Making sure that the delivery and dissemination of research results is effective is, to quote Ray Poynter, arguably the most important phase in any research project". It seems striking that, compared to the dramatic advances that technology has allowed in data collection and analysis in the past fifty years, the techniques used for delivering survey results have remained basically unchanged: from hand drawn histograms to todays Powerpoint presentations, still a linear storytelling experience. This is changing: the development of the world wide web has brought us a de facto standard for hypertext, HTML, and thus the possibility to present something else than a linear summary of our project. With HTML, we can design hyper-reports: non-linear, interactive experiences that allow clients to navigate through our findings, and the facts and thought process that led to them. This paper reviews the literature on hypertext, discusses the experience that various research companies have had with hyper-reports, looks at how hyper-reports are being used in other disciplines, such as education, and summarizes the lessons learned.
The Internet reminds me of Las Vegas, said one of the developers I interviewed when researching this paper. He was right. Like Las Vegas, the world wide web offers stunning shows of human invention and mind-boggling choices mixed with crass commercialism, gaudiness and a myriad of strange glittering things. On the web like in Las Vegas anything goes - and theres no such thing as a free lunch. But most of all, on the web just as in Las Vegas a lot of time and money is wasted. How many commercial sites are just vanity sites - useless on-line brochures which hardly anyone except the company's management and competitors bother to look up? How many corporate sites have been announced with fanfare only to be discontinued or half-frozen in still life a few months later, after some high-level executive asked in a board meeting: But whose idea was it to start this web site, anyway? And what are we getting out of it? As in Las Vegas, one can find the good, the bad and the ugly in web marketing and communications: the triumph of a Federal Express site, and countless failed attempts at harnessing this new media. Thus the question: What makes a commercial web site work? How can marketers get the most of the Internet? Answering this simple question is the simple purpose of this simple paper.
Will new on-line media - particularly Internet-based ones - forever change the way we communicate? Will they forever change commercial communications such as advertising? Who will benefit, who will loose? How may marketing and research be affected? This paper attempts to shed some light on these questions. First, by reviewing the present state of the debate as it appears in the literature. Second by proposing a key assumption: traditional institutions - corporations, marketers, advertisers, even the press- will no longer be able to control New Media. Third, based on this assumption, by suggesting prospective scenario for the communications and research industries.
The present paper attempts to answer the question of how to create consumer preference in the retail bank sector. The question of creating consumer preference has become increasingly relevant as retail banks grow more and more remote from the consumers. Banks may be well- established as companies, but the consumer no longer perceives of any difference between the service they provide. Some banks, however, have succeeded in creating a unique image in the consumers eyes - a reason to choose to bank specifically with them. All of them have done this either through offering a truly different service, or through standing for something truly different that the consumer could relate to. Too much difference, however, may be jeopardising the level of trust the bank is built upon. It is assumed that it is esteem rather than differentiation that constitutes the cost of entry to the bank sector, whilst it is the point of difference that creates the consumer preference.
The time is early 1989. The Berlin wall is up. The Soviet Union is just what its name implies: a union. 1992 is a soon-to-happen promising event - and Europe is a private club of old-world nations, not an open concept. The client is the toughest collective decision-making body a communication agency can have to convince and bring to action: the Turkish government (talk about approval levels and multiple presentations!). The problem is: how to "market" Turkey as an acceptable candidate to the EC - against a tidal wave of prejudices and misconceptions, both in the EC and in Turkey. This paper: tells the story of how research succeeded in finding a visionary solution to this difficult problem (truly visionary at that time) but failed to make it happen: the right decision was made, but not acted upon then asks lohy this occurred, leading to a reflection about what research for decision-making means for a communication agency or any researcher acting as a TRUE marketing consultant: how to mix research, strategic planning, presentation power and plain old politics, so that a "decision" does not remain just that but becomes an action.
On April 2,1993, "Marlboro Friday" made the marketing world suddenly sit up and realize: BRANDS WERE DYING. What had gone wrong? This paper suggests an answer. The soldiers of the marketing wars, using marketing research as crutches, have splintered the brands whose sheer monolithic consistency and fortitude had made their companies successful. They have overextended them in a mise en abyme process "effet vache qui rit"), like images in reflecting mirrors or dividing cells: Nike> Nike Air > Nike Air Jordan, Citroen> Citroen AX> Citroen AX Air France Madame, etc. As a result, consumers - who have learned to recognize all these new offers - have cluttered their mind with useless information. Today, the average consumer probably recognizes over 5 brands - 5 "words", verbal representations that make him virtually speak a foreign language: the language of brands. The Eskimos have 40 words to say "snow"; but we have just as many words to say "breakfast cereals" (Corn Flakes, Rice Kris pies. Frosted Flakes, Fruit Loops, Weetabix, Golden Grahams). There are simply TOO MANY BRANDS, hence these brands are loosing their function. They are no longer "marks", "signals", beacons helping the consumer navigate through a sea of offer. By growing to be so large and so complex, the language of brands has gotten out of control. Then, what is the solution? How can manufacturers get out of the corner they have painted themselves into? The paper suggests two promising ways: that of catachresis, whose validity has been proven by retailers, and that of Brand Liking.
Public Relations (PR), since their humble beginnings as "flak", have evolved into a major and very specific discipline in communications, requiring specific research techniques. The paper shows how qualitative research methodologies adapted from marketing research are being increasingly used in this field, because they match some of the specific requirements of Public Relations (vs Advertising and/or Marketing ). The first part: provides an overview of what "Public Relations encompass (from traditional press relations to crisis management or stakeholders relations) and how they evolved into their present state-of-the-art; then points out the specificities of Public Relations vs Advertising and/or Marketing and shows how qualitative techniques often match these specificities. Among others, the following specificities are discussed : PR focus on small, hard-to-reach but influential audience (vs large market segments); PR use two-way, interactive, interpersonal "relations (vs one- way communications); PR presuppose a "political" view of opinion- and attitude-forming, influenced vertically by opinion-leaders and laterally by social speeches (vs a "democratic" view of the market/public opinion where every consumer/citizen has equal power to build market share/public opinion) The second part describes some of the uses of qualitative research at each successive stage of a Public Relations programme, from strategic planning to tactical communication activities (e.g. press relations); and illustrates them with case studies. The paper concludes with a hopeful note on how research can still provide insight in communications, especially in disciplines such as PR that deal with complex contexts and issues - and illustrates this with a camel story.