Marketing in Real Life

I love Domino's new ads as both a consumer and someone who works in the market research industry. And before research purists jump down my throat, I know that Domino's new Focus group centric ads seem to show a single focus group, that the information used is merely directional and we'd like to assume that this research is probably part of a bigger study or perhaps even faked for the purposes of the advertising. I also don't know what other techniques were used, nor do I really care that much. What I do care about is the impact of the ads on the "brand" of the industry. In recent years the industry has come under fire and mocked continuously on televisions (see the office's brilliant customer satisfaction scores episode), so I am excited to see a positive portrayal of what we do and how company's use information to better serve their customers. In addition to the fact that Domino's has done an excellent job being self-deprecating and recognizing co...

Originally posted at: blog.cmbinfo.com The question posed to the group of 5 Bloggers this month was: "Mobile surveys - For/Against, Pros/Cons, Right Situations/Wrong Situations?" Links to my fellow bloggers Annie Pettit, Joel Rubinson, Bernie Malinoff and Brandon Bertelsen can be found below. Mobile devices are changing the way people interact with brands, each other, and market research. From the reduction of land lines among younger consumers to the prevalence of internet usage via smart phones and the proliferation of text messaging as an option. Below I have laid out some of the factors contributing to the research industry understanding and adopting mobile research as a concept. 1. "Guys, where are we?" - Charlie on ABC's Lost Three or four years ago there were a plethora of SMS (text-message) based survey tools developed and launched in the market. Many were self serve but simple, others tried to simulate the full traditional survey experience with skip pa...

As we all know, product testing doesn't always go well. When searching on youtube for videos about market research I stumbled across this wonderful clip testing Drambuie, an herb-flavoured golden scotch whisky, in Australia. Enjoy!

When I was younger I used to make the case to my mother that playing video games was good for me. Turns out people are starting to agree! My firm, Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB), recently conducted research and found that 59% of Americans were contemplating making a resolution to lose weight. The difference this year is their approach. While the majority (41%) still plan to lace up their running shoes and pound the pavement, there is a growing trend of consumers turning to interactive fitness products to shed those extra pounds, all without leaving the comfort of their home. In fact, more Americans said they plan to use an interactive fitness solution like EA SPORTS Active™ or Wii Fit™ (13%) rather than purchasing traditional fitness equipment (6%) or joining a traditional diet program like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or NutriSystem (5%). Read more here... To me this isn't shocking at all. As time crunches increase and the complexity of the fitness games increases, this is becoming...