Competition From on High
Posted by goodmind on February 23rd, 2007
Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post political reporter, of all people makes an excellent point in a recent article on the impending merger of the Sirius and XM satellite radio networks.
The reason these two companies have 13 million subscribers willing to cough up $12.95 a month for something we all grew up thinking should be free is that commercial radio has self-destructed.
All these folks (including me) are paying for satellite because they’re tired of cookie-cutter radio formats stuffed to the gills with commercials. They’re also fed up with focus-grouped music stations that play the same 60 songs until you start hearing the chords in your sleep…
Really, can you think of an industry (okay, maybe American automakers) that has frittered away such huge advantages and sent its customers scrambling for alternatives?
To his point, terrestrial radio invited the menace of satellite upon itself not because of its inferior technology (although that plays a role), but because they have ignored the needs of their customers. As an industry, radio may indeed have conducted a lot of focus groups, but they certainly did not use them to ask their customers what they wanted. If they had, satellite radio would have been a lot more like Iridium.
Surveys Create News
Posted by goodmind on February 14th, 2007
One of our recent studies was mentioned in this Forbes article on the cost of love….
Research Humor
Posted by goodmind on November 2nd, 2006
This pie chart shows the percentage that “resembles Pac-man” and the percentage that “Does not resemble Pac-man.” Get it!? We think its funny in exactly the silly way it is meant to be.
McCoffee needs McResearch
Posted by goodmind on April 7th, 2006
McDonald’s recently jumped into the premium coffee category with it’s “Bold” and “Rich” coffee offerings. Here are three tips for management that five minutes of market research, particularly FrontLine-type research would have revealed:
- The lids offered are not spill-proof or resealable. Result: You can’t walk or drive while consuming the product.
- They have taken a standard Styrofoam cup and glued a “premium coffee” cover on it. Result: soggy outer cup layer, likely ingestion of toxic and/or bad tasting inks, unpleasant/uncool image for drinker and purveyor.
- The coffee has little or no taste.
I’m guessing Starbucks and those of similar ilk have already figured this out and are sleeping soundly at night, despite all that caffeine.
Cutting Through The Clutter
Posted by goodmind on April 26th, 2005
How many of the advertisements that you see each day – on the subway, streets, television, and newspapers – do you want to see? Google’s new Gmail email service serves up ads based on the content of your email exchanges, resulting in more relevant ads. Steve Hayden, best known for his “1984″ Macintosh Super Bowl commercial, speaks with CMO Magazine about a variety of interesting subjects, including the future of targeted advertising.
Using cookies to track behavior is nothing new, but once marketers begin to leverage new technologies, most of the ads seen on the internet and even television will be tailored to each individual, based on behavioral and demographic information collected about them. Another CMO Magazine article discusses the possibilities. According to a survey mentioned in the article, nearly 50% of executives polled believed that behavioral targeting was the best use of future advertising spending.
My top 43 things
Posted by goodmind on April 12th, 2005
43 things is a public wishlist. Rumor has it that Amazon is one of the main financial backers of this small corporation. Their gimmick is that they offer you webspace to post the 43 things you want the most–be they material, spiritual, emotional, or physical.
What might be most of interest to marketers is the Zeitgeist on 43 Things, a daily compilation of the things most frequently desired by posters, in the same way that Google Zeitgeist documents the weekly top 10 enquiries.
If the rumors are true, and Amazon is one of the biggest investors in 43 things, then this would be one sly way to do market reconnaisance. In fact, it’s like having an all-areas-access pass to many people’s thoughts, hopes, and dreams.
As “active” research gives way to more “passive” methods of collecting data, it’s no wonder that blogs would become a major source of information about consumers. 43 things just makes it that much easier by confining it to one manageable location.
