I thought it would be interesting to chat with Seth about the state of the industry, what’s coming in the future, how insights organizations are leveraging these technologies for business impact and of course, about his upcoming event. Continue reading »

Rapid changes in the social media analytics marketplace are impacting the current state of the industry and suggest probable future paths for development as we see maturation of other convergent technologies that are poised to create further disruption into the traditional business insights and marketing wheelhouses. Continue reading »

What’s the most frustrating aspect of working as a client-side researcher? Often the attitudes and misconceptions about research among our colleagues can be one of the most frequently occurring issues. Continue reading »

Gone are the days where consumer opinion and behavior could only be gained from surveys, focus groups or syndicated panels. Retailers are looking inward to gain further insights into their own business and customers. What does this change mean? Continue reading »

Being still relatively new to the world of qualitative research I found myself disheartened when the Global Innovation Director of Diageo, Syl Saller, exclaimed during her talk on innovation development at Marketing Week Live that she ‘hates focus groups’. I couldn’t help but question whether she was valid in taking such an openly strong stance against research or whether the objective was to create an impact – unfortunately at the expense of the market research industry. Continue reading »

Longitudinal studies can influence how people respond to your questions simply by the fact that you have researched them before. And if you’re not careful, this problem can come about even when you’re not doing a longitudinal study. Continue reading »

All in all, the 84th Academy Awards were largely forgettable. In the midst of this blandness, they set up a skit based on the idea of a 1939 Focus Group for “The Wizard of Oz.”. As I watched the piece, which had some funny moments, I was thinking to myself “What was the writer/director’s intent?” And basically, it was to slam the idea of common folk aiding the creative process. Personally, I felt that MR had been dissed. Continue reading »

The consumer is a much broader entity than we are able to address in a single survey, series of focus groups, or any of the other tools that are being developed. It is the integration of these tools, and many other tools that we have available to us, which is the key to developing contextual insight. Continue reading »

I have read countless articles expressing the viewpoint that the new opportunities presented by New MR (e.g. social media listening, mobile, text analytics, MROCs, Crowdsourcing, neuro-monitoring, etc.) are merely new tools in our toolbox. I don’t agree with that politically correct argument. I think these new tools are the replacements. Which means “the survey” and “some groups” are going the way of the dodo bird. Continue reading »

In this Marketoon, Tom Fishburne reveals a feeling all marketers have experienced. Like it or not, marketers, with their special powers, must make sense to left-brained, accountable business managers. We present to business executives who “just don’t get it” and simply require solid, objective data to make a subject tangible and enable confident decision-making. Continue reading »