There are two aspects to this:

• The use of superlatives is becoming (more of) a turn-off in concept statements and advertising.  I am seeing this more with younger participants, but I hear it from time-to-time from the “older” folks as well.   “Best” or “better than” is not the tone they want to hear; using or including the “best of something” (e.g., best quality ingredients) – if the key benefits support the claim – is more acceptable.
• Greater value is being placed on the parts (individual) vs. the whole.  I haven’t heard in quite some time someone say “that’s a great CD.”  They like a particular song.  They download it, put it on their iPod or other device, and customize their listening experience.  That focus on being able to customize experiences is helping to drive how they react to new products and ideas.

For example, I can’t image Pepsi coming out with an ad campaign today saying “The Choice of a New Generation.”  This new generation would blog about the ridiculousness of that claim – “you’re telling us what’s our choice?!”

If this is all sounding very left-brained and logical, that’s not my intent.  I’ve often said that unless there’s a connection between a consumer and a brand, a sale will never take place.  That connection can be emotional and/or rational, but it needs to happen.

And yet, my sense is that there this is an evolution to individuality that’s becoming more pronounced.  Companies need to become increasingly more sensitive when choosing how to position themselves and their products.  Until this morning, the best case example I could give was the “I’m a Mac” campaign from Apple.  As you know, they put it out there – I’m a PC vs. I’m a Mac.  In effect, they’re asking, “which one are you like?”

But just today, I saw a headline of “Design-your-own skincare, including ingredients and concentrations” (via Springwise).  Of course, I had to go visit this site.  Turns out that you can custom blend your own cosmetics from natural ingredients. From the www.mycodage.com/an website:

Convinced that every skin is unique and deserves special treatment, in 2006 Amandine and Julien, with the help of many experts, developed a technology that allows you to customize your product to suit the specific needs of each skin.  Codage was born.  100% made in France, CODAGE today delivers worldwide – from its French laboratories directly to you.

A bit stilted in the French to English translation, but how much more personal can you get than that??

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts!

I recently saw a Pew Research report on gadget ownership. The graph below says it all.

Tablet PC ownership is currently only 4%, but I expect that will skyrocket next year as the android versions hit the market.  Personally, I’m expecting cell phones to merge with these devices soon.  Short of that, companies like Verizon will be offering data plans for tablets like the Samsung Galaxy as early as next month.

As an aside, care should be taken when assuming who owns the latest devices.  Deeper in the report it highlighted that African-Americans are more likely than others to own an eReader (7% vs. 5% for Whites and 4% for Hispanics) and Hispanics are twice as likely to own a tablet than the other groups (6% vs. 3%).

When I was trying to explore what “ownership” meant (family owns vs. owns unit for self – which I could never find out), I saw the survey response rates:  13.6% for the landline sample and 17.0% for the cell phone sample.  That rather surprised me.  What wasn’t a surprise was the level of cell phone ownership.

Collectively, these findings suggest to me the following:

• As phones (and tablets) come to do more and more, and we see continued consolidation in devices, it’s important that we ask how we can best reach each respondent.  For example, texting a focus group reminder notice may be much better than sending an email (if email isn’t checked often).
• Asking someone how they’re most likely to access the Internet should become a routine question.  If it’s on their cell, online screeners or email blasts should be optimized for that format.  (Same thing with the tablets.)
• I’d like to see more on best practices based on what’s working.  Text reminders might work, but slef-administered screening via a smartphone might not.

Of course, two years from now, the issues will be new and different!

How do you think these findings might impact recruiting for qualitative research?  Or conducting qualitative research for that matter?

From their website:  “The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.”

I am at best an infrequent Facebook user; I tweet maybe once a week or when I see something of interest.  My blog posts are automatically tweeted.  I comment on posts I see that are of interest, on websites and in private forums.  That’s about it.

Klout had no idea who I was when I entered my Twitter name @CarynGoldsmith.  Once I signed up, I got my (again very humbling) score of 5.  Here’s what it looked like:

Seth Godin, a well-known marketing guru who focuses on digital delivery of his books and blogs, but isn’t into Twitter, has a Klout score that looks like this:

Clearly, much more influence due to the reach of his blog, which must be why his score is as high as it is.

Turn this around and look at a very active younger research professional I know and see that he’s much more likely to be driving the conversation online between people:

Reach=size of your engaged audience; Amplification=likelihood your info will be acted upon by others; Network=influence level of you engaged audience.

I don’t have an issue with a score like this being created, but one must suspend logic and believe that the online space is the entire universe.  That’s too much for me.  Just last year, I quoted the very respected Spike Jones (Brains on Fire) when he said that 90% of word-of-mouth marketing happens offline.  That’s right, offline.

The online space is very verbal.  And while it can be visual with YouTube videos and the like, a score like this focuses on words which are often tangible – tweets, retweets, mentions, likes, etc.   Further, the focus really is on influencers and not trendsetters.  Someone’s ability to influence others is terrific, but if I’m looking for those who can help refine a product concept or redesign a service, that may be someone completely different.

Nevertheless, Klout seems to have done a good job with building their score.  And we do need a good way to identify influencers online.  Yet, if we are recruiting for qualitative research – even if it’s to take place online –  we need to take some care here:

• On what topics are they influential?
• Who are they influencing (other leaders, buyers, etc.)? And what is that sphere of influence?
• Finally, how can we augment these influencers with others who are also influencers in other ways and/or offline?

Great tool.  Glad I learned about it.  Hope to have a chance to integrate it into a project soon!

Your thoughts?

    a) Having access and sharing all your information across multiple devices and platforms OR
    b) Having a secure computing/digital environment

If you’re like most of us, you want both.

But here’s the catch:  when PCs  were first introduced, they were local (sat on our desks) and their contents could be kept private (no information was shared).  As we became more connected, we were taught safety first  – “Get anti-virus!”  “Make sure you have a firewall!!”  We were living on the left side of this grid.

Then two things happened:  cloud computing started to gain traction at the same time social networks came to define Web 2.0.  (For those of you who don’t know the expression “cloud computing,” it’s where shared information, resources and software applications are stored and accessed in a “cloud” (the Web).  If you use Google Docs, for example, its Office-like programs which  store and share documents online are “in the cloud.”  The same for its Calendar.)

Where does that leave protecting our files, identities, and the like?

It’s confusing, really.  Public info in the cloud?  How about Facebook, which has consistently said they don’t believe in privacy – so much so that there are now four senators calling for an investigation of the company and its policies?  Have you changed your settings recently so you’re comfortable with the amount of info being shared?

Feeling virtuous because you don’t use Facebook?  Doing any online banking?  Using GoToMyPC.com to access office files from home?  Or sharing pictures via Flickr?  You’re in the cloud, whether in public or private.

Why is this comfortable for us?  I suppose that for each of these things, we have weighed out the benefits (convenience, accessibility) with the risks.

But in the last few months, as I’ve explored delivering interactive market research reports to clients online,  I’ve realized that where I draw the line in the cloud is in storing proprietary client reports in an area where they can have access to them.  In other words, I’m not yet comfortable providing my clients with an electronic cloud-based archive of the work I’ve done.

To get there, I’ll need the following:

• A private browser-based gateway or portal for each client.  (This could include a “secure tunnel” from the client’s Intranet to where their files are stored in the space I’m paying for.)
• The platform should be able to support multi-media elements (slides/pages, audio, video, podcasts of presentations, etc.) without software needing to be loaded on the client’s server/computer.  (Rather like how the wonderful sales tool, SlideRocket.com, works today.)
• Viewing of files must be completely secure – like SSL, with a visible lock in the browser.
• Client files can only be uploaded and/or edited by me.

In short, if Carbonite and SlideRocket were to have a baby, I’d be very happy and there would  no longer be a need for “drawing lines in the cloud.”  I’d have both “a” and “b.”

Know of a solution for me?  Think online reporting is moving in another direction?  Let me know!

BTW, Perspectives on Consumers, this GSS blog, is now part of the blog directory at http://Market-Research.Alltop.com!!

Two “mental models of how the world works” were described:  interrupting schemas and conceptual schemas.

Interrupting:  Something that makes you take notice because of how different it is from the norm.  For example, the plane (crash) landing on the Hudson was discussed for months; with a “regular” plane crash, we pay attention, but maybe for only a day or two.  The greater the disruption, the more impact on us.

Conceptual:  When two familiar products or services are put together to form something new, the disruption of this new idea captures our attention. For instance, when the cell phone was put together with a PDA, we noticed.

Disruption causes us to talk – to share.

Steve said that research has shown that word-of-mouth advocacy can take place at any stage of product adoption due to “connectors” (those people who have wide and deep social connections and who spread trends more than they set them).  He showed a very interesting quad-graph that highlighted where one wants to be in “guiding” a word-of-mouth effort:  you want your connectors to strongly advocate your product/service and you want the word to spread quickly.  Intuitively, this makes complete sense.

Being a P&G company, they’ve created an online community of “connectors” (there’s a screening survey to identify those that meet the profile), called Vocalpoint.  They’re using this panel to help identify which communication strategies, created in the context of the different disruption schemas, will be most effective in generating consumer advocacy.

A couple of examples:

Secret Clinical Strength – “The more you move, the better you smell” captures attention because it’s the opposite of what we’re used to believing.

Venus Razors – The new campaign got women talking about the main product feature – that they didn’t need lotion after they shaved.

Most companies don’t have the resources of P&G and other CPG companies.  But we can learn from these models when developing communication strategies – or even new products – for brands.