Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

Spark – Totally Trendistic

Published on Feb 17th, 2012 by Jack

 

Q: What does a farmer, art gallery director, music guru, journalist and a group of market researchers have in common?

A: They were all gathered in a room in February to discuss what’s hot, not and forthcoming in British society.

Detailing all of the trends highlighted by this gathering of seemingly ‘trendy’ occupations would require a Britannica Encyclopaedia sized book. However, in order to make this an acceptable size for the blogosphere, we have managed to narrow it down into 3 key trends:

 

Tom, Dick and Harry – Journalist Extraordinaires

A journalist used to be an individual working for a media publication who reported the news out to the masses. However, with the growing popularity of Twitter, almost anyone has the ability to become a social commentator with the power to pass judgement on current affairs. Resultantly, Twitter is now where many news hungry consumers go to find out up-to-the-minute news reports. The fast-speed, up-to-date nature of Twitter has meant that often it breaks news before the mainstream media – e.g. this past weekend Twitter broke the news of Whitney Houston’s death nearly ½ hour faster than the press. What could this all mean? Is the twittersphere going to replace the paper stand? Are journalists going to be removed from a career by the casual social commentator? #possibly.

The Louvre Factor

In an age dominated by reality television, it was surprising to learn that art gallery admissions have notably increased of late. Furthermore, having an art gallery has become a desirable identity pillar for many regions. Looking at the drivers of these attitudes, several logical – and verging on the obvious -trends were identified. We are living in financially turbulent times and art galleries are good VFM. Further, families are now looking for educationally functional ways to entertain children – what better way to do so than a VFM trip to an art gallery? Adults too, seeking to enjoy an educated and sophisticated day out, are heading to their local art galleries. VFM, educational, sophisticated, entertaining – will Britain’s Got Talent soon be Britain’s Got Artists?

Ace of Bas-ic

In a society dominated by seemingly complex technology and processes, it was a bold statement to say that consumers are going ‘back-to-basics’. The rise of street sellers and sales of basic foodstuffs in restaurants shows that in-fact eating out (one of the reputedly ‘trendiest’ forms of entertainment) is the leading sector heading in this direction. Digging deeper, a whole culture exists where consumers are returning to rudimentary eating habits – farmers markets are in the ascendency in rural areas and home growing of vegetables has been increasing for many years. Will this trend spread to other sectors? With the economic downturn seamlessly continuing, it is possible – keep an eye out for black cabs being turned into horse & carts anytime soon!

A Pinch of Salt

Q: What does a farmer, art gallery director, music guru, journalist and a group of market researchers all from London have in common?

A: They are all, on the whole, well educated and part of a well informed microcosm of the UK population.

And that is exactly the problem. It would be bold to say that these trends are currently happening throughout the entirety of the UK, without first stepping out of the ‘trend bubble’ that existed in that room.  However, maybe this would be a good opportunity to let us know whether you have spotted any of the above trends or variations of?

 

It’s nothing personal – it’s just business.

Published on Oct 11th, 2011 by Ian

Allegedly the mafia’s explanation as to why a hapless victim who has crossed them shouldn’t blame themselves is usually justified as a commercial decision with the “reassuring” rationale “It’s nothing personal – it’s just business”. This scenario (being singled out for business reasons – not execution!) came to mind recently when Northstar researched a global campaign to attract investors to a regional market. The advertising idea was a highly personalised campaign via direct marketing, dedicated print and named URLs – encouraging decision makers to follow their ideals and flattering them by setting it in a context connected to the industry sector they represented. What was fascinating in this age of consumer empowerment, individual dialogue and conversation via social media was the degree of uncertaintyand sheer variety of opinion around “personalised” marketing communications. This got me thinking, as much as anything to provoke a debate, as to the merits of talking to the customer as one given how easy it is to overstep the line and appear even further from the mark by not getting the detail right.

The recent experience at Northstar revealed that consumers started to think harder once they begun to dig deeper. After the initial warm rush from being singled out came questions about the “invasion of privacy” which became for one or two a little more Big Brother than Best Mate. The knee jerk reaction of course is to put this down to age – those that “get” personal connections as par for the course today and aren’t under any illusions the messenger actually cares are younger consumers, whereas  older consumers  are put in the box marked “How Dare You” equating this form of marketing with “junk mail”.  The reality is more complex in that what we expect and want from personal communications is to be treated as adults. We recognise that friendship is a broader concept today; we also like being recognised for who we are or for the group or community we support – but most importantly we want you (the marketer) to get the balance right. If it’s a general call out, then position it that way. On the other hand, if you are going to get up close and personal make sure the detail is spot on. This raises its own challenges. In an era where the individual is king and everyone wants to show they understand their customer, how can you ensure these dialogues appear special and not contrived?

The problem of course with the mafia approach is that the consumer proposition is flawed from the outset. Far from being “nothing personal”, actually you are being rubbed out for who you are or what you’ve done. For the mafia that might be a mere business decision but to the person at the other end of the gun it feels very personal!

 

PLAYING MIND GAMES

Published on Jun 21st, 2011 by Peter

The recent referendum into the voting system has reignited a fascination of mine – what really lies behind the decisions people make? The Government’s obsession with “Nudge” Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s book on decision making has been cited as instrumental in the way the “No” campaign framed the AV debate and brings my lifelong obsession up to date.

How people make decisions, including myself, has always fascinated me.  We are bombarded by many inputs day in and day out, and have to make choices quite regularly – the food we eat, the places we go, the people we see and even where we sit in a restaurant.  But how many of these decisions rely on heuristics and past experiences versus probabilistic reasoning?

I was having dinner in a restaurant the other day with my significant other and we were seated at a 2-seater table by a long wall – my fiancée was sat on the long sofa against the wall (that stretched across the whole of the wall and included five other 2-seater tables) and I was sat in a chair directly across from her.  As we waited for our starters, I looked up on either side and noticed that there were women seated against the wall at all the 2-seater tables, and across from each sitting on the chair was a man whom they were having dinner with.  How odd, I thought.  What are the chances that it is all women who were sat on the sofa up against the wall of the restaurant?

I then started to figure out what the odds were of this actually occurring given that each of us were coupled off as man and woman (all this whilst I was still paying attention to what my fiancée was saying).  Well, each table presents a unique opportunity for either a man or woman to sit on the sofa against the wall, so the odds should be 50% for each table.  Now, the number of permutations across all 5 tables would be 25 combinations, which will equate to 32 unique seating configurations. So if you apply this probability across all the possible combinations, you get a very small chance that all women (or all men) would be seated on the sofa against the wall (around 3%).  I thought, “What are the chances that this scenario would defy the odds – how unlikely?”

I then started thinking this through as I’m sure that there was an explanation for this occurrence – it could not simply be that ‘it defied the odds’, as I had also recalled other similar situations from the past.  Well I came to the conclusion that there were two other reasons why this occurred.  This first is related to ‘social conventions and norms’, whilst the second was a function of ‘following the pack’.  In Western culture it is customary (an unwritten rule if you will) for the man to offer up the more comfortable seat to his female partner or date – and let me say that the sofa was a far more comfortable place to sit.  But even if the man had ‘forgotten’ this, he was quickly reminded by the other couples already seated when he and his date arrived.  We were the second couple to be seated and three other couples were seated after us.  At this point, I also recalled the other men (seated after me) looking across the tables before they sat in their chairs – something that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time.  Hmmm, I thought – problem solved…but not by probability.  What a mind game?

Now there are many decisions we make that do rely on probabilistic reasoning, and some can have very real and serious consequences.  Others can be fun and provide a different way of viewing the world.  Something that can be predicted using probability is a coin toss…or even several coin tosses.  Let’s assume I flip two coins without letting you see the results of those flips.  I then tell you that one of the coins definitely came up tails.  What would you expect is the probability of the other coin also being tails as a result of my flips?

The trick is to understand whether these coin flips are independent or interlinked.  If they were truly independent and one already came up tails, then we could speculate that the odds of other coming up as tails would be 50% (a 1 in 2 chance).  So the odds of getting two tails are 50%?  Correct?  Not exactly!  If you think about the combinations that are possible with two coins, you will find out that odds are less.  There are actually four possibilities from two coin tosses (HH, TT, HT or TH).  We already know that one is tails, but there are 3 combinations of tails in our possible scenarios so there actually is a 33% (1 in 3) chance that both will be tails.  As logical and plausible as the first answer is, it is not the correct answer.  Correct probability calculations can have implications for everyone in all aspects of life, but these calculations are fundamental to market researchers who rely on them to make confident projections.  Something to think about…

 

Book Review: Consumer.ology by Phillip Graves

Published on Jun 15th, 2011 by Jack

When the front cover of a publication cites the industry you work in as a ‘myth’ and offers to tell you the ‘truth about consumers’ natural instinct means you HAVE to read that book. The main force driving this urge for me was that I might discover 200 pages of new knowledge about market research. 200 pages later, the ‘wow factor’ was nowhere near as high as anticipated, but this was not to say that some important points weren’t raised.

Throughout the course of reading Consumer.ology, the point is repeated that many research environments do not suitably mimic real consumer situations. This is not ground breaking news. Researchers know that traditional methods do not always mirror real behaviour. Resultantly, methods such as conjoint, eye tracking and shop-alongs have been developed to help researchers gain a more ‘realistic picture’. Consumer.ology does, in places, choose to forget this – conveniently.

To gain the ‘realist edge’ Consumer.ology suggests that more observational style methodologies are undertaken, so as to allow, literally, a real look at what consumers do. That said, in order to do this effectively covert observational methods are required. This opens a can of ethical worms, not always one which clients and agencies wish to deal with. Furthermore, in a numbers driven culture how will percentage loving execs get the numbers they need to support their arguments using this approach? Whilst the realism offered by covert observation is insightful, the ethical nature of administering the methodology and the subjective level of the output are not always appropriate.

Consumer.ology argues, quite convincingly, that many consumer choices are in fact subconscious – making it very hard to research these issues. Again, this is not earth shattering news since neuromarketing has been in semi-prominence for the last 10 years. However, it does raise the issue that as researchers we need to consider developing and applying this field more frequently to get to the bottom of consumer issues, and not always believe what we see in the data – sometimes the insights lay beneath the surface.

Consumer.ology contains the paraphrase; “believe nothing we hear from consumers, half of what we see them do, and almost everything that the sales data says that they’ve done”. Essentially dismissing attitudinal questioning, Consumer.ology suggests researchers focus their attention on sales data for current insights. Agreed, this will give us the best up-to-date information on what consumers are doing currently or in the past. But what if we want to know their anticipations for the future or how they perceive a brands image? Attitudinal research has a place, whether it is regarding emotive feelings about a brand, nomenclature or future purchase aspirations and should not be written off as a research tool. That said, we can learn from Consumer.ology that when researching the present, behavioural data can be a great verifier for consumer opinion. The recent advent of social media research has meant that to a degree this has been actioned more, as researchers are more frequently supporting their work with social currency – maybe the word of Consumer.ology has spread already?

To summarise, Consumer.ology does offer some interesting new ideas for researchers. However, in many instances it also recites traditional critiques and chooses to ‘ignore’ some methodological developments in its argument. That said, its well formed structure and the new perspectives it does offer (albeit not 200 pages worth) do make it a good read for anyone involved in market research.

 

Clicks’n'Stuff

Published on Apr 26th, 2011 by Adnan

Privacy under Security

The biggest experiment is under threat. The internet is not as free as it used to be – or as we expect it to be. The pressure of profit and “anonymous” activity are giving increasing cause for concern.

We need to give the transparent surfers their clothes back!

As we know browser based internet can actually be defined by two names which changed the way people communicate and use the most medium. Google’s Pandora’s Box opening algorithm and Zuckerberg’s platform that revolutionised simple interactions account for the vast majority of landing pages. Google’s desperation to reach beyond “search-land” was most apparent in their frustrated attempt to take over Groupon last year. There is nothing inherently evil about Google’s aspiration for growth. It’s perfectly natural. However problems have ensued. Witness the scandal over the data collection method for the new application Street View. Google ‘unintentionally’ collected private data from open Wi-Fi zones whilst scanning the world. Private data of countless individuals found their way onto Google’s servers. Some people have been disturbed more than others. Take the Germans. One Johannes Caspar, the data protection commissioner for Hamburg, is less than supportive of the way the online giant collects data for its web analytics reportal tool that it offers to website owners for free. The owners can then track the traffic onto their sites. To make this possible, Google places cookies on the user’s computers and collects data including the IP addresses. And for some German and European Union authorities this undermines the user’s privacy rights. The authorities demand opt-out options for users. In both cases Google reacted in a rather reluctant fashion to the authorities demands.

Google’s desire for financial growth has started worrying many users already. So far we can only guess at how many users have lost trust and can only hope that there is not much more to come from Palo Alto.

Hope, however, might not be enough for Facebook’s shareholders. A very likely IPO calls for actions. It is no secret that Zuckerberg’s sensitivity towards privacy is not on the same level as the Facebook community wishes it to be. There have been a few cases where the community rebelled against the owner’s intention to make data available or usable for third parties. There was not much cheering either for the launch the Places application. There is an inherent tension for Zuckerberg in owning probably the best kept database on the net whilst having to share it with 500 million users who don’t want it to be open for advertisers. Even more problematic is that there is another group of around 500 people who want to see their shares rising after a possible IPO in 2012 as it is being announced repeatedly. Facebook does already return a considerable amount of its revenue from display advertising but it could be so much more valuable if advertisers could have a more effective way of placing their ads.

Wiki Leaks on the other hand, is another case study in showing the masses what a group of individuals are capable of doing. When MasterCard, PayPal and other businesses broke ties with Wiki Leaks, Anonymous, a supporting hacker group, took revenge. It seemed that it was not a big undertaking to hack the websites of the companies that caused MasterCard big damages. And when Aaron Barr, head of HBGary Federal, a contractor for US Intelligence and other government agencies, disclosed that he had names of some of the leading heads of Anonymous, the group reacted promptly. Aaron Barr’s computer was hacked. His emails and documents were distributed by the group , demonstrating for some that Anonymous represents the synonym for how insecure the web actually can be!

These might be the worst examples but at least they have served to help the public to be aware of the potential risks in the web. An increasing number of users make purchases on the web; they make use of online banking services and share private information with their friends via email and social media channels. And they will undoubtedly, despite the love-hate relationship with the two companies, continue using Google and Facebook; but headlines about hacked servers of corporations leave a bad taste whilst surfing on the web. A McKinsey study from the beginning of this year revealed that users are actually willing to pay more for security and to protect their private data. Projected into a cumulated number potentially 20 Billion Euros could be leveraged. So maybe the next opportunity for the online giants lies in stepping back to the basics and guaranteeing their users security in their web experience? Maybe the guarantee of web security is the stairway to trust AND growth.