Sir Ken Robinson - Animated!

Excellent piece of work by RSA Animate. Must watch.

Choiceville - Conjoint Analysis in a new Avatar

Click on the image to enlarge

Market Research enters the world of gaming. The respondent creates his own “desired” avatar by choosing from the available options similar to the choices available in conjoint analysis - but in the form of an interactive game. She can pick up products from the shelf after looking at their price tag and attributes using her aforesaid budget. The Avatar created by a person symbolizes her "Ideal Self", driven by her needs and wants.The options available will be real brands and real products. This idea is applicable especially in identifying extrinsic motivation factors and self congruity with brands. What brands do consumers want on themselves? What brands do consumers want others to see on them?

Maybe, this can be the next idea to measure consumers' needs and wants...

This poster is my entry for the NewMR Virtual Festival and it can also be viewed here.

GeneticMR - Could it be a possibility?

We all have witnessed how MR has used Neuro science as a tool to gauge what is happening inside the consumer's head. But the consumer is not just made of his head. She has a lot of processes happening all over her body that plays a role in her moods, emotions, behavior, feelings, needs and desires. Could it be possible to study the holistic DNA structure of the human genome to find alleles that influence needs? Maybe we can identify universal patterns and also individual differences. One major advantage is that there will be zero respondent fatigue because we would just need a strand of her hair!

ShweePea - A new brand I cooked up

We had a course on 'Visual Literacy' recently at MICA where we worked on an interesting assignment of creating a new brand for any product or service category. So, we thought of launching a new chain of playschools across the country and name it "ShweePea".

The underlying idea that guides our brand purpose emerges from Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk below:

Each kid has tremendous talent. Kids are not frightened to make mistakes; they are ready to try everything. But the world teaches them to be scared to make mistakes. Creativity, which is the process of having original ideas of some value, comes from seeing things differently and that’s what ShweePea would help kids do.

Based on the Montessori school of thought, we nurture innocent naughtiness in your child and ensure that he doesn’t lose the capacity to think creatively. The brand elements are colorful and safe with smooth rounded edges. We have made all elements including the fonts, shapes and colors reflect innocent naughtiness. :)

Why Research Insights are Diamonds

There has been a recent discussion about what do we refer MR agencies as? Are they research agencies or firms? Are they vendors or strategic partners? If you ask me, I would call them a conglomerate, in fact a horizontally integrated production line of diamond jewelery. We all know that "Diamonds are a girl's best friend". Here, the ever-demanding and pursued girl is none other than the brand manager - the client. The girl craves for a sparkling diamond ring that would fit her perfectly.

A market researcher is firstly a diamond miner. Or should I say "insight miner"? He digs into the coal mines, where coal represents the abundance of data all around the place. He mines for diamonds in the form of robust research insights from among the pile of useless data. But this diamond is not yet ready to be gifted to the girl. It needs to be further cut and refined to make it sparkle. Here is where the researcher uses his analytical skills to derive actionable recommendations that are crisp and to-the-point. Finally, these diamonds are fitted onto a ring that must fit the girl's finger perfectly. Hence, the researcher needs to customize and shape the ring exclusively for the girl.

The girl will accept the ring only if it is presented to her in a memorable and precious manner that she would cherish for the rest of her life. It should be given as a surprise to her and not just in a simple boring fashion. The researcher should present the insights and recommendations to the client in a memorable manner and not be boring!

Well-cut research insights can add a sparkle to everyone's life and deepen the relationship between the miner and his girl so that they can live happily ever after...

Be Yourself

An animation created by me, inspired by 3 Idiots :)

Thinking of research gives me goosebumps :)

Market Research is a very interesting field. Throughout our academic life, from school to graduation, we have been reading books written by others. We have been studying theories founded by thinkers over the years. Research is the only way we can create something new and original to the existing knowledge base in this world. The human mind and intellect is capable to finding answers to the deepest unanswered, or even unasked questions. If we keenly observe at what's happening around us everyday, we will come across many such activities that have no explanation. It would be interesting to find the cause behind such things. Blindly accepting the conventional wisdom is not the right thing to do. According to Galbraith, conventional wisdom is simple, convenient, comfortable and comforting. We need to think out of our comfort zone to find the real answers.

Links about Behavioural Economics

1) A video on intrinsic motivation using Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational

2) Behavioural Economics - Red hot or Red herring?

3) Thinking Marketing blog

4) Dan Pink on Motivation

Word of Mouth

“Why and What do Brands Do to Inspire Conversation?”

Janelle Zurek, vice president of innovation at P&G’s Tremor, did a nice job of identifying the keys to effective word-of-mouth messaging. She explained that things that disrupt a set of established mental associations, or “schema,” get us thinking. Then, if a disruptive idea is considered relevant and useful, our social survival instincts will prompt us to share it with others. So in order to create messages that will spread by word of mouth, you need to find the thing that will disrupt people’s established beliefs and make them stop and think.

Janelle proposed that it is the things that do not fit an established mental schema that make people engage their conscious minds.

Excerpts from an article by Nigel Hollis (Millward Brown)

A really cool source for Business Ideas

This website is amazing. It has a huge collection of creative ideas for entrepreneurs and any other people who want to do something great in life! Get ready to pounce on these ideas! :)

http://www.springwise.com/businessideas2010/

Research findings on Indian Kids by IMRB Kidscan

Here are a few findings tweeted by IMRBSpeaks from their research 'Kidscan':

1. GEC viewing among kids is passive. 60% kids would switch to kids channel if they got the remote
2. Good looking cartoon characters find highest favour among Indian kids
3. Kids like ads with reality in them rather than exaggerated fantasy.
4. Chinese food catches the Indian kids’ taste buds - ranked as favourite cuisine.
5. Indian kids exhibit high sensitivity to environment:70% willing to proactively participate environment related activities - (Nickelodeon's campaign that used this insight)
6. Indian kids politically apathetic: One third consider all politicians corrupt.
7. Celeb endorsements work wonders for kids. For favourite celeb, 34% straightaway buy the product.
8. High levels of peer influence among kids: 35% sure to buy a product if their friends have it.
9. Fitting into a group very vital for kids,60% express a strong desire for social acceptance
10. Window window in the mall’ : 68% claim ‘window shopping’ at malls as their favourite time pass.
11. Only 40% feel it's alright for girls to wear short clothes,indicates a highly conventional outlook towards adults & adulthood?
12. Academic performance the ‘Coolest’ thing - More than 80% kids want to be known for getting ‘best marks’ amongst friends
13. Cereal killer: Breakfast cereals are most hated food item for kids. Souce: Kidscan Study by IMRB international
14. 30% Indian kids sure that entertainment is not possible without cool gadgets.
15. Kids like ads with reality in them rather than exaggerated fantasy.

Also, here is a link to a survey summary conducted by ASER on the rural education system:
http://www.voiceofbharat.org/education/aser2009.asp

Interesting links about Advertising

I will be posting interesting links here as and when I come across them.

1) Customers' trust in different forms of advertising - Nielsen

2) Domino's recruits fans to sell its pizza!

3) Visual Targeting - to attract your TG to your communication - case study of Kraft-diamond shreddies