Why I’m running for ESOMAR Council

CareerCast.Com has released its list of “most underrated jobs” for 2012.  Number 5 on the list?–Market research analyst.  Ahead of MR on the list are computer systems analysts, civil engineers, veterinarians, and biologists.  These jobs make the list on the basis of projected growth in employment, relatively good compensation, and lower stress levels than more glamorous or otherwise high-profile occupations.  Here’s what CareerCast says about market research as a career:  “One of the fastest growing fields per the [Bureau of Labor Statistics], market research analyst makes a vital impact on the direction of business decisions by applying data of economic and technological trends.” (emphasis added)

ESOMAR Congress 2012 took place in Atlanta, Georgia during the second week in September.  This was the first time the Congress has been held in the United States, reflecting the extent to which ESOMAR has become the most important global organization of market and social researchers.  This also happens to be the 65th anniversary year for ESOMAR.

The current and past ESOMAR Councils, together with the Director General, Finn Rabin, and the rest of the ESOMAR team, have done a terrific job in building a robust and resilient organization and a public voice for market research.  My desire to serve ESOMAR as a council member does not reflect any dissatisfaction with the direction of the organization.  Rather, I believe that I can make a contribution to the continued growth and health of ESOMAR.

My involvement in ESOMAR has grown steadily since I attended my first ESOMAR-sponsored conference ten years ago (Automotive–where I had the privilege of presenting my first ESOMAR paper).  More papers and events followed (Consumer Insights, Asia Pacific, and Congress).  I was honored beyond imagination to have my 2010 Congress paper, “Riding the Value Shift in Market Research,” selected for the Excellence Award.  More recently I’ve served on the juries for the Effectiveness Award and for this year’s Excellence Award and I presented a workshop on the cognitive aspects of survey design (“Think Like a Respondent”) at the Online conference in 2010.

Outside of ESOMAR I’ve been involved with the American Marketing Association, CASRO, and the American Psychological Association for many years.  I served as president of my local AMA chapter, leading the successful turnaround of a struggling chapter.

As I expressed in my Candidate Statement, I have three particular areas of interest that support ESOMAR’s overall mission of encouraging, advancing, and elevating market research throughout the world.  These areas are:  professional development, collaboration with other related MR organizations, and finding new business models that will enable sustained growth for MR.

ESOMAR’s continued growth will depend on both capturing and reflecting the diversity of global market research.  The election rules insure a measure of geographical diversity.   It’s equally important to have diversity of experience and industry perspective.  I believe that I bring a unique point of view–as do the other nominees–that will help me contribute even more to ESOMAR’s future success if I am fortunate enough to serve as a council member.

Thank you!

dgb

2 October 2012

 

Starbucks new logo

Last week Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz unveiled a new logo for the brand.  By now we should know that any attempt to mess with a popular brand (formula, name or logo) is going to elicit at least a few expressions along the lines of “what are they thinking?”

Schultz tried to communicate just what they were thinking in an online video, saying that the new design respects the brand’s hearitage but also looks toward a future for the firm that’s not just coffee.  And on the Starbucks website one of the company’s creative managers, calling the logo change “the project of a lifetime,” says:  “From the start, we wanted to recognize and honor the important equities of the iconic Starbucks logo.”

Firms do change logos without the flack that The Gap generated a couple of months ago, but that change (abandoned in the wake of criticism) and Starbucks new logo may offer important lessons about when and why to change logos, and what not to change.  As I’ve expressed in a previous post, I’m skeptical about neuromarketing, but logos are one area where I think companies might do well to invest in a little neuroscience before making big changes.  Logos provide a sort of cognitive shortcut, and we humans are cognitive misers.  The more “iconic” a logo is, the more effective the cognitive shortcut.  To be iconic, a logo needs to be distinctive (not easily confused with other symbols) and consistently associated with with a specific set of brand experiences.  Moreover, the iconic elements of a logo are usually basic properties like shape, color, typeface and spatial relationships within the logo.  The true test of an iconic element is the extent to which you can minimize or degrade the image (showing just a small part, for example) and evoke the complete logo or the associated brand.  For example, in the hit CBS drama NCIS the main characters drink coffee from cups that have some sort of green and black circular logo with white lettering–just enough to suggest Starbucks.  I think one problem with The Gap’s proposed logo was that it changed several iconic elements at once (background color, typeface, and spatial relationships within the logo).

Having been on the inside of a few re-positioning efforts–some involving new logos or package designs–I think that we often over-intellectualize the meaning of the elements in a logo.  Starbucks appears to believe that the mermaid (or siren) in the center of the logo is the symbol of the brand, but some of the comments posted to their website indicate that many customers never really noticed that the element in the center of the logo was a mermaid.

I don’t know whether Starbucks (or The Gap, for that matter) did any consumer research in the course of developing their new logos.  However, the typical research methods for this type of thing rely on verbal responses, while logos operate mostly at a nonverbal level.  Perceptual research methods are more appropriate for this type of problem than focus groups and surveys.

Many companies have modified their logos, of course, but those that succeed seem to recognize that it’s more important to understand the Gestalt of the logo than any potential symbolic meaning of the logo or individual elements.  You can tweak a typeface, for example, to look more modern, or play with the saturation and tint of the color scheme, but if several elements change at the same time, or the spatial relationships change, you can expect the kind of feedback that The Gap and Starbucks have experienced.

Starbucks may well stick by its new logo.  In that case, I suspect customers still will be able to find a store when they want, or recognize Starbucks coffee on their supermarket shelf.  My main issue with these logo changes is that they are superficial.  Consumers don’t buy “Starbucks” or “the siren”–they buy a particular constellation of experiences and solutions to problems.  If you get the latter right and you’re lucky enough to have an iconic logo, why abandon it?

Copyright 2011 by David G. Bakken.  All rights reserved.

 

Speaking at ESOMAR Congress in Athens, 14 September

I’ll be speaking at the upcoming ESOMAR Congress (Athens, Greece, 12-15 September 2010).  You can find an abstract of my presentation, “Riding the Value Shift in Market Research:  ‘Only the Paranoid Survive'” by clicking here.  Click here to see the full conference program.

 

What’s New in Market Research: Report from the Advanced Research Techniques Forum (Part 2)

As I noted in my last post, the American Marketing Association’s Advanced Research Techniques Forum took place in San Francisco the second week in June (June 6-9).  The program is an intentional mix of presentations from academic researchers and market research practitioners.  While the practitioner presentations are often more interesting, at least from the standpoint of a fellow practitioner, this year the best and most useful presentations either came from the academic side or had significant contribution from one or more academic researchers.  In that last post I wrote about three papers that explored different aspects of social media.  Three more papers from this year’s ART make my list of the most worthwhile presentations.

 

What’s New in Market Research: Report from the Advanced Research Techniques Forum (Part 1)

The 20th occurrence of the Advanced Research Techniques Forum, an annual conference sponsored by the American Marketing Association, took place in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago (June 6-9).  For those of you not familiar with A/R/T, this conference brings academic researchers together with market research practitioners in a format that produces (nearly) equal representation of contributions from each of these two groups.  Half of the twenty presentation slots are reserved for “practitioner” papers (where the lead author is not an academic researcher) and half are held for papers from academics.  One of these academic slots is assigned to the winner of the annual Paul Green award for the best article published in Journal of Marketing Research in the previous calendar year.  More papers than in the past are collaborations between academics and practitioners, and choice of one or the other as lead author can impact the chances of getting on the program given the limited number of slots.

The program is assembled by a committee comprised of academics and practitioners (disclaimer–I’ve been on the committee a few times and was program chair for 2008).  In a typical year, the call for papers might yield around 70 submissions.   In addition to the presented papers, “poster” presentations are considered, and the program includes optional tutorials (extra cost) before and after the main conference sessions.

The A/R/T papers, especially those presented by academic researchers, can be dragged down by the weight of too much algebra.  Over the years, the “advanced” has more often referred to “models” than to “research techniques” in general, and this year was no exception.  Still, there were a few presentations that are noteworthy.

 

Spirit’s carry on charge–smart move or not?

You’ve probably heard about Spirit Airlines’ decision to charge customers for carry on baggage–$30 per bag if purchased in advance, or $45 “at the door.” You’ll still get your one free “personal item.”  This latest example of an airline unbundling one more feature of its service offering resulted in a promise to Sen. Charles Schumer (D, NY) from five other major airlines that they will not follow Spirit’s lead, at least for now.

Spirit claims on its website that this charge will lower overall costs to passengers and improve service.  Here’s how this is supposed to work:  fares will be lowered somewhat, as will fees for checked baggage.  Since carry on bags have a big impact on how long it takes to board and to deplane (according to Spirit, but many passengers will probably agree), reducing the number of carry on bags on a flight will reduce turnaround time and get passengers off the plane more quickly once it has arrived at its destination.  Security lines will also move more quickly (ignoring the effect of passengers traveling on other carriers who will still have their carry on bags).

One wonders whether Spirit gathered any consumer intelligence or conducted any experiments to arrive at this decision.  Airlines have had varying success at generating revenues by implementing fees for service features that were once bundled into the fare.  US Airways, for example, seems to have retreated from charging for non-alcoholic beverages (including bottled water).  JetBlue has started charging for headphones but recent experience suggests that on some flights they still may give them out for free once the plane has left the gate.  Fees for checked bags may stick–as long as you get that free carry-on–but any additional fee gives a competitor a potential point of differentiation.  Have you seen the Southwest commercial, “Battle Cry,” where the ramp crew, in the manner of sports fans, flash the passengers on a rival airline with “BAGS FLY FREE” spelled out across their chests?

People’s Express was one of the first post de-regulation airlines built around a low cost no-frills business model, and perhaps the first to charge for checked baggage ($3 per bag).  Many elements of PE resembled Southwest’s model–one type of aircraft, open seating, and really large overhead compartments for those carry-on bags.  Food and drink were available for purchase, and all the seats on a given flight were the same price.  In many ways, the experience was more like being on a train or bus than an airplane, and with one-way fares between Newark and cities like Boston as low as $19, a lot of passengers were likely switching from those modes.   There’s no question that PE helped democratize flying, overcoming the affordability barrier for many passengers.  Following it’s initial success, People’s Express went on a buying spree (taking on a lot of debt) and the legacy carriers discovered yield management, enabling them to match or come close to PE’s fares for at least some passengers.  With all that debt, PE abandoned its original customer value proposition and profit formula and began to look more like other airlines.  Ultimately, PE was acquired by Texas Air and ceased to exist as a brand.

Whenever an airline makes a move like charging for carry-on bags or for using the lavatory (Ryanair), I can’t help but wonder if they even have a customer value proposition.  One problem may be that flying on an airplane is only a means to an end (the job that the consumer wants to do at the other end of the flight) rather than an end in itself.  This makes it hard to find a price that both matches the value to the passenger (which is a function of the value of completing the job at the destination) and the cost of providing the service, plus some profit.  The carriers have long inferred that business travelers place more value on the job to be done at the destination, and they have implemented a variety of pricing strategies to segment their customers based on the assumption that leisure travelers are far more price sensitive.  However, most of the assumptions about pricing do not reflect any understanding of the ways customers evaluate pricing relative to the value of the jobs to be done.  In the absence of such understanding, carriers have resorted to “mechanical” solutions to pricing and revenue generation.

Actions like Spirit’s carry-on fee often provide new instances of the law of unintended consequences.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.  Will Spirit retreat, or will other carriers follow suit?

Copyright 2010 by David G. Bakken.  All rights reserved.

 

Borders on the brink

Yahoo Finance published an article today from Investopedia by Mark Riddix titled “Business on the brink: Change or fail?”  Of the five companies profiled, the only one that evokes a twinge of sadness for me is Borders Books (the others are Blockbuster, Rite-Aid, Palm, and trucking company YRC).

 

Are market research agencies the “back room” to the back room?

An insightful new report from Boston Consulting Group reveals that “most companies have not yet unlocked the value of consumer insight.”  The report is based on a quantitative survey of more than 800 executives from 40 global companies with at least $1.5 billion in sales.  The survey was supplemented with around 200 qualitative interviews, and the participants included line managers as well as members of the consumer insight function in these companies.

The authors found that companies fall into one of four stages of consumer insight capability:

• traditional market research function
• business contribution team
• strategic insight organization
• strategic foresight organization.

The companies falling into the last two stages are getting the biggest return on their investments in consumer insight.  However, according to this report, only about 10% of the surveyed companies are in one of these two stages of insight capability.  In Stage 1 companies, the insight function is more or less an “order taker” relegated to “back room” status, and the focus is on tactical research.  Things are a little better in Stage 2 companies in that  sometimes projects are more strategic, but the insight function is still project-focused.

If the consumer insight function is relegated to back room status in the majority of companies, does that make research agencies a back room to the back room?

 

And the winner of Superbowl XLIV is…Google

The winner of the advertising Superbowl that took place on Sunday, February 7, that is.  This is not just my opinion.  Comments captured from the digital ether by Alterian SM2 give the Sunday night victory to Google’s “Parisian Love” spot that ran at the end of the third quarter (mashable.com has a summary of the results).  Alterian SM2 looked at three measures for each of the 44 advertisers who aired commercials during the 2010 Superbowl:  total mentions, reach, and sentiment.  Google was the leader in mentions by a wide margin (almost 7,000 mentions, compared to 2,100 for the next highest ad–the Tim Tebow ad from Focus on the Family–and an average of  just over 500 mentions for all advertisers).  Google also came out ahead on Alterian’s Social Engagement Index (SEI), which weights the conversations by the popularity of the source.  The SEI for Google’s spot was 1,703 (versus an average of 100 for all ads).  Finally, Alterian weighted the SEI by sentiment to create a second index.   Google came in second on this measure, behind Doritos (SSEI of 673 and 941, respectively, against an average SSEI of 100).  It’s probably worth noting that Doritos ran three different ads during the telecast, against Google’s one spot, and these results do not separate out specific commercials.

Of course, not everyone who has expressed an opinion about the commercials aired during Superbowl XLIV put Google’s ad at the top.  The spot was not, for example, among the “top 10” Superbowl commercials listed at Fanhouse.  But in it’s way, Google’s ad may be the best example of what advertising is supposed to do.  Google’s dominant position in online search (and the revenues that search advertising generates) is under attack from Microsoft’s Bing, and Microsoft has been running ads showing how easy it is to use Bing to do things like find a dimly lit restaurant (apparently a plus for hungry vamps, if we take a recent ad literally).

 

Social Networking, as seen by The Economist

The current issue of The Economist (January 30 -February 5 2010) features a 15-page special report on social networking.  Typically thorough, the report covers history, the differences between major players (Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace), benefits for small businesses, potential sources of profit for social networking sites, and some of the “peripheral” issues–such as the impact on office productivity and privacy concerns.  For any marketers who’ve been caught by surprise by the emergence of social media and social networking as marketing forces or been watching out of the corner of their eye, this special report might be especially informative.