Is the Ad a Success? The Brain Waves Tell All

New York Times, March 31, 2008 — NEVER mind brainstorms. These days, Madison Avenue is all about brain waves.

That may be overstated, but it is no exaggeration that agencies and advertisers are growing more interested in neuroscience in their never-ending efforts to improve effectiveness.

The ardor of the ad business to adopt the technical tools of biometrics — measuring brain waves, galvanic skin response, eye movements, pulse rates and the like — is increasing as consumer spending, the engine of the American economy, slows.

What All That Chatter Is Really Saying†

Text Analytics Can Turn Customer Feedback Into More-Meaningful Insight

Advertising Age, March 3, 2008 — When Rebecca Gillan walks through the lobby of a Starwood hotel, she doesn't want to hear the guests talking about "good" or even "very good" service. That's because she knows "good" is only worth a six or seven when a guest fills out a customer service survey. She'd rather hear superlatives such as "excellent," "outstanding" or even "cool," because that's where the nines and 10s are.

Trends to Watch in 2008†

Plus Micro Trends That Will Affect America in 2008

Advertising Age, December 17, 2007 — The ANA's Bob Liodice looks at 10 trends marketers need to stay on top of, from surviving slowing growth, rising fuel costs and tightening credit to evolving compensation models.

Raising Your Market IQ†

Too many companies gather intelligence on a narrow slice of consumers. They need to think more broadly.

Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2007 — It sounds so obvious: You have to know your market.

Yet when it comes to actual market intelligence, too many companies do it all wrong. Some miss the big picture by focusing on just a slice of their market, or by limiting their studies to transactions and other customer data already in their possession. Others have the opposite problem: They don't look at their customers closely enough, causing them to miss opportunities right under their noses.

Such efforts reveal little about new market opportunities and risk losing current customers to companies with better data. By contrast, obtaining a better understanding of a complete market and what drives customers' purchasing decisions would help companies discover untapped or underserved customers.

The Power of Suggestion

Forget focus groups. These days, big brands are all involving customers in all stages of the marketing process

Deliver Magazine, December 1, 2007 — Whenever Jeff Hayzlett, chief business development officer and vice president at Eastman Kodak Company, goes into retail printer outlets, he’s struck by an absurdity that has become the norm in his industry: In many stores, rows of inkjet printers sit out on open shelves for all to see and touch — while the small ink cartridges that are used to fuel them are secured behind locked cabinets.

As obvious and wrongheaded a message as this sends — that the costly cartridges are more valued than the printers themselves — Hayzlett says consumers have been saying as much for years. Incredibly, he says, many in the industry still aren’t paying attention.

“Our customers were very clear in telling us they were fed up with the cost of inkjet... continue reading

The Limits of Market-Research Methods†

Study Up: Ethnography Is Often Misused. Here's How to Use It Effectively to Get the Most Out of It

Advertising Age, October 8, 2007 — With rapid cultural transformation happening all around us, one headline has been largely missed:

People Are Getting Harder to Understand (and You Thought it Was Just Your Spouse!).

While much has been written about shifts in the way people consume cultural content (from a "push" to a "pull" model, from monologue to conversation, from mass to niche channels), much less has been made of corresponding shifts in the way we express ourselves, and what that means for research.

A Virtual View of the Store Aisle†

Kimberly-Clark and Others Track Shoppers in New Ways; Finding Huggies on the Shelf

Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2007 — Using a new tool developed by Kimberly-Clark Corp., a woman stood surrounded by three screens showing a store aisle, a retina-tracking device recording her every glance.

Asked by a Kimberly-Clark researcher to find a "big box" of Huggies Natural Fit diapers in size three, she pushed forward on a handle like that of a shopping cart, and the video simulated her progress down the aisle. Spotting Huggies' red packages, she turned the handle to the right to face a dizzying array of diapers. After pushing a button to get a kneeling view of the shelves, she reached forward and tapped the screen to put the box she wanted in her virtual cart.

Kimberly-Clark hopes these virtual shopping aisles will help it better understand consumer behavior and make the testing... continue reading

Bloggers Key Marketing Aid For Wizarding World Theme Park

MediaPost Publications, August 22, 2007 — UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT IS INVITING opinions from fans and bloggers when deciding the taste of butterbeer sold at Hog's Head tavern and chocolate frogs from Honeydukes--delicacies whisked from the pages of J.K. Rowling's best-selling Harry Potter novels and into a high-tech theme park scheduled to open in Florida by 2010.

Google Aids Account Planning†

Is Google a planning tool?

Adweek, August 8, 2007 — That was the contention of Penry Price, Google's director of North American sales, who spoke here yesterday at the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Planning Conference. "We're focusing on being more relevant," he said. "But our core business is really connecting people to what they care about and connecting marketers to people they care about."

Nationwide Tryvertising Parties

Springwise Newsletter, August 8, 2007 — While promoting goods and services through friendly get-togethers is nothing new, House Party has given the concept a radical makeover. A far cry from your mother's Tupperware gatherings, House Party combines in-person tryvertising with rich media sharing to link thousands of parties where consumers convene with friends, family, co-workers and neighbours to test products and share their experiences. www.houseparty.com