Perspectives on Consumers

Today I went to lunch in Century City.  When I arrived, there was a new parking policy.  No longer is there free parking for three hours.  It’s a dollar an hour for the first three hours.

What were they thinking?  I know real estate pricing is high.  I understand that if they continue to increase rents, more merchants might go out of business.  So I guess they figured they’d pass along the cost to their shoppers.

My feeling is they miscalculated on this decision relative to the community-at-large.  There are plenty of restaurants in LA; I don’t need to go to the mall to eat at one of its nicer offerings.  I stopped going to the movies there if I could help it because 1.5 miles away is an even nicer movie complex with free parking.  (As you can see, movie parking is 5 hours for $4.)  Further, I’m a committed online shopper, so now they’ve given me one less reason to shop in person.

This is a vicious circle:  I want to support local jobs, but they’re making it harder.  I’m really not that cheap, but this mall has “stuck” me with $9 parking bills in the past when movies have run long – my guard is already up with them.  The only thing this mall has going for it is Sephora, where I like to browse.

I know this is extremely anecdotal and personal.  So, being the researcher that I am, I interviewed my lunch server about the new parking policy and she commented that others had negative comments.  I suggested they monitor their dinner traffic pre- and post the adoption of the new parking policy to see how traffic falls off (if it does).  I don’t think it’ll impact lunch sales (Century City is essentially a large business park), but for dinner, my best guess is that it will have a negative impact.

As an outsider, it feels like Westfield was trying to be sensitive to its merchants, but was thinking more about short-term profits than its relationships with its shoppers.  Someone in the room should have spoken up and said, “If we’re going to have to charge for parking, let’s create an easy frequent shopper program, where people can earn free parking passes” – or something to take the sting away!  I looked and didn’t see they were making that effort.

C’est la vie!  Here’s to speed shopping!!

This past week’s Entrepreneur featured an article entitled “Big-Box Backlash: The Rebirth of Mom-and-Pop Shops.”  It is a good piece, highlighting how mom-and-pop shops are extending their reach to non-local folks.  (Ex: a local tourist store encouraging repurchase(s) via the shop’s online store.)

What this article didn’t point out is that this whole trend is predicated on uniqueness.  There are five dimensions of uniqueness regarding online shopping, which merchants cultivate in one (or more) ways:

Price.  Most consumers came online first to find lower/lowest pricing.  Remember the popularity of sites like Shopping.com and Nextag?

Variety.  As more stores went online, the variety seemed endless! Online sites could distinguish themselves for their depth of offerings within individual categories.

Accessibility.  Online suffers if someone needs an item “today,” but online stores quickly started offering next day service to help combat this “need it now” mindset – and to distinguish themselves from other online stores.   Amazon’s Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping for all qualified items, is an outgrowth, at least in part, in making its experience more accessible.

Service.  An online specialty store might be able to provide expertise in an area which can’t be found locally, meaning greater potential sales for the online merchant.  (If you knew the best home-stereo speaker expert was in MN, and his prices were only 10% more, getting exactly what you needed might warrant the 10% premium.)  Additionally, for items people want to see or try before buying, liberal return policies help offset this problem; think of Zappos’ free shipping – both ways – as a program designed to make people feel they’re “trying before buying.”

Values.  A frequently overlooked aspect to uniqueness, shopper “values” provide context to purchase decisions.  Values often reflect how a purchase-decision “tie” will be broken:  Where is the product made?  (Consumer may value Made in the USA products.)  Is the seller local? (Consumer may value supporting small local businesses.)  How is the product made?  (Consumer may value products made without pesticides and/or products farmed using “Fair Trade” practices.)  How involved is the company in the community?  (Consumer may value and choose to shop at a company which supports their personal values; e.g., Target knows education is important to its customer base and gives back to local schools.)

Will big-box stores like Walmart and Best Buy become obsolete?  No.  They offer good pricing and are very convenient (to get to and to return merchandise).  But will they ever be like a site whose sole focus is on featuring the “unique,” like the Daily Grommet?  I don’t think so.  And long-term loyalty may be impacted by limited perceived uniqueness, especially by shoppers who are less price or convenience driven.

As marketers, if we’re making commodity products, where it’s harder to compete on price, it’s important to look for the point of leverage with consumers – and that’s likely to be a reflection of their values.  In today’s climate, even if we think we have a unique offering, we need to keep thinking ahead to ensure this position in a changing business climate.   Qualitative research helps to explore value dimensions and how businesses can find appropriate ways to leverage its offerings today and looking forward.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve blogged.  All is well, but I was busy chairing QRCA’s (Qualitative Research Consultants Association’s) annual conference, held last week in beautiful Montreal.  Quite an experience – one which I grew from personally and professionally.

I thought I’d start back blogging with a humorous post, topical given that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  I saw this headline:  “Bra Sizes Up Three Sizes In Just Two Years, According To Study.”  This corporate study, done in England, reported that the average bra size purchased went from a 34B to a 34DD in two years.  This amused me.  I understand from their report that 78% of women had been wearing bras which were too small for them, but three cup sizes?  I’m not so sure about that!

As marketers and researchers, we need to know how to read the data and know when a finding might not be what it seems to be.  Consider the following hypotheses to explain this shift in sizing:

• The chain reporting this finding could have opened new store locations in different “trading areas.”  If you’re a size 00, you know it’s much easier to find clothing in Los Angeles than in Chicago.
• Women got fatter.  Hmmm…the band size (for you men out there, the “34” part) didn’t increase – something that is likely to happen with major weight gain.
• Lots of women had plastic surgery.  This would account for the same band size, but is this hypothesis viable given the world-wide economic downturn?
• As we’ve moved into more of a global economy/marketplace, sizing has become more standardized.  If a B cup in England was a D cup in China, how does a global marketer deal with manufacturing unless they standardize?

Certainly, there could be other hypotheses.  But what’s most important is the next time we’re looking at data, we all need to ask some basic questions about a study’s methodology and question if its implications are on a solid footing.  Otherwise, “big” trouble might result. 

Many focus group facilities are using email blasts to their database to help screen potential participants.  I’ve written on this subject before when the market was just heading in this direction, but over time my point of view has solidified.  As moderators hiring facilities/recruiters, we need to provide them with the best tools possible.  So, I’ve starting providing facilities with an email-blast screener plus the full screener at the start of all my projects.  If they don’t plan a blast, they can ignore that version.  However, by providing the email-blast version, I’m able to make sure of two things:

• The right questions are asked in the right way.
• That sufficient masking is provided so that participants don’t know who the client or what the topic is.

The Right Questions the Right Way.

When  I write a paper screener, the assumption is that the recruiters will speak to each participant by phone (even for online studies), so my screeners are written as “interviewer-administered.”  By definition, email blasts are “self-administered” and the questions must be written differently.

I try to ask more yes/no questions vs. those requiring detailed responses.  For instance, I don’t ask someone how often they consume a product in an email screener, but rather if they consume it. Facilities/recruiters may want to get at the frequency question via email (it will save them time), but I think that’s a mistake as it allows people to over-think potential responses before they’re called for the full screener.

Also, keep in mind that recruiters are typically not trained researchers.  It’s really not their job to know the impact of question wording or the nuances of changing a question from interviewer- to self-administered.  It’s my job.

Sufficient Masking.

There are two major ways that I mask the topic/client for the email blast:

• First, I make sure respondents will go through the entire survey.  (If an online survey tool is being used, I make sure there are no points of termination and ask that the back button is disabled.)
• I then limit the number of questions to 3-5 plus a few demos.  In my opinion, the more questions asked, the harder it is to mask the topic.

*  *  *

While clients approve the full screener, I don’t feel it necessary to share the email-blast version.  I’m not changing the question intent; I’m just adding a quality-control step to the process.

On my most recent study, I had a great recruit by both facilities.  The extra step of writing the email version took me an additional 30 minutes – well worth it.   And there was an added bonus:  I became a better client for the facilities because I helped them do their job better (and saved them time)!

One final thing:  I learned from some colleagues recently that facilities may be using Craigslist to find participants.  They’re now telling facilities that Craigslist can’t be used to recruit on their studies.  Another new item I’ll be adding to my recruiter instructions right away!

Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend who’s a former colleague from my earliest days in advertising.  Adam came up on the creative side of the business and he’s a great strategist to boot.  We got to talking about the Apple logo at one point and he said “The apple with a bite taken out of it means nothing on its own.  You need context to understand it fully.”

How true!  Unless you knew the David and Goliath story in the early years, the symbolism wouldn’t have made sense (Apple being David and Microsoft being the monolithic Goliath).  Further, what we now take as a hallmark of simplistic design is really more than that:  the logo reinforces the approach Apple has taken with all its usability, design, and marketing efforts.  We wouldn’t need to see a logo to know something is Apple’s – that’s how well all of its parts are integrated.  Beyond this, in my view, because of its consistency and discipline in what it produces (products, ads, stores, service), Apple is the rare brand which is much more than the “sum of its parts.”

This conversation with Adam comes right on the heels of watching TED Talk’s “Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?”  where Julian put forward a rather “gestalt” notion of “self.”   He asked:

• Are “You” a thing which has all the experiences (beliefs, desires, sensations, etc.) of life OR
• Are “You” a collection of those experiences?

He gave two examples to support the latter point:

• Water cannot be water without its parts (hydrogen and oxygen).
• A wristwatch is created by its parts, but there is no thing which exists on its own called a watch.

Taking his philosophy to the extreme, there may be nothing but the unknown – parts to the N^th degree.   (What are the parts of hydrogen?  And the parts of hydrogen’s parts?  At some point, we simply don’t have all the answers.)

Nevertheless, this idea really is at the core of how brands are built.  A brand clearly isn’t a person with desires and sensations.  Yet, everything a brand does, says and shows helps to create the brand and its corporate culture – whether they transcend beyond mere branding as Apple has done.

In the interest of “self-awareness,” when was the last time your company did a image/concept brand audit showcasing all your “parts”?  Are they working together?  Anything need to be refined?  Anything which can be leveraged to new marketing practices or products that reinforce consumers’ view of your?  My take:  this audit is just as important as a financial audit; however, they often get overlooked.

Back to Julian:  I do think the human “You” is more than a collection of our experience – which was his argument.  Until there are brain transplants, my brain is unique to me and can’t be used to reassemble another homo sapien.  So on that, I disagree with him.  But my brand?  Time for my own self-audit!