Reading this today about P&G’s thinking regarding purpose, as opposed to brand, supports a theory that I have been building for some time now. WARC notes that “Procter & Gamble, the FMCG giant, is combining consumer insights and its global reach to pursue ‘purpose-driven branding’ around the world.” After reading Rachel Botsman’s book regarding collaborative [...]

In thinking about market research, I have posited that the industry will go through several evolutionary phases. These are: Asking Epoch Observational Epoch Co-Creative Epoch Anticipatory Epoch At present, MR is trying to move out of the Asking Epoch and into the Observational Epoch. But, its the co-creative evolutionary stage I want to focus on [...]

In the research world brand and corporate reputation have lived parallel lives. Quarterly brand trackers are commonplace and a key (dependable) source of revenue for the larger MR suppliers. Annual corporate reputation studies are also fielded for most large corporations and are focused on a much wider array of universes than the brand tracker. Different [...]

Last night’s keynote address was given by Michael Tchong of Ubercool, Inc. As one might expect, the speech was heavily future and trends focused. So much of what he discussed (especially America’s hyperfocus on the future and “future tense”) was reminiscent of David Brooks’ book “On Paradise Drive.” Although the audience was treated to a [...]

Tom LaForge at Coca-Cola presented his thinking on macro-forces shaping our world (what Smith and Raspin in their book “Creating Market Insight” call “remote environment factors”) and Coca-Cola’s strategy. It was all strategic foresight. Tom, with his focus on the trends driving our futures, represents one aspect of where I believe market research is headed. [...]

This just in from the World Future Society, Sency is now aggregating realtime social media activity within cities so that consumers can (a) read what people around them are posting in realtime and (b) identify the hottest hot spots (as defined by posting activity) in the moment: “Our newest search initiative surrounds Sency for Cities. [...]

Joel Rubinson’s blog recently noted the concept of “mental marketplaces.” As opposed to physical markets for a specific product, “mental marketplaces” are all the companies and brands a consumer associates freely with a particular space. This is exceptionally interesting. So, for example, Rubinson writes that: “The ‘mental marketplace’ changes the rules of competition; your brand [...]

Hat tip to Market Research Deathwatch for highlighting a new type of MROC – lockerz. MROC Variant 1 is what we think of as a traditional MROC built exclusively (usually by Communispace, Passenger, etc.) for a client with the members coming exclusively from the client’s current customer base (raving fans typically). MROC Variant 2 is [...]

Consumer trendspotting is always trendy. But, it is usually done by a small team or gifted seer with a “finger on the pulse” (like Cayce Pollard in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition), but one company is turning that paradigm on its head by apparently creating a large trendspotting network. For more on this, click here. Its [...]