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| 1. Research War Stories
In the popular War Stories column, which has run sporadically in Quirk's since 1994, Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research in Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous tales of life in the research trenches, based on his own experiences and those of researcher friends and colleagues. Each month in our e-newsletter we feature a few anecdotes from past War Stories columns. Art is always gathering material for future War Stories installments so e-mail him at artshulman@aol.com to submit your own anecdotes for consideration. David Weiss reports a mail survey he conducted where consumers were asked to indicate the most recent room where they used paint or a coating like varnish or sealer. Most consumers wrote in the conventional "living room" or "den" or "deck." One macabre respondent, however, wrote in "casket."
Sometimes in market research, death can be fun. Dick Kurtz reports that early in his career he went out to conduct door-to-door interviews in a poor rural area in the outskirts of Charlotte, N.C. He knocked on the door of a ramshackle house on a street with no name and was informed that the inhabitants had just returned from a funeral. Kurtz was just about to apologize for intruding when one of the family members indicated that not only would the woman do the interview but they wanted him to stay for the "party." Kurtz says the food and music were great.
Related tags: War Stories |
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2. Do NCAA brackets and green thumbs mix?
Basketball fans look forward to March Madness all year, much to the chagrin of business owners and the delight of Web sites catering to NCAA fans' increased media appetites. With free streaming video of all basketball games offered online, work distractions heighten as the championship game nears, potentially costing businesses billions in lost productivity, according to New York researcher The Nielsen Company.
However, the NCAA junkies may not be as easy to spot in the workplace as you might think. Try looking for the well-to-do green-thumbed husbands who frequent Las Vegas. Above swimming, golf or fishing, 48 percent of NCAA fans surveyed reported that they engaged in gardening activities within the last 12 months, and they are 26 percent more likely than the average adult to have visited Las Vegas in the last year. Perhaps less surprisingly, tournament fans are fast-food and beer enthusiasts, being 34 percent more likely than the average adult to have frequented a fast-food joint 10 or more times during the past week and 33 percent more likely than other adults to have consumed any beer during the past month.
Of the sites visited, ESPN ranked No. 1 in the sports category with 19.8
million unique visitors, followed closely by Yahoo! Sports with 19.4
million, in
March 2008. CBS Sports ranked No. 3 in the category with
15.1 million unique visitors and saw the largest month-over-month
increase in traffic among the top-three sports sites, growing 59
percent from February to March. CBS Sports' surge was even more
pronounced by users logging on from work, where the brand's visitors
increased 82 percent month-over-month.
Related articles: demographic analysis, online, sports
Related suppliers: demographic profiles, Internet/Web, sports |
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3. High-tech sacrifices surge in Lent '09
Along with the usual vices like sweets, cigarettes and red meat, teens and adults alike have made Facebook one of the most common things to abstain from for the 2009 Lent season - a testament to its popularity and perhaps to the public's dependency on virtual and technology-based relationships. The trend kicked off with Pope Benedict XVI and other leaders in the Catholic community encouraging Lenten observers to try to cut back on high-tech addictions to texting, BlackBerrys and social networking sites, specifically Facebook. To see the impact of this call to action, one needs only to Google "give up Facebook for Lent" and wait for the copious pages to appear on the screen - from articles attesting to its widespread popularity to tips on how to make it through the 40 days and 40 nights without caving in or falling off the map.
So what does it mean for social networking sites that their products are viewed as a necessary evil - hard to escape but impractical to go without? According The Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., nearly half of all 18-24-year-olds visit social networking sites like Facebook at
least daily, compared to just 13 percent of Internet users overall. It remains to be seen whether those who observe a low-tech Lent will see the benefits of their sacrifices and, if so, how the tech-based companies who rely on them will be affected.
Related articles: generation X/Y, high-tech, online, religion/churches
Related suppliers: generation X/Y, high-tech, Internet/Web, religion/churches
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4. Attract and connect: using emotion in advertising
The April Quirk's features a focus on advertising research. From our archives, here is an excerpt from a past article by Karl Rosenberg that investigates how an emotional appeal can be used to increase advertising effectiveness.
Attracts and holds the attention. There are more ways to reach consumers today and it seems that it is actually harder than it used to be to attract and hold their attention. With the advance of the Internet, consumers have become more media savvy and exercise more control over the media they are exposed to. This has placed greater demands on advertisers to make their messages more engaging to consumers. Emotion clearly plays a key role here. Our brains are hardwired to attend to certain emotional cues on a primitive level so those cues can often get through to an otherwise disinterested viewer.
Makes a personal connection. Beyond attracting viewer attention, emotion can actually make a message more valuable to consumers. When an ad strikes a chord with us or when we can relate to a situation or character, we feel that our attention to the ad has been rewarded. That's a good thing for the brand serving up the message. On the other hand, when an ad fails to reward our attention with something relevant and meaningful we can feel in a sense deceived by the ad.
Builds brand equity. Building brand equity is all about building positive connections between your brand and the consumer. Emotion clearly plays a role here as well.
Creates a buzz. When people really connect with advertising that delivers an exceptionally rewarding experience, some will want to share the experience with others, creating a word-of-mouth buzz. As the number of interpersonal communication channels available expands (picture phones, instant messaging, blogs, etc.) opportunities abound. But what motivates buzz? Most likely, it's something emotional rather than rational.
As neurologist Donald Calne has said, the difference between reason and emotion is that reason leads to conclusions while emotion leads to actions.
"Making a connection," Quirk's Marketing Research Review, April 2006 |
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5. Quirk's enhances print content
Quirk's has made several enhancements to its print magazine, effective with the April 2009 issue. Keep an eye out for the following changes:
Snapshots
Article abstracts will now be available in print, as well as online!
The first page of each article will include a synopsis in
a "snapshot" box to give readers a quick look at the content and how
it relates to market research.
Before you go...
Opposite the inside back cover of each issue is a new page called "Before you go..." that includes interesting tidbits, factoids and tips from throughout the issue. It also features news about Quirk's and updates on new and/or improved Quirk's products and services. Please also note that Before you go... has taken the place previously occupied by Joe Rydholm's column Trade Talk. Trade Talk can now be found immediately before the new page.
Contest
Before you go... also hosts a contest section, in which Quirk's readers are invited to register to win various product/service giveaways from market research companies. This month's prize is a package of market research-related books from Paramount Books. The titles include Using Choice Modeling to Supercharge Your Business; Brand Busters: Seven Common Mistakes Marketers Make; and Consumer Insights 2.0 - How Smart Companies Apply Customer Knowledge to the Bottom Line. To enter, please send your contact information to contest@quirks.com with "April Contest" in the subject line. The deadline to enter is May 1, 2009. The winner will be announced in the June issue of Quirk's.
Related tags: Quirks.com, Trade Talk |
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6. Upcoming research events
MARKETTOOLS WEBCAST
March 25
10 a.m. PDT
ARF ANNUAL RE:THINK! CONVENTION AND EXPO
March 30-April 1
New York Marriott Marquis in New York
TRC MAKING RESEARCH RELEVANT CONFERENCE
April 3
Houston
SCIP ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
April 24-29
The Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers in Chicago
MANAGED PRINT SERVICES CONFERENCE
April 26-29
The Omni La Mansion del Rio in San Antonio
HARRIS INTERACTIVE LOYALTY CONFERENCE
May 6-8
The Silverado Resort in Napa, Calif.
For more information and listings visit our online calendar. | |
