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Category Archives: Quantitative
How are companies learning about you?
Antonio Bolfo/Reportage for The New York Times
Check out this article from The New York Times about what companies like Target may know about you and how they’re turning that information into profits.
Short on time? This video provides a short but interesting overview of the article.
Top 2012 New Year’s Resolution Among Market Researchers…
…Segmentation, of course!
If you’re like many clients these days, you are increasingly focused on identifying which physicians and patients are most valuable and on developing strategies to target them. In fact, a quick look at Google Trends reveals that interest in segmentation soars in Q1 and Q4:
At FCG we understand the importance of identifying both the rational benefits that the product should convey and the emotional hooks to engage and motivate target segments.
Do Video Games Make Kids Violent?
By Ric Dube
In a roundup of psychiatric research on the topic, TIME magazine declared this month that “video games don’t make kids violent.” Somebody is bound to take issue with that.
Similar to the question of whether wine is good or bad for the blood, expert opinions on this issue are batted back and forth in a perpetual game of research tether ball by sides never satisfied with results.
It’s asking a lot to prove that video games make kids violent because popular culture is a chicken-and-egg combination of attitudes and commerce. It may be more revealing (or at least amusing) simply to note certain social attitudes that have dovetailed with video game culture.
Does a Parent Deserve a Massage More Than a Non-Parent?
By Ric Dube
Clearly, our stage of life says something about the products we consume. I rarely shopped at the home improvement superstore until I became a homeowner, from which moment I grew as familiar with its aisles as any of the store’s clerks. More familiar, in fact, than a few of them.
When we buy gifts for others, what we choose to give inevitably echoes our life stage because the kinds of people we care about and their respective interests and priorities relate directly to factors such as our age, marital and family status, and home ownership. For example, it makes intuitive sense that parents buy more toys than non-parents because they’re the shoppers with kids. But what do non-parents buy more of?
We asked more than 2,000 holiday shoppers what kinds of gifts they planned to buy this season (details below). As predicted, the majority of those who said they are shopping for “toys and games” have kids at home, although these shoppers were also more likely to say they gave “power tools” and “perfume.”
Sourece: Forbes Consulting Group Holiday Shopping Survey, December 2011
Meanwhile, shoppers without kids were more likely to shop for “gourmet foods,” “specialty alcohol” and services such as “massages and spa days.” Why are shoppers without kids more likely to give a gift of self-focused indulgence than those with kids?
Embracing Multicollinearity in Key Drivers Analysis
Contributed By Robert Mills
One of the most common goals of survey research is to identify those aspects of your brand/product that most strongly relate to overall consumer satisfaction with your brand/product. Sounds simple, right? The fact that there are almost as many opinions about how to perform this analysis as there are people who perform it suggests not. One of the key issues surrounding this type of analysis, often referred to as “key drivers analysis,” is the fact that many of the attributes on which respondents rate your brand are highly interrelated (ormulticollinear) – meaning that a change in one item produces a change in other items.
Validity in Assessing Ad Communication & Impact
Under The Radar
by David Forbes, Ph.D. & Judith Retensky
Typically, good advertising has to come in “under the radar” – that is, be persuasive in ways that are subtle – appealing to emotions and deep-rooted psychological motivations. One type of research that attempts to measure these reactions is the communication check.
Communication check research typically takes place when advertisers have reached a fairly specific vision about an upcoming ad campaign. The “check” is used to gain a preliminary look at how the ad will “work” – what messages it will convey and how those messages will be received.
However, respondents are often unable to give accurate reports about their reactions to advertising since the important communications usually take place below the conscious intellectual level, and the kinds of impact good advertising can create are precisely those that respondents don’t want to acknowledge. Given these constraints, how should researchers proceed? Following the 6 steps in the communication check process can help to accurately measure reactions and optimize the campaign.
Step 1: Use Developed Stimuli
Stimuli for advertising communication research should be as fully developed as possible. Although showing the ad at any stage (sketch, storyboard, etc.) works, well-developed executions will deliver the underlying strategy in a way that can come in “under the radar,” just like a real ad.
The more stimuli look and feel like finished advertising, the greater validity in the findings.
Research ON Research: The BIG Challenges of International Research
The global economy has afforded US based companies an unparalleled opportunity to expand into new markets. However, with this opportunity comes many challenges. Due to the complexities of international research, an experienced “guide” is required. Differences in language, culture, politics and style are but a few of the many potential pitfalls. Here are a few of the most important insights:
TO ONLINE OR NOT TO ONLINE
- Select the Right Survey Methodology: Different countries require different methodologies based on research topic, Internet penetration, and computer literacy.
- When interviewing consumers, use the 65% rule of thumb. If the country’s Internet penetration rate is 65%+, it’s ok to conduct interviews online via email recruit; if Internet penetration is below 65%, using central location data collection is recommended – here respondents are recruited via telephone and/or street intercepts to the location itself. The interview is then conducted on a computer at the site for accurate data collection and local “proctors” assist respondents with computer literacy. Of course, door-to-door recruiting is another viable option, especially in emerging markets.
Which Way Should I go? Making Tough Choices in Segmentation
By Bill Spera, Senior Project Manager
Most would agree that the benefits of market segmentation are many. By identifying opportunity targets within the marketplace, understanding the rules of success with these targets, and building strategies to execute against these targets, companies can hone resources to maximize success.
SO MANY CHOICES… SO LITTLE TIME… 
Although the benefits are great, the path to actionable segments varies based on the end goal. There are a great variety of segmentation types – all involving different inputs and ultimately providing different results.
THE BASIC SEGMENTATION WORLD
At the pure identifiability end of the continuum falls the variety of more basic segmentation techniques, usually based on census tract demographics. All that’s needed to identify these folks is their addresses or 9-digit zip codes. These techniques are superb at targeting at a demographic level, but often include little to no attitudinal differentiation.
Research ON Research: To Catch a Cheat
High quality data is the backbone of a successful and actionable marketing research project. Online data collection continues to be a popular way to collect data due to its cost effectiveness and ability to collect large sample sizes in a relatively short period of time. While online data collection is a highly effective means for collecting data, a concern over data quality has emerged over the years with respondents who cheat while filling out surveys. Thus, it is important for marketing research professionals to stay on top of solutions in order to preserve data integrity.A survey cheater can be identified in many ways. The most common types of cheating are as follows:
The Pretenders – gives false information in order to qualify for a project for which they would normally not qualify.
The Roadrunners – speeds through surveys without giving proper thought or attention to the questions being asked.
At Forbes Consulting, we have identified three ways to catch and remove survey cheaters:
- Speed traps: This involves taking the average survey length and disqualifying respondents who have completed the survey in half the time. For example, if we have a 20-minute survey and respondents complete the survey in 10 minutes or less, they would be classified as invalid completes.
- Attention traps: This involves inserting a statement within a battery of attributes/statements that literally asks respondents to check a “3” on a scale. If respondents fail to follow this directive, they would be classified as invalid completes.
- Consistency traps: Here we ask similar questions at the beginning and at the end of the survey. For example, in the screener, we ask respondents their age and in the demographic section their year of birth. If there are discrepancies, they would be classified as invalid completes.
Moving forward, it is important for research firms and panel houses to continue to work together to eliminate cheaters. Panel houses need to stay innovative and diligent by working together with their clients to identify and purge dishonest respondents from their panel. Authors of surveys need to be mindful of the impact of survey length and complexity, and work to maximize respondent engagement by creating a positive survey experience. With a team approach, we can continue to capitalize on the positive benefits of online research.
Research ON Research: Importance of Brand Photos
The Effects of Brand Photos on Attitudes & Usage Measures
BACKGROUND: Including digital images of branded products or brand logos has become a common practice in web-based questionnaires on the implicit theory that these images will improve the accuracy of aided recall measures of awareness and usage. One hypothesis is that these images serve to jog respondent memories of brands seen or used that might otherwise have been forgotten, and thus raise levels of stated awareness and usage. A competing hypothesis is that these images lower levels of stated awareness and usage by deflating the incidence of “phantom awareness” (false positive claims of awareness and usage) by providing cross-validating information.
RESEARCH METHOD: A total of 1,250 surveys (625 with brand pictures, 625 without) were conducted about sports drinks, using a demographically representative online panel, with a standard security screening and a requirement that respondents be partly responsible for household shopping decisions. Each option shown to the respondent was selected at random and chosen to ensure an equal distribution of each option.
FINDINGS: The study showed that reported usage for several brands used in past 6 months was significantly higher when NO picture was shown, and significantly lower when a picture was shown.
CONCLUSION: Preliminary evidence suggests that the use of brand images helps to reduce the prevalence of “phantom usage,” i.e., overstated usage, presumably because brand images provide additional cues that improve respondent recall. Although further research is needed, it appears that brand images improve the accuracy of usage recall and should be incorporated when possible.
