But wouldn't a one minute video like Debtris above be a better way of bringing results of a reserach accross? But of course, it is much more difficult to come to a conclusion than just to bombard the client with the sheer amount of data. It is quite simple, the less slides, the more time you need to prepare them. |
| Have a look at this story and the hilarious ad placement:
This clearly teaches a lesson of the importance of carefully planning one's media placements!
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| I just read about a recent survey of 800 directors and managers within blue-chip companies by Accenture, which showed that '23% of respondents described personal experience as very important when making decisions about customer wants, versus 22% who said simple data and facts, and 17% who credited more complex data analysis'. Accenture found that even when companies are analytically active – using it for marketing, sales and customer services, say – those same organisations might not necessarily be applying it broadly across all their marketing and customer activities, in areas such as pricing or product development for instance.
A real startling result, isn't it?
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| When I recently read about Facebook paying their users for ad views, I was asking myself, if this is not like opening a can of worms. Users may start to expect payment for viewing ads, even if it just a small amount, in the future millions of users may make a company go bust simply by sharing the ad it created. On the other hand, does it really enhance viewing? People are smart, they may simply click on the ad and then do something else while it lasts, money for nothing, then. I wonder if the idea really pays off in the end, your feelings about it? |
| Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke was speaking to a gathering of industry watchers in New York recently and he reinforced the theory that less affluent consumers operate on a payday-based buying cycle. The more upscale the consumers, the less likely the effect. The consequence could be: offers that are viewed shortly after payday are more likely to have a better impact. Anybody object this idea?
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| When talking to a colleague the other day about my last entry, he pointed me to an article shattering my optimism:
"It’s a familiar refrain at conferences, but a new survey from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) adds stats to back up the claim that even the biggest companies in the world fail to make the most of their market research.
The study of 800 executives from 40 companies, each with sales of more than $1.5bn, found shortcomings in the use of research to drive business growth.
For instance, while 72% of respondents said consumer insight is used to help with the development on new products and marketing messages, only 30% use it to help decide channel and distribution strategy.
BCG found that just one-third of respondents use research as an input to financial forecasts while only 38% use it to drive pricing.
But perhaps most worrying was that only 35% of the executives surveyed said they had good data on how consumer needs and behaviour change over time, while less than half (47%) claimed to know what drives market share, who is buying and why.
Co-author and BCG partner Mary Egan contrasted this state of affairs with the “critically important” role research has to play in a recessionary environment. “Only companies with the sharpest focus on understanding consumer value will retain customer in this environment,” she said."
Dear Mary Egan, you are absolutely right, indeed.
Isn't it time for a change? Shouldn't we take new chances enhancing the power of integrated knowledge? I certainly think so.
Cheers,
Juergen
Read the full report here:
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