This paper describes the role of market research in building knowledge as well as a tool to assist in improving company business and profit management. We are living the information age, in which knowledge is considered a company asset and more valuable than ever. Companies constantly search for higher profits while marketing professionals are becoming more accountable for responding to financial gains instead of just managing products or communication. This trend has had an impact on the market research business, which is leveraging its involvement with the success of the company as it plays the role of a strategic consultant rather than just a data supplier. This is illustrated by a practical case: 'Living 24/7' carried out in the second half of 2002 by two large-sized companies in Brazil: Procter & Gamble (multinational) and Sadia (Brazilian). In this ethnographical methodology researchers lived in the households of twenty-five consumers for seven days, twenty-four hours a day (24/7). The way the research was carried out and results presented to the clients is an example of the new accountability of market research and how it can contribute to building knowledge for increased client profits.
The global marketplace demands understanding of factors affecting brands in their local and global context. The magnitude of the task in an ever-changing boundary-less world and the opportunities to re-establish consumer researchers as strategic partners to manufacturers and service providers seems not to have been acknowledged by large, specialized and small players competing in developing similar proprietary branded solutions that lock consumer information in silos.This paper seeks to highlight opportunities to collaborate in unleashing the power of global consumer knowledge. It discloses steps taken by some suppliers in Latin America to create common consumer research standards, adopt common knowledge management systems, and collaborate as filtering communities to assist Procter & Gamble in gaining regional consumer insights. It concludes that the Research Industry should collaborate in closing gaps that exist in understanding factors affecting brands in today's context, which requires common global language among players on research elements; adoption of open technologies that allow faster innovation and simplified access to consumer knowledge; and creation of communities to expand researchers' understanding of factors affecting brands.
Most new products fail. Failure is attributed to the proposition (weak advertising, parity product, high price, etc.) or to the marketing plan (inadequate media, low distribution, etc.). This interpretation does not explain why failures continue in spite of the growing knowledge about factors driving success and failure and following a rigorous product launch process. This paper argues that new products fail because of our irrationality and our inability as individuals and groups to avoid many of the thinking errors that affect decision-making. The paper outlines the errors, cites examples, and provides recommendations for improving the innovation decision-making process.
This paper describes a research project born of a business need at Procter & Gamble. Management had the vision that adoption of our new innovations could be accelerated if we could identify those consumers with the highest likelihood of being Early Adopters. We would ask them to try initiatives long before market introduction and reap the benefits of their feedback; find what social norms reinforce or suppress product acceptance and how to optimize communication benefits. The biggest reward will be turning many of the Early Adopters into credible advocates for our innovations and thereby creating a tipping point and virtuous cycle. Identification of the Early Adopters, therefore, became a top priority for P&G's Consumer & Market (CMK) Department and Europanel, partner agency in the project. The paper discusses the powerful learnings generated from this research and how these have become enablers for P&G to apply diffusionistic marketing ideas at all phases of an initiative - before launch, at launch and on an on-going basis - to help commercialize innovation faster, cheaper and more effectively.
This paper outlines how qualitative research, using projective techniques, has been used to overcome cultural barriers of discussing the taboo subject of female hygiene. The technique delivered a deep understanding into means of breaking ingrained habits.
The traditional 'rules' of marketing are undergoing serious re-examination as companies seek new ways to build strong brands in the post mass-media era. There is an urgent need to answer the core questions of which contacts to use, and how to allocate brand's marketing investments beyond mass media and across the wide variety of contact choices. The Market ContactAudit© tool was developed to help answering those questions. A Procter & Gamble application of the MCA© to a concrete business problem illustrates how the tool is operated to improve marketing effectiveness and efficiency.
This paper describes not only an example of how successfully a major retailer (Sainsbury's is the second largest grocery retailer in the United Kingdom) and a global supplier can work together but also highlights an innovative and unique research project. The project is innovative because this was an example of real collaboration between a supplier and retailer conducting joint research, rather than a supplier and a third party agency. It can be considered unique as it was achieved through continuous joint effort by both the retailer and supplier throughout the life of the project. This project was also unique as it enabled actual purchasing data and attitudinal data to be combined in order to provide the strongest possible foundations for business decision making. Importantly, the project results had practical and real applications, specifically in developing Health and Beauty care strategy.
This paper argues that qualitative research can be carried out in Saudi Arabia in the same depth as in the West. Qualitative research can produce the same insight and "feel" for a product that has added so much value to marketing strategies elsewhere. However, getting the quality that is available in the West is not easy. It takes an excellent moderator, with the ability to constructively challenge clients, who is knowledgeable in marketing and business, and well grounded in the Arabic culture. There are not many moderators in Saudi Arabia who have all these qualities. Qualitative research also takes more planning up front, closer management during the project, and more analysis on the back end to get the same results.
This paper argues that a holistic assessment of the conceptual appeal and the persuasive power of a piece of copy is best made by the ultimate consumer rather than an inward looking "expert opinion as sometimes suggested by people in the advertising business. The author further makes the point that appropriately used research gives the copywriter a competitive edge.
The media situation all over the world has been changing over the last few years. Change is especially dramatic in Central and Eastern Europe. One of the new developments is the need for media research in order to provide a basis for negotiations between TV stations, radio channels, publishing houses, and advertisers. TV audience measurement is just one area of media research. It is particularly suitable to demonstrate the need for valid and reliable data because of the relatively easy approach to generally accepted methodical approaches. In the quantitative media research area, audience measurement and competitive observation are the key needs. In the qualitative field, effectiveness of advertising, viewer attention or involvement and effect of program environment are important. Media research, particularly its basic audience measurement aspect should be funded by the media and controlled by a tripartite body of media, advertising agencies, and advertisers. Access should be possible and free of charge for everyone with a legitimate need as far as basic data are concerned. The generation and publication of media research data on a harmonized basis within Central and Eastern Europe (but also as compared to Western Europe) is a strongly felt need of the advertisers. The TV stations themselves will profit from this as well. The current situation in Central and Eastern Europe allows to reach the goal of harmonized data with much less effort than it is required in Western Europe.
To get us started on this workshop I propose to ask six basic questions to which I also propose some answers. I do not expect that all of you will necessarily agree with the suggestions and proposals I will be making, but that should certainly ensure a lot of good discussions. I would like to acknowledge that some of the material that I am going to be sharing with you is from a paper given by Mr. Tom Neumann, Manager Media and Programming Development, Europe, P&G GmbH, called "What Advertisers Expect from TV Audience Research and What They Actually Get." I cannot claim to have the same level of expertise or the depth of knowledge on the subject that Mr. Neumann would have provided had he been here, but I do know something about the region and the research measurements being used here and I expect that if I go wrong many of you will pitch in with the correct answer. Inciddntally, even through my questions are on TV, they apply equally well to the other media.