ResearchTalk » Segmentation http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt DATA-DRIVEN INSPIRATION Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:42:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 2006-2007 (ResearchTalk) (ResearchTalk) posts 1440 PRICELESS INSPIRATION FOR FOLKS IN MARKETING, MARKET RESEARCH, PLANNING ADVERTISING ResearchTalk ResearchTalk No no http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg ResearchTalk http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt 144 144 MR – A High Tech, Indian Perspective http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2008/01/21/mr-an-indian-perspective/ http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2008/01/21/mr-an-indian-perspective/#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:15:00 +0000 ResearchTalk http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2008/01/21/mr-an-indian-perspective/ 13mins

 STARRING 

  • Praveen Gupta, Director and co-founder, Cross-Tab

On a recent trip to India we were keen to learn a bit more about the state of the research industry there and were pleased when Praveen Gupta invited us over to Cross-Tab’s Bangalore office for a chat.

Must admit that not having been to India for a long, long time, we didn’t know what to expect in terms of the state of development there. You hear about a sub-continent that is home to both extreme poverty and some of the most technologically advanced organisations in the world as a result of churning out probably more science graduates than anywhere else on earth.

Bangalore is one of three cities, alongside fellow southern cities Hyderabad and Chennai, vying for the super high tech crown. There’s an incredible buzz as you travel down surprisingly modern streets from the airport. We later learn that the local mayor did this strategically to give the impression that all of Bangalore was like that whereas this is only the case for certain ‘key routes’.

We got to know about Cross-Tab when we wrote about them hiring a global CEO from Microsoft (Kumar Mehta, a former top executive there). Cross-Tab’s claim to fame is both as a pioneer in MR outsourcing and, apparently, “the only full service online research agency in India”.

In this short chat with Praveen, a co-founder and modern-day Indian entrepreneur, we hear about…

  • MR outsourcing (and how this accidentally became one of their strengths)
  • Online research in India
  • The middle class
  • The super rich
  • Indian entrepreneurism
  • The market for MR
  • Future challenges
  • Blog mining

The full chat with Praveen was quite a bit longer and highly informative and stimulating. We’d like to thank him again for the warm hospitality.

]]> http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2008/01/21/mr-an-indian-perspective/feed/ 0 William Higham: “The Teen is Dead” http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/11/07/william-higham-the-teen-is-dead/ http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/11/07/william-higham-the-teen-is-dead/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:18:21 +0000 ResearchTalk http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/11/07/william-higham-the-teenager-is-dead/ 10mins | Produced @ AQR Trends ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

 STARRING 

Of all the trends discussed during the AQR Trends ‘07 conference, the one William talks about here could be one of the most significant, in our humble opinion. He suggests that age-based targeting is becoming significantly less relevant across many categories. For example, grey folks exhibit teen-like behaviour (eg. still into hedonism and rock ‘n roll) and vice versa (teens exhibiting social responsibility and an interest in politics).

Listen to William as he chats with Alison from the award-winning Firefish, about the wider implications of William’s theories. Interesting tidbit about Alison and William: we randomly paired them up for this chat but little did we know that the two already knew each other from years ago as they were growing up!

BTW, references to ‘Oliver’ are to Oliver James who spoke before this chat took place, and he spoke about his new book, ‘Affluenza’.


Our February ‘08 Spotlight column in ESOMAR’s Research World magazine.

Is Age Defunct?
As boundaries traditionally used to segment consumers become ever more blurry, William Higham of consultancy Next Big Thing (next-big-thing.net) argues that attitude and lifestyle could supplant age.

RIP, the teenager.

That’s because, according to Higham, the teenager with their unique traits may have died: “The grey consumer, the older consumer, is behaving like we traditionally think of as the teenager, to some extent. And teenagers are starting to behave like the grey consumer.”

And the consequence of this increasing fusion and confusion, Higham believes, is that age will become increasingly irrelevant to marketers.

The Evidence
Politics, ideology and general attitudes to life are some areas that Higham believes best illustrate this stereotype reversal: “Teens are becoming more sensible and serious, and conservative and traditional. Whereas the older consumers are still quite hedonistic and into rock ‘n roll.

“If you look at it from a generational point of view, you’ve got baby boomers, and to some extent generation X, who’ve grown up with the idea that there is a right and wrong, the idea of idealism, the idea that you either support the left or the right, that there’s something that drives you emotionally or spiritually or morally other than purely money.

“We have a generation that’s growing up who’ve never experienced any politics apart from the politics of spin…who’ve grown up without this idea of organised religion…we are starting to see these kids saying we want the traditional things, marriage, religion.”

That said, a penchant for retro fashion, tastes and ideology is hardly new. So is this cyclical or a long-term trend?

Lifestyle, Not Lifestage
Higham clearly views this as an evolutionary trend.

For one thing, he thinks that societal values are changing as affluence spreads and materialism becomes less influential in our lives: “I don’t think the younger generation has that kind of ‘keeping up with the Jones’ thing as much…that’s almost being forced upon them [by the older generation]…Teenagers don’t really care about products so much, e.g. getting an iPod, it’s what you do with the them.”

This apparent quest for meaning and true fulfilment, rather than superficial consumerism, seems to parallel the proliferation of brands aiming to bring meaning into peoples’ lives (e.g Dove). Thereby suggesting that people increasingly long for ‘interesting’ over ‘ostentatious’.

And just as Hollywood taps old TV series when original movie ideas are thin on the ground, Higham believes that people are apt to do a similar thing in the search for interesting ideas and pastimes. But rather than do this because it may be fashionable to go retro, he believes the motive is a genuine quest for inspiration: “The boomer generation were the first one to really kick away the idea that you should respect your elders, because they grew up in a generation whereby you should respect young people was the mantra…the ‘millennials’ is the generation that really will respect elders more. It’s one of the more conservative, traditional traits…they’re getting interested in older ways of doing things, making things in wood and knitting!”

In short, people have more ‘freedom’ to do what they want to do, be who they want to be, beyond the constraints of age or other categorisations: “There is a kind of ‘tribe lite’. That you can be a punk one day, a chav the next, into hip hop the next and into grime (music) the next. It’s almost like trying on different fashions but it’s not the [standard] sort of tribal thing.”

The internet has arguably played a significant role in hastening this trend. The pace and nature of innovation has inspired more personalisation, resulting in people increasingly seeing themselves as an individuals rather than a consumer type. And the significant use of the internet now for social networking, and ability to quickly find groups or niche media/content of common interest (e.g. blogs, video, podcasts), ultimately enables them to cater to their specific tastes irrespective of age, location, or background.

Where Next?
The implications for Higham’s observations are naturally significant.

Strategically, he believes that marketers need to rethink their preconceptions of different age groups: “[The political parties] are saying the way to engage young people is to do lots of very media friendly things or do lots of things on the internet, because all that issue stuff, all that ideology stuff doesn’t work. Rubbish! The way to engage young people is to talk ideology.”

As a first step, though, he recommends that researchers ensure that studies stress attitude and lifestyle over age and lifestage.

Series:Events Series:AQR Series:Trends07

]]> http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/11/07/william-higham-the-teen-is-dead/feed/ 0 Lastminute.com, LEGO, Kodak http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/01/16/lastminutecom-lego-kodak/ http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/01/16/lastminutecom-lego-kodak/#comments Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:04:20 +0000 ResearchTalk http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/01/16/lastminutecom-lego-kodak/ “If you want to know how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo, go to the jungle.”(LEGO)

Michael Spang, KodakMark Jones, lastminute.com EXCLUSIVE  Mark Jones of Lastminute.com talks about evolving their B2B offering to allow partner brands to take advantage of their infrastructure and content relationships. Flemming Ostergaard talks about how it took LEGO’s worsening financial performance to wake them up to the importance of directly connecting with kids through ethnography. And Michael Spang talks about the challenges involved in regionalising the Kodak global corporate website to make it more relevant and useful

 STARRING 

Recorded live at the Euro MR Event 2006


TIMELINE [18m05s]
00m00s Intro.

1. Mark Jones (Lastminute.com).
00m30s Evolving a B2B strategy.
02m32s Not licensing the lastminute.com brand.
02m45s Types of research conducted.
03m23s Experimentation, innovation and dynamic packaging.
03m58s Evolution of the lastminute.com brand.
04m49s Key challenges over the next year.
05m09s Segmentation.
05m45s Building a strong brand with universal appeal.
06m33s Brand evaluation metrics.
07m11s Impact of being bought by Sabre.
07m56s Personalisation initiatives: current and future.
08m26s Web 2.0 initiatives.

Notable Mentions
B2B.
B2C.
Branding.
Brent Hoberman.
Demographics.
Dynamic packaging.
Early adopters.
Iberia.
Kuoni.
Martha Lane Fox.
Prototyping.
RSS.
Sabre.
Segmentation.
Tesco.
Thomas Cook.
Travelocity.com
User generated content.
Web 2.0.

2. Flemming Ostergaard (LEGO).
08m54s Using ethnography to really understand kids.
10m30s The impact on LEGO’s product innovation.
11m29s Building on ethnography.
12m08s Any epiphanies?

Notable Mentions
Ethnography.
Mindstorm.
Privacy.

3. Michael Spang (Kodak).
13m17s Improving the kodak.com web experience.
14m44s Deciding on which regions to survey.
15m33s Regionalising a global gateway.
16m17s Importance of the website.

Notable Mentions
China.
Corporate image.
Digital photography.
Web usability.

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

Series:EMRE06 Series:Events

]]> http://www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/2007/01/16/lastminutecom-lego-kodak/feed/ 0 18:04 "If you want to know how a lion hunts, don't go to the zoo, go to the jungle."(LEGO) #160;EXCLUSIVE#160;#160;Mark Jones of Lastminute.com talks about evolving their ... "If you want to know how a lion hunts, don't go to the zoo, go to the jungle."(LEGO) #160;EXCLUSIVE#160;#160;Mark Jones of Lastminute.com talks about evolving their B2B offering to allow partner brands to take advantage of their infrastructure and content relationships. Flemming Ostergaard talks about how it took LEGO's worsening financial performance to wake them up to the importance of directly connecting with kids through ethnography. And Michael Spang talks about the challenges involved in regionalising the Kodak global corporate website to make it more relevant and useful #160;STARRING#160; Mark Jones, MD, Lastminute.com Flemming Ostergaard, Director Global Innovation Marketing, LEGO Michael Spang, Eastman Kodak Recorded live at the Euro MR Event 2006 TIMELINE [18m05s] 00m00s Intro. 1. Mark Jones (Lastminute.com). 00m30s Evolving a B2B strategy. 02m32s Not licensing the lastminute.com brand. 02m45s Types of research conducted. 03m23s Experimentation, innovation and dynamic packaging. 03m58s Evolution of the lastminute.com brand. 04m49s Key challenges over the next year. 05m09s Segmentation. 05m45s Building a strong brand with universal appeal. 06m33s Brand evaluation metrics. 07m11s Impact of being bought by Sabre. 07m56s Personalisation initiatives: current and future. 08m26s Web 2.0 initiatives. Notable Mentions B2B. B2C. Branding. Brent Hoberman. Demographics. Dynamic packaging. Early adopters. Iberia. Kuoni. Martha Lane Fox. Prototyping. RSS. Sabre. Segmentation. Tesco. Thomas Cook. Travelocity.com User generated content. Web 2.0. 2. Flemming Ostergaard (LEGO). 08m54s Using ethnography to really understand kids. 10m30s The impact on LEGO's product innovation. 11m29s Building on ethnography. 12m08s Any epiphanies? Notable Mentions Ethnography. Mindstorm. Privacy. 3. Michael Spang (Kodak). 13m17s Improving the kodak.com web experience. 14m44s Deciding on which regions to survey. 15m33s Regionalising a global gateway. 16m17s Importance of the website. Notable Mentions China. Corporate image. Digital photography. Web usability. Music#160;Theatrimus from the PMN Series:EMRE06 Series:Events B2B,,EMRE,,Ethnography,,Segmentation,,Usability no No