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 board 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!

Not much liking these matters (ah, the paperwork!), I decided to contact my current mortgage lender, PNC.  Online, their rates were competitive with others.

The process was pretty smooth, but throughout, as the interest rates continued to drop, I kept confirming that my rate would be adjusted lower at the time of closing.  The answer to this was always “yes.”

As the final papers were being prepared for signing, I asked again.  Now the story changed:  I could only drop to 4.00% (from 4.25%), and that would be if I came to closing with thousands of dollars.

I sent them a screen cap of listings from BankRate.com (including theirs) showing the current 15-year rate was 3.25%.  They didn’t care; said it was something to do with loan subordination with my line of credit.

So I called Wells Fargo, the bank which holds my line of credit.  I was approved at the 3.25% rate immediately; there were no issues with loan subordination.  I had the same contact person from start to finish, making the whole transaction feel very “small bank” and personal – a pleasant surprise.

PNC let an existing customer who always paid on time walk away.  How much will it cost them to find a brand new customer?  Why wasn’t the salesperson empowered to revise their interest rate to keep me with them?  I don’t understand this type of marketing or sales logic.

On the other hand, my contact at Wells Fargo has already gotten two referrals.  A much more cost effective customer acquisition strategy!

Ever had more than 4-6 concepts to test and weren’t sure how to get through 20 concepts in a single two-hour session?  Yes, I’ve had that happen more than once.  The most recent time, the concepts were all very good (i.e., clearly distinctive, well written ideas) and we really couldn’t cull down the number prior to the sessions starting.  After the first market, the client did streamline the concepts based on consumer feedback and all worked out well.  We used a more traditional grading approach, where abbreviated concepts were read and graded all at one time; we discussed the “best” performers in greater depth than the other concepts.

In the QRCA session I attended entitled “Unleashing the Power of Real People” by Justin Masterson and Jamie Johnson of Seek Research, they described an “auctioneering” approach:  they posted concept boards around the room and gave participants time to review reach one, making notes, quietly – as one might see people doing before an actual auction.  They actually employed an auctioneer to “call the items” (aka concepts) and participants bid on their preferred concepts.  Very quickly the better concepts emerged and were discussed in depth.  (An actual auctioneer isn’t really required if the moderator is comfortable, and I would be.  It sounds like great fun and a way to engage participants.)

Another option they’ve used is to have participants “invest” in concepts as though the concepts were products being sold on a stock exchange.  This approach I’m a bit more iffy about.  It moves the “bidding” into the area of what someone thinks will do well in the market vs. their personal reaction to an idea.  There have been quantitative approaches which use this “market knowledge” approach, and I’ve heard mixed reviews from clients about using them.

Yet, there are times when I would use the stock exchange idea to get to the meat of concept discussion.  For instance, if I were doing a group of “prosumers” (marketing or operations professionals from other industries as participants to solve a problem)  I think this approach makes sense; it would get these very left-brained participants to go with their gut reactions.

What are your thoughts about this idea?  Is it something you might use?

During this search, I kept seeing one word over and over again:  infographic.  When had that term become so mainstream?  I really like these visual depictions of quantitative data – they’re more fun and easier to understand, plus they are often able communicate much more information.  I’ve talked about infographics before in a newsletter piece, but never here.

To give you a couple of fun examples:  the first showcases how restaurant sales went up, comparing chains within the fast food and sit-down segments.  A much more engaging chart than the graphics of yesteryear! (Source:  DesignReviver.com)

This is my favorite recent one, from Shanghai Web Designers.  It visually summarizes what is done every 60 seconds on the Web:  70+ domain names are registered; 600+ new videos are uploaded to YouTube, 1,500 new blog posts go live – just to name a few.  The scope of the Internet’s impact is clearly seen in this one snapshot.

In qualitative research, infographics morph into something else.

• Personas are used to offer a feel for a target audience.
• Illustrations are used to explain a theory or concept, such at the one I used when explaining Situational Decision-Making in this blog post (click here).
• Collages are used to showcase a variety of things, including harder-to-articulate feelings about a brand.
• Word Clouds are created from qualitative answers to highlight which words are used most often.

With the flood of infographics on the quantitative research side, my sense is that on the qualitative side, we need to bring what we’re doing up a notch – we can do better.  So over the next few months, I intend to play when I’m reporting.  I’m seeing some new tools on sites like MakeUseOf.com and, for a nominal fee, Gliffy.com.  Maybe I’ll succeed and maybe I won’t. But it’ll be fun trying!

Any ideas you’d share about how you’re making qualitative research findings more visual – without the use of video?  Would love to hear from you!!

(RSS/Email Subscribers:  Having trouble seeing the images in this post?  Click on the post title and view the blog on the website.)

Imagine this:  you barely know how to type, you have macular degeneration (meaning you have a really hard time seeing), you’ve never turned a computer on before, and you’ve never used a mouse.  Yet, while my father knows little about computers or how to get around online, he was clued in enough to know about Dragon Naturally Speaking software.  His take:  if he could talk to the computer and it would type for him, his online experience would be much better.

After some thought, my sister and I decided upon an HP 23″ TouchSmart All-in-One computer.  We wanted something like an iPad but bigger.  We thought if he could touch it, it would be better than trying to type it.  It was a good call.  We set the monitor’s DPI at 300% and he can see all the icons, but even with Control+, the back button, home button, and menus remain proportionately too small.  (Some add-ons have helped with this.)

For Dragon – it’s great in concept, but not 100% there when it comes to working with and training the software.  For example, the training modules use a very small font size; with the screen set at a larger DPI, what’s showing on the screen is something my dad can read, but he can’t scroll to see what else is “on the page.”  Either way, we’re finding training to be harder than it should be.

Considering this company is aware that people might have vision problems who use their program (in training, they highlight this fact), why isn’t there a short quiz at the beginning of the set-up wizard asking about what the issues are (e.g., I just want to dictate more than type my emails and letters vs. I’m a slow reader due to dyslexia or nystagmus vs. I have visual issues that make reading and using a computer more difficult for me), and then take them to the type of training program which will work best for them?  Part of my frustration is that I don’t know this program, so I can’t teach him.

After a couple of days of training him on things like how to close a program (and what  a program is), how to use the mouse (because the touchscreen is great, but the mouse is still helpful), etc., we realized that he would benefit from a program that “talked to him” (e.g., read him web pages).  So we bought a program, Natural Reader, which despite installing twice, will not read aloud to him.  Customer support is only available via email.  They are slow in responding.  I’ve tried everything I know how, but I can’t get it to work.  So here’s a company that caters to people who want help with reading for one reason or another, and they only offer email support?  Clearly their business model got in the way of their customer service model!

Despite all this, my father was upbeat as I left yesterday.  After a successful search session, about a topic of interest to him, he said he’d “sensed the nectar of the fruit” the Internet could offer.  Hadn’t tasted it yet, mind you, but sensed the possibilities.  While he’s never been mechanically inclined, the gleam in his eye reminded me of when he’s learning a new game:  he loves games and if he approaches the Internet this way, as a game he can win, the web will be fun and fruitful, vs. frustrating.

Why is this relevant in a general sense?  Do you know if you have a special needs target?

• If you’re a restaurant who has a large older population, do you have a large-size print menu?
• If you’re a movie theater, do you have someone who can help seniors to their seats?
• If you’re a shopping mall, is there above-ground parking for people who see less well in low-lighting conditions?

It’s not just about vision; hearing, muscle strength/agility/dexterity, nutritional requirements – you name it, can impact people and, consequently, who your business can attract.  We call this “holistic usability.”  Maybe it doesn’t matter much now, but as the 76 million Baby Boomers continue to get older, this target segment is going to impact your business more and more.

Take a few minutes to read your customers’ comments, or – better yet – listen to them talk.  In conventional research, we’re always talking about what can be done to get consumers to overcome hurdles to buying your brand.  What happens if they’re dissatisfied with a category of products/services because no one thought to make one small change?  A small change with a big return?  That’s a pretty simple formula for increasing market share in these still-hard economic times!