What consumers really think about your logo

First impressions count - it’s a well known fact that in the first five minutes of a meeting you can have possibly landed the job or blown it! The same applies to brands; with increased used of the Internet and consumers becoming increasingly marketing-savvy, corporate image is of utmost importance.

 

I have recently discovered an interesting new website called BrandTags, which could be a very powerful tool for businesses wishing to update their logo.

 

BrandTags visitors play a game of word association to sum up their impressions of major brands in one word or phrase — and then the site graphically displays the answers in a tag cloud.

 

Click here to view the answers associated with Virgin

 

I had the opportunity to work on a number of re-branding projects in my qual research career, where we showed respondents new logos and asked for their impressions and feedback, potential improvements.

The only downside of this approach is that, whilst you can certainly get a lot of good qualitative insight, you cannot quantify what people have said… and clients do like robust statistics! Brand Tags offers the chance to provide with both the robustness of quantitative data (I am not sure whether they quantify anything at the mo but that’s something they could easily integrate…) but also the richness and depth of qualitative data.

BrandTags has the support of ad agency Naked. You can also read their blog here.

 

Calling all researchers!

 

Here’s the best Social Networking idea I’ve seen in ages – if you are a researcher, you simply have to sign up! Ray Poynter has put together a site for researchers called the Market Research Space… I just signed up and will work on my page at the week-end.  The site allows you to blog, post videoas etc etc.

I will keep you posted on how the site evolves but I think the concept is a fantastic idea so spread the word!

What not to do in Qual Research

Taxi drivers are very similar to qualitative researchers

Both breeds like talking to consumers/customers and getting under their skin

Can you help?

Hi everyone,Just started my new job today and we are looking for a blog mining company. I would prefer a UK based company if possible. 

Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch!

Researchers 2.0

At last researchers have started looking into the web 2.0 phenomenon! Here’s what’s been happening in the research world:

1) TNS is overhauling its global website as part of a move to attract and engage major marketing decision-makers online. The redesigned site, which will have Web 2.0 technology, aims to be easier to use and to help consumers find information more easily. It will have new features such as rich media, video streaming and interactivity where appropriate.

This is a smart move as I find most MR corporate sites lack identity and all makes the same promises. I am just hoping that TNS have come up with a portfolio of web 2.0 research tools  

2) The one to watch - Nielsen BuzzMetrics offer a wide array of tools to measure consumer-generated media. Shame they seem to primarily focus on blogs…

3) Facebook now offer the option to ask fellow Facebook users (you can select a specific target market by interests location, gender and age) to ask a random question for a small fee and gives you neat quant charts. 

 4) For a little bit of fun, take a look at the Synovate Rap video that was leaked on youtube

 5) Finally, check out Laurent Flores’ Customer Listening Blog who blogs about Market Research amongst other things   

A picture tells a thousand words…

Carrying on with Web 2.0 social networking sites, I recently discovered a new online community called Imagini that offers a completely new way of communicating with images.

The site asks you a series of questions, the answer to which are visual. It then gives you a little folder that contains your visual DNA split into a number of categories: mood, fun, habits, love. Here’s my mood profile:

Click image to enlarge

The concept certainly is interesting and completely different from other online communities out there, as people can link up right away with people with similar interests in an original way.

Imagini also launched a feature that finds interesting travel sites that are matched to your VisualDNA - a gold mine for brands!  

This online community certainly has a lot of potential for marketers and researchers alike. Researchers could for example ask consumers to choose an image to describe a specific brand.  

How else could marketers use this type of technology?  

Mine’s half full!

C.B Whittermore recently tagged me in her post Half Full or Half Empty? Christine asked me to answer the following questions: 

1. How full is your glass?

2. What kind of glass is it?

3. What’s in the glass?

4. Reasons for #1, #2 and #3 

• My glass is always half-full and I’d also like a top up please! Mind you, if we talk about champagne, it tends to be half empty

• It took me a while to choose a mug as they all mean something different to me, and were acquired at different stages of my (short!) life. Besides, tea-time is a tradition in the UK and some Brits I know seem to be obsessed with using the right mug at the right time!

•  The mug I decided to go for is my university mug – it is a white mug with my university’s logo on the front. I guess it just reminds me of my student days and cheers me up in the morning (and I need it at the moment just looking at the awful weather we have over here at the moment!)

• I drink coffee in the morning – no milk, no sugar. If I have time, I’ll make proper Italian coffee otherwise organic instant coffee also does the job. I never leave my flat (apartment) without my morning coffee.

 My reasons for the above? Like C.B, morning for me sets the stage for the whole day. I am a morning person and coffee time is a creative moment where I think about my ideas and projects (work or non-work related) and how to make them come to life.  Now I’d like to tag:

• Katia Adams of ¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
• Chris Brown of Branding and Marketing
• Neil Perkin of Only Dead Fish with the Water
• Mike Wagner of Own your Brand
• Dan Schawbel of Personal Branding

 Let’s finish off with a projective technique. In Qualitative Research we often use projective techniques as a way of uncovering deep-rooted thoughts that may not arise as a result of direct questioning. My question is, if you were a drink, what kind of drink would you be and why?

Mobile Phones - Tool or Lifestyle?

Back in March, I blogged about the relationship consumers have with their mobile phones in the UK, and Chris Brown kindly covered the American market on her blog. 

It was our understanding that while consumers in the UK have an emotional ‘relationship’ with their mobile phones (rather than the actual provider), cell phones are seen as a functional tool in the US, and American consumers pay more attention to the provider itself.  

But is it really the case? Do British consumers really have a ‘relationship’ with their phones? The only way to find out was to conduct a little market research of my own. 

My research objective was to understand how consumers feel about their mobile phones and mobile phone supplier, and I carried out a mini-depth (micro-depth?) interview with a friend of mine who kindly agreed to be filmed.  Here are a few key findings:

• Pay as you go vs. contract: ‘I am on pay as you go because it is flexible and it is in line with my way of living. I don’t like any sort of commitment so pay as you go is exactly what I need‘

•  Mobile phone suppliers: I guess I am pretty faithful. People in my age group are more faithful than people may believe. I haven’t changed my operator since I have been in the UK because I don‘t have any specific complaints. You know what to expect from a pay as you go - the more you phone, the more you pay. It‘s pretty simple‘

• Texting vs. calling: ‘The main feature about my phone is to make phone calls but I do text a lot as well. It’s very useful when you want to send an address for example to someone.’

• Relationship with mobile phone: ‘My mobile phone is somewhere in between my best friend and a secretary because it contains useful information about my life such as my calendar, my phone numbers and things like that which I don‘t know by heart. My mobile phone is a bit like my keys - if I don’t have it, I have the feeling something could happen to me - if you have your keys, your wallet and mobile phone, you feel very safe. My mobile phone is like my keys - something I always have.’

In the ‘real world’, I would have conducted 10-15 hour long depth interviews or 4 mini-groups with a mixture of pay as go vs. contract users, followed by a quantitative study to segment the UK market. Enjoy!   

Further reading here

Qualitative Research 2.0

 

Z-listers have been meeting up on this side of the pond! I recently hooked up with Reshma Anand of the Qualitative Research blog, and we shared our ideas on the future of Qualitative Research.

1) Scary Technology

Qualitative Research is an exciting discipline that hasn’t reached its full potential yet. A lot of researchers see themselves as data suppliers while they should act as marketing strategists. No wonder why, research as a whole is seen so negatively when we are failing to embrace new technologies.

 

•  Proposals: Proposals are our sales tool, and as researchers, it is our job to win a project by understanding the client’s business objectives, offering the best methodology at the best price. I recently got involved on a pitch for a major music downloads supplier and we came up with a very creative proposal. When I had a look at the suggested methodology, I was disappointed to see that the research would only be conducted offline when part of this project could have been done online. It is impossible to recreate a group’s interaction online but I felt it would have been nice to get closer to the client’s business i.e. the Internet, by including an online element.

 

•  Moderation: Moderation is a crucial and difficult skill part of qualitative research. Needless to say, moderating is a lot more complicated than a simple chit-chat over coffee.  Viewing facilities only started offering DVD recording a couple of years ago and in terms of audio-recording, the only format currently available is old-fashioned audio-tapes. Sometimes I wonder if we really are in 2007!

 

•  Presentation of findings: A good presentation should be easy to read, provide insightful, actionable recommendations and should be aesthetically pleasing. I worked on a presentation for Schering-Plough last year and we included video-clips of the group throughout the presentation. Our client loved it!

 2) Online Research

The main two online research tools currently offered are quantitative web-surveys and qualitative bulletin boards (and its variants). While quantitative web-surveys are booming, I haven’t had the chance yet to get involved in bulleting boards. But what about blogs? Are they not a fantastic research tool in their own right?

 

I stumbled across an article published in the July 2006 edition of Research entitled ‘Is anyone out there listening?’

 ‘Thinktank [a market research company based in London]  conducted a Qualitative Research Study, speaking to 50 white collars workers in Central London aged between 18 and 55 about their use and attitudes towards blogging in a series of mini-depths interviews. The vast majority of our respondents just didn’t seem interested in listening in on what bloggers have to say. A minority thought they might have stumbled across blogs in the course of their Internet browsing but could not think of any names and would not ever consciously think to refer to them.’  

Before I started blogging, I had no interest whatsoever in reading blogs, but when Blog Till you Drop was born, I also started reading other online blurbs to find out about what people had to say. When I started blogging, I also became part of the blogging community. Interviewing white collars, outsiders from the blogging community, was irrelevant.

If this study had been carried out amongst bloggers the answers would have been totally different. More and companies get involved in viral marketing; whose opinions are these companies looking for? One word: BLOGGERS. So while white collars in Central London may not be interested in what bloggers have to say, smart marketers will.  Blogging is still niche, but ignoring what we have to say would be myopic.

Drop me a line should you be interested in reading the full article.