Focused Group Dynamics

One of the best things about my job as a moderator is getting to create an atmosphere where a group of strangers feel comfortable enough to talk about a focused topic for a couple of hours.

It’s fascinating to be in the driver’s seat, gently nudging each person to give a point of view or express their opinion. And it’s just as interesting to watch the complexity of group dynamics in action. What a joy it is when the group interacts and expresses differing opinions in a constructive way, providing true insight. I believe this doesn't happen automatically. Rather, it comes with a bit of finesse. While there are times when it’s necessary to go to more dramatic means to ensure cooperation and avoid group think, the following steps will help you get there most of the time:

1. Set the Stage—I believe people in most focus groups generally want to give you what you want—insight from their perspective. I also believe that people need “coaching” many times on how best to do that. So, it is your responsibility as the moderator to properly set the stage. Tell respondents that you expect everyone to participate, that you expect them to have at least some differing opinions. Explicitly stating your expectations in the beginning will help you when you have to shut down the loudmouths and call on the wallflowers later in the discussion!

2. Be in Charge—you, as the moderator are responsible for the discussion thread. If you don’t manage it, someone else will. Do not be afraid to shift a respondent from an off-the-topic monologue. Time is not your friend in a group…you only have a set amount of it to extract insights. Therefore, keep yourself and your respondents focused on the objectives of the discussion. Again, be in charge of what you want to hear!

3. Use Non-Verbal Feedback First—this is especially important when gaining reactions to communication pieces or concept ideas. Get a quick read non-verbally by having participants write their opinions first. I also believe that structuring the verbal feedback process is helpful. Ask for positive comments first, then neutrals, then negatives. Structuring the feedback this way helps you stay on a path of constructive feedback rather than everyone jumping on a negative bandwagon.

4. Control the Loudmouth and Nurture the Wallflower—it is important to your clients to hear from everyone (if they all have something meaningful about the topic to say, that is☺) So, again, it is your job as the moderator to ensure that the “loudmouth” doesn’t overtake the conversation. You can do this by simply stating, “Thanks, I really want to hear from XXX.” When trying to get the “wallflower” to speak, it helps to make strong eye contact with them and when all else fails, call on them. “I haven’t heard your thoughts yet, XXX. Please tell me what you’re thinking.” Specifically stating the respondents name who is not participating will usually at least get them focused in again.

April

Market research methods for innovation development

I recently found this white paper by Dennis List about how to do market research for your innovations. With today's current market, we need to keep innovating to stay ahead of the market and suit customers needs. This paper gives quite a few methods to research your new innovations.

The Speakers of the Market Research Event

Over the past month, we've been introducing you to the speakers of The Market Research Event. With the event next month in California, we'd like to give you a rundown of some of the keynote speakers and podcasts we've been working on for you:

Billy Beane
Kathleen Vohs
Read an excerpt from her book: Part 1 and Part 2
Colleen Fahey Rush
Dan Ariely
Lindsay Zaltman
Heather Kluter
Kelley Styring
Marcus Buckingham
Simon Uwins

A guest post by speaker Greg Heist
A podcast with speaker Tom Brailsford of Hallmark
A podcast with speakers Greg Heist of Gongos Research and Bill Eisele of Hallmark
A podcast with keynote speaker Dr. Kathleen Vohs
A podcast with conference producer Krista Vazquez.

For more information on The Market Research Event, check out the http://www.themarketresearchevent.com.

Marketing Research Budgets

While organizations may be contemplating cutting the marketing research budget to help squeeze through these financially turbulent times, a survey by the AMA found that 60% of respondents felt that this was the "biggest mistake" that could be made. In fact, interestingly enough as reported here, many of the respondents felt that, with the current economy it is more important then ever to continue marketing research efforts. Here are their inputs on what is important for corporations in this industry to find:

1. Shape the message; don't slash the price.
2. Focus on who NOT to target.
3. Stand apart from the Crowd

What are your thoughts? Do you feel that it is as important as the AMA survey seemed to stress?

Internet Marketing Research

Yesterday we reported that there has been a growth in the contact center surveying/feedback and analytics market. Today, as I found in this article from The Gazette, the market research industry is experiencing an overall growth globally. In this past year the industry has increased by 5% and the business volume was roughly $28 billion. Much of this growth has been attributed to the advent of the Internet, and more recently its increasing use within this market space. As Jean-Marc Léger, president of Montreal-based Léger Marketing, has said:

"In the 1970s, the question was what consumers were buying; in the 1980s, it was why they were buying it; in the 1990s, it was how they were buying it; and today the question is: what if? We've moved to a much more predictive model."

Internet has provided the ability to answer this latest question in real time. As with many new tools, the use of the Internet in marketing research has raised some ethics and validity questions. Some are saying that with the Internet, making sure that samples are random become harder, and also people maybe tempted to abuse data confidentiality and privacy standards. What are your thoughts? Do you think that the Internet is a blessing or a curse for this industry?

Growth in Contact Center Surveying/Feedback and Analytics Market

Good news for market researchers MarketWatch reports. As announced in the 2008 Contact Center Surveying/Feedback and Analytics Market report, by DMG Consulting, there was a growth in that respective industry by 21.3%. This growth is not expected to slowdown, as it has been predicted that the market will increase by another 20% through 2008. One reasons behind the growth is the innovation surrounding the industry. Enterprises are realizing the importance of open communication, and that by analyzing current practices, improvements can be made to help the business as a whole.

Overcoming Writer's Block

Writing a good report is more than just gathering the findings and spitting them out. There are a number of things that can help take a client relationship from vendor to partner...and one of them is by generating client-centric reports.

1. Learn the client's "internal report style." Important questions to ask yourself as you're developing a final deliverable include: How does your client need to deliver the findings internally within the organization? What typical form/format is the most meaningful for them? Do you know what types of reports are valued the most? If you don't know the answer to these questions, you should! As in all forms of written communication, tailor it to your audience. Although you're writing to higher level marketing execs, reporting still needs to be conveyed in simple, easy to read messages. Because your clients are bombarded daily with information, it is critical that your findings are conveyed simply and in a way that helps them make decisions.

2. Keep it Simple. No matter how much data you've gathered, there are typically a few nuggets that are most meaningful. The best way I've found to keep it simple is to keep the end in mind. I will go so far as to post a large flip chart in my working area with the key objectives listed so that everything I'm reporting ties back to the original objectives. Anything else that is uncovered during the research is secondary to the reason you were hired: to answer their primary questions.

3. Know Your Objectives. But first you have to know your objectives. If you can gain clear understanding of the objectives at the beginning of the project and ensure these are played back to your client throughout, it is a lot easier to deliver to their expectations. You'll find that some clients and some projects have more clarity than others...but I believe it's my job as a researcher to gain clarity upfront regardless of how certain the goals are initially. There have been times where I'm sure a client has thought I had a hearing problem because I asked and re-asked the question: "what are your objectives?"--but those are the projects where I had the most success at the end, primarily because we were walking hand in hand down the same path. Not only does your focus remain constant and clear amongst the large pieces of data you'll be faced with but your client's focus becomes clearer as well.

4. Be Present. If possible, be available for presenting the data. Have you ever wondered whether your data was effective, useful, or meaningful or how they used it internally? So many times, the report is handed off or put into archives and your work is communicated as well as it is interpreted on the other end. To help alleviate confusion and highlight the data you find most meaningful, make yourself available for presentations. Folks usually begin to process and understand the data if they are forced to look at it in a small room together! So, when and if that happens, provide the learnings with confidence, a smile and a pretty presentation.

6. Use CONSISTENT Visuals. It is easier for readers to process what it is you're trying to say if your visual have some level of consistency. When reporting qualitative, tease them with initial visuals and repeat these. The visuals then become icons and readers can easily anticipate what they might learn. When reporting quant, do not mix up the charts, tables, graphs throughout the document. Instead, let the visuals provide a framework to help communicate the message.

7. Framework Although every company has their own way of wanting to see reports, I've found a few consistent principles across clients, industries, etc. that are well-liked. Begin with a TOC, then an exec summary, implications and recommendations and follow up with detailed learnings. Also, separate sections with a "section title" page and use the company's provided template when possible (one more thing that looks familiar).

8. Focus on "Insights", not just "Findings". Everyone wants "insights" and so it begs the question, "what exactly is an insight vs. a finding?." I believe an insight is simply taking what consumers are "saying" and inferring something actionable from it.

And, if you think about it, that's what any marketing department needs--information that they can act on!

Speaker Profile: Heather Kluter

With the The Market Research Event quickly approaching, we would like to introduce you another speaker that we will have this year at our event. This year, The Market Research Event will take place from October 13 - 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. Today, we would like to introduce you to Heather Kluter, who works with customer insights and futuring at Hyundai Motor Company.

Kluter’s team at Hyundai Motor Company leads them into new realms of innovation that focuses on their consumers when developing their products. They follow a “Touch the Market” consumer centric process that looks at product development throughout the world, not just in research and development. One of the greatest examples of this is the development of the 2007 Sante Fe which you can read about here at PDMA Visions.

We invite you to come see Heather Kluter at The Market Research Event as she presents her speech on Thursday, October 16^th, Learning to See and Finding Our Voice: Creating a Customer-Centric Product Development Process.

Why is Marketing Research Important?

Sure the title line seems very basic and straightforward, but it’s always good to have a refresher on why we do certain things. I came across this great post from Linda Morton in the Strategic Market Segmentation Blog in which she lists why market research is so important. She answers some of these questions in her post:

Why Is Marketing Research Important Before You Create Your Product?

Why Is Marketing Research Important To Your Competitiveness?

Why Is Marketing Research Important To Determine Your Target Market?

Why Is Marketing Research Important In Developing and Evaluating Marketing Campaigns?

Take a couple of minutes to look over her post as I’m sure you will find it valuable.

Dr. Pepper Snapple Group’s Targeted Shopper Marketing Approach

This latest article in CPB Matters highlights a sophisticated targeting process Rob Colarossi, vice president of customer development for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, implements in order to get a greater understanding of shopper needs.

Colarossi states that partnering with retailers is extremely important because shoppers want customizable options. He mentions: “One size for all does not fit anymore. National programs are not working anymore. The retailer wants {programs} that are customized. We’ve got to understand what’s important to Kroger and what’s important to Wal-Mart. They have platforms and are very clear about what they want to do.”

Dr. Snapple Group recently partnered with Kroger for a direct mail campaign They targeted shoppers that had a higher propensity to buy the product. He then lists three criteria for choosing a retail partner:

• Do they have scalability?

• Do they truly understand consumer-centric marketing?

• Are they truly trying to build loyalty with their core shoppers?

Is your company taking advantage of partnerships with retail companies?

Hierarchy of Needs for Market Segmentation

Venkatesh Rao posts a very interesting graphic of the famous Maslow hierarchy of needs triangle in Ribbonfarm.com. What’s interesting about this particular image is that it has text alongside each level of the triangle with corresponding markets. Here’s the image, what are your impressions on it?

Using Online Collaging to Better Engage Research Respondents – A Case Study

BuzzBack Research in conjunction with the Market Research Event will host a complimentary web seminar presented by Brendan Light, SVP of BuzzBack Market Research. This web seminar will take place on Thursday October 2^nd from 2:00 to 3:00 PM EDT. Reserve your webinar seat by registering now. Mention priority code MWS0014BL. Here’s a brief recap of the webinar:

While the Internet has become the predominant mode of data collection for market research, the industry focus to date has generally been on using it to do research “quicker and cheaper” versus “better.” Over the past 10+ years we’ve seen industry after industry use the Internet to reinvent the type and quality of interaction. It’s easier and better now to book travel arrangements, stay in touch with friends and pay bills online. Meanwhile, the market research industry has largely ignored the Internet’s power to engage and interact with respondents in more meaningful ways – ways that drive greater understanding and insight.

Using a case study approach, BuzzBack will showcase its recent research on US and UK

What you will learn by attending: consumer attitudes to Sustainability and “Being Green,” and how unique interactive techniques were used to combine traditional quantitative data with new types of qualitative insights to yield new levels of understanding. Examples given will show how improved digital approaches can infuse your research and help you think about online research in a totally different way. This approach was awarded the 2007 MRS/ASC Technology Effectiveness Award.

• Understand new online research techniques to gain richer, more emotional understanding of respondents’ attitudes
• See how to use the Internet can be used to change your research from the boring, click-a-radio-button survey to a respondent interaction that is much more interesting and engaging
• Review examples of research findings from recent research on US and UK consumer attitudes towards what “being green” means to them

Don’t miss your chance to view this free webinar. Click on the link below to register.

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/346754906

Speaker Profile: Lindsay Zaltman

With the The Market Research Event quickly approaching, we would like to introduce you another keynote speaker that we will have this year at our event. This year, The Market Research Event will take place from October 13 - 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. This week, we would like to introduce you to Lindsay Zaltman, the author of Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers.

Lindsay Zaltman is the managing director of Olson Zaltman Associates. In this position, he participates in new business development and client management. He’s also participated in successful projects pertaining to global positioning, and brand and new product innovation. He also was the co-author in a chapter of The Handbook of Marketing Research. He was also the co-author of The Marketing Metaphoria, along with his father, Gerald Zaltman. This book focuses on the unconscious ways for relating to the world, including: balance, transformation, journey, container (in or out), connection, resources and control.

We invite you to come see Lindsay Zaltman at The Market Research Event as he presents his keynote speech on Wednesay, October 15^th, Finding a State of Medaphoria: How to Solve the Insight Depth Deficit.

(Sources: Olson Zaltman, Shop Talk Marketing, Marketing Metaphoria)

Guest Post: Greg Heist

This is posted on behalf of Greg Heist, Director of Research Innovation, Gongos Research. He will be a Speaker at The Market Research Event for the presentation of: “Collaborate & Innovate: Building True Research Partners”

As the Director of Research Innovation for Gongos Research, Greg Heist is responsible for guiding the innovation strategy at the company. From white-board concepts to product development, Greg and his team ensure that innovation supports a primary role – to make the research process more engaging for consumers and more meaningful and powerful for corporations.

A practitioner with over 16 years of research under his belt, Greg is a visionary at heart. He believes we are in the midst of an evolution in the way we conduct research, and he plans to help pave the way.

He and colleague Mitch Sanders, Ph.D., co-authored a white paper appearing in Quirk’s October issue which puts online communities to the test. The article answers crucial questions about data quality and new types of consumer experiences in an online world.

Here is an excerpt from the article titled ”Are Online Communities Driving a New Research Paradigm?”

Over the past several years, online communities have developed into powerful platforms for engaging customers in extended conversations. As more and more corporations embrace online communities, many market researchers are eager to pursue a more sophisticated set of research applications within them.

General Motors was among the first in the industry to take private online communities to this next level in order to substantiate the application of consumer insights. Broadening their scope, they needed online communities not only to act as a vehicle for interaction and observation, but also to carry statistical weight.

GM’s experience, and the experiences of other companies pursuing quantitative results, suggests that the industry still yearns for answers to significant questions about the quality of insights generated by online communities.

The article is useful in that it will point to the potential for online communities to represent a new research paradigm.

DraftFCB Grabs Gold at Market Research Effectiveness Awards

DraftFCB has clinched Market Research gold in this year's Market Research Effectiveness Awards which is:

"the one time in every two years that the market research industry comes together to recognize and reward great talent and the fantastic research that has been done. The Awards is our opportunity to celebrate success and promote our industry to the wider business and social community," according to the Market Research Effectiveness Awards distributed materials.

For more information, please visit the Market Research Society of New Zealand.

Source: Scoop Independent News

Green movement could be for market research too

In an essay I found at Ethical Corporation, they discuss the new trends in companies leading towards a sustainable environment could lead to social opportunities in many markets. The current trend these days is to go green, to make the world a better place and the humans that live in it healthier. Revelations in technology, markets, demographics and values shed light and may cause companies to contemplate the risk before they dive in, however, with the right research, these place could become a new place where risk is minimized, a new place for market insight and a place where innovation is abound. By focusing on these new social opportunities, new doors can be opened such as: new products and services, serving new and underserved markets, new business models in research and development, financing, marketing and distribution.

A great place for this to start is with corporate social responsibility. By showing that companies care, they will simultaneously gain new insights into markets. Social opportunity could be the next great insight into finding your new market. Have you seen any examples of this?

Uncovering the Mystery of Ethnography

We’d like to welcome a new guest blogger, April Bell. With over 13 years in the marketing and research field, she has worked with many Fortune 100 companies to help clients develop new products, create winning brand positioning, test advertising and packaging ideas, and better understand consumers. Her experience includes consumer package goods, retail, financial services, energy, technology and agriculture with brands like: Procter & Gamble, Tyson, KAO Brands, TXU, Hewlett Packard, Kellogg’s, 7-Eleven and John Deere.

April joins us from the The Market Research Event Linked In Group. Her profile can be viewed here. You can also read her blog Qualitative Research Digg here.

Ethnographic research seems to have a lot of buzz these days and still it’s a very mysterious form of research. I receive lots of questions about ethnography so I thought I would spend a few minutes to write a bit about my thoughts on it. The most common questions I get are related to when and why you should conduct ethnography vs. more traditional research ….and of course, how do you communicate learnings effectively.

So, here’s to when and why: With ethnography research, you become a part of your target’s real life context. It is probably the most robust form of qualitative research because it is conducted in a respondent’s natural environment. Whether it’s in their home, their work, their play, or all of the above, you learn from respondents at a much deeper level. Their reactions and behaviors are uninterrupted, unfiltered. It creates a more authentic way to observe human behavior, learn about their emotions on a guttural level. You can see their decision making, and that’s powerful, especially when it’s through the lens of a clear learning objective.

When conducting ethnographic research, you are dealing with less simulation and more authentic scenarios. When you watch someone choosing where they are going to have dinner that evening, you receive new insight into the decision making process vs. hearing them tell you why they make their decisions (as you typically would in a focus group setting). Because we as humans have our own subconscious filtering process when we recount what we do, we may leave out details or omit certain pieces. The cool thing about ethnography, on the other hand, is that when you live for a few moments in your target’s world, you become entrenched into who they are and their decision making process….thus creating true insight.

However, good ethnography takes time and requires careful observation. While most qualitative research is all about what you hear, ethnography is combining what you hear with what you see. Because consumers have many subconscious behaviors and attitudes that will not be revealed in typical research, ethnography highlights these when carefully observed in respondent’s own environment. It reveals the difference between what people say and what they actually do.

Ethnography is ideal when you’re wanting to understand decision making and consumer’s core experiences. It is also great when you need to explore in-depth behaviors, build customer segments or define usage patterns.

So, what do you do with the insight? If you spend the time to do ethnographic research right, the data you have at the end of a project is overwhelming! This becomes a challenge when reporting. One of the best ways to reveal your discoveries to key stakeholders is to create snapshots (or personas). I believe this is a 2-step process. First, you must develop patterns or trends based on the similar consumer attitudes, characteristics or behaviors observed. Second, you can use these patterns to develop personas, which are archetypes of actual consumers. This allows you to blend your learnings into a more vivid example, complete with real name, photo, personality, motivations, etc. It gives those who didn’t experience what you did a more personal encounter.

The attached visuals are an example of building patterns and a persona from some personal ethnographic research (just because it’s what I love to do) on one of my excursions in South America. It is based on several women I spent hours (sometimes days) with in Peru.

Speaker Profile: Dan Ariely

With the The Market Research Event quickly approaching, we would like to begin to introduce you to the keynote speakers we will have this year at our event. This year, The Market Research Event will take place from October 13 - 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. This week, we would like to introduce you to Dan Ariely. Ariely is the author of New York Times best seller Predictably Irrational and a professor of behavioral economics at MIT. He’s also the director of the e-Rationality Group at the MIT Medial Lab.

Ariely has a MA and PHD in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has a PHD in business from Duke University. Dan has spent his career focusing on discovering and measuring how people make decisions, specifically irrationality, rationality decision-making, behavioral economics, and consumer welfare. He also maintains the website Predictably/Irrational. Check out his blog there.

Listen to the podcast he recorded at the London School of Economics and Management called Behavioural Economics: Common Mistakes in Daily Decisions here. Read the transcript of the interview he did with ABC Radio National here. Listen to his interview on the Brad Books Show here. Read the article at CIO Magazine about CIOs and their rationality for making bad decisions.

We invite you to come see Dan Ariely at The Market Research Event as she presents his keynote speech on Thursday, October 16^th, Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions.

Market research in the air

While reading some blogs, one at Innoblog caught my attention. They discuss how in February, Jet Blue and Kraft teamed up to provide free bagels and cream cheese to passengers on their flights. Kraft employees were sent along with the bagels to discuss the promotion.

This blog points out that travelers are a captive audience that are prefect for market research. Since all types of people are needed for the bet input to make products better, these captive audiences are a great way to capture everyone’s opinion. And even in these days with the significant increase in the price of traveling, passengers might be more willing to participate. Have you heard of anyone else collecting their data in this fashion? What do you think about it?

What is Shopper Research?

Researching the web I came across this insightful video “TNS Market Research - What is Shopper research?” from TNS Global. Appropriately titled, the video explores what shopper research is and touches on these 4 pillars: Shopper behavior, idea, expression, and experience.

Take a couple of minutes to view the video. How is your organization using shopper research tactics to get in the mind of the consumer?

Speaker Profile: Colleen Fahey Rush

With the The Market Research Event quickly approaching, we would like to introduce you another keynote speaker that we will have this year at our event. This year, The Market Research Event will take place from October 13 - 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. This week, we would like to introduce you to Colleen Fahey Rush, the Executive Vice President or Research at MTV Networks.

As the Executive VP of MTV Networks, Rush oversees research groups for the company by providing oversight, guidance and council. She finds insights dealing with many demographics including kids, teens, young adults, men, women, and boomer audiences. Her research focuses on engagement and understanding consumer behavior and performance across new and engaging platforms.

Rush began at CBS, and followed by becoming the Director of Research at Telemundo. In 1996, she joined MTV, and before she was promoted to her current positin, she was the Senior Vice President of Research at VH1 and CMT.

Read a number of studies that have been contributed by Rush:

The relationship between youth and digital technology
‘The Hills’ is Alive
Money Meets Mobility Portability’s Sweet Spot
MTV Gives Casual Games a Closer Look
Engagement On For Online Games: MTVN Study

We invite you to come see Colleen Fahey Rush at The Market Research Event as she presents his keynote speech on Thursday, October 16^th, Driving Change and Innovation at MTVN..

(Source: ARF Board)