ResearchTalk

Our article in the Dec ‘08 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

Brand health monitoring is an important tool, particularly during tough economic times when managing RoI becomes critical for CMOs. But what are some of the tools, and are they fit for purpose?

And voltage? That, says Walshe, reflects how effectively consumers move up the bonding levels. Strong brands tend to have high conversation ratios between the levels.
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And the winner of the Buyology giveaway is…Elizabeth Luke.

Elizabeth is a senior at the University of Southern California spending her final semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam. She is a communication major with an interest in persuasion and consumer behavior. She will be graduating magna cum laude in December 2008, and shortly after, she will begin her career as a research analyst for emerging consumer products at Nielsen BASES.

Elizabeth’s book is on the way, thanks again to Martin Lindstrom and publishers Random House.

Here are Martin’s responses to some of the questions you sent in (thanks for all the entries):
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Our article in the Nov ‘08 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

In an age where innovation is de rigeur, we look into how well qualitative is keeping up with the times.

But far from being a Luddite, Forrest is innovating, it just takes him a while to acknowledge this. And that’s not dissimilar from the initial reaction we get from others we spoke to.
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The beauty of the internet for those keen to understand consumer needs and desires is that people naturally express these in social networks and other social media.

iWant is a simple, experimental tool we’ve built to mine this info from the twitter stream. Give it a spin if you dare

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

Our Spotlight column in the Jun ‘08 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are privileged to witness the start of a new movement. A movement that is revving up to do what The Cluetrain Manifesto did for marketing communications. Welcome to VRM.

Well, Mr. Searls is at it again. Not satisfied with inspiring consumers to use the web to redress the balance between marketers and consumers (e.g. via blogs), he wants to move things up a gear. And blogging strategist Adriana Lukas is along for the ride.
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A couple weeks ago we ran a marketing book giveaway.

It seems it was quite popular because we received 17 entries, all of them worthy. But of course there can only be one winner.

Choosing the winner was difficult. Now we’re bound to say that, aren’t we? But it really was because we had to choose between an entry that totally ruled our head, and another that pulled at the old heart strings.

In the end we couldn’t/didn’t want to choose between them, so we convinced the generous folks at publishers OUP to send a free book to both of them.

The ‘head‘ entry (which you can see at the bottom of this post) was from Simon Kendrick, a commercial research consultant with UK commercial broadcaster ITV. Simon blogs and previously came to our attention for his comprehensive updates from the recent Research 2008 conference. We asked him for a short bio…

Upon leaving university, I did the apparently normal thing of looking for a job that had nothing to do with my degree. As I studied philosophy, politics and economics this was three times as difficult, but I have managed to dig out a niche for myself within media research. After several enjoyable years learning the tricks of the trade at the agency side, I have now crossed over to the client side. Stationed in the commercial sector of the business, I use a mixture of industry currency, desk research and commissioned projects to make the case for advertisers and agencies to work closely with us.

The ‘heart‘ entry read thus:

Here in South Africa text books are insanely expensive: the exchange rate, together with high import taxes, make purchasing text books onerous. My students and clients both look forward to anecdotal instances to bring the theory to life. I am sure that this would help.

It was from Michele Sohn…

Michele started Grey Matter, one of South Africa’s first new media companies, which she successfully sold to i-africa.com. She now heads up Confluence
Digital Research and holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MBA from Wits Business School. She lectures at Wits Plus and the IMM.

We hope this gift will, in some small way, do some good.

So well done to both of you – your books are on the way (one of which has been signed by the authors because we only expected one winner!). We look forward to Simon’s blog review of the book which we’ll link to once it’s done.

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UPDATE: This giveaway has finished
Through the fine folks at Oxford University Press, we’re giving away a free copy of their new, 800+ page tome simply called Marketing, authored by Paul Baines, Chris Fill and Kelly Page.

Aimed at marketing and business students, we think it has a much broader utility as a reference tool for agencies, e.g. when putting together those clever sounding pitches!

Having studied from marketing texts many moons ago, it seems very practical, being chock full of ‘marketing’ insights that showcase contemporary brands, scenarios and memes.

You can learn more through the excellent microsite, which includes sample chapters and video chats between the authors explaining how they developed the book.

Here’s the Amazon page so you can see how valuable this is: US, UK.

Right, now for the giveaway. This is open to every member of the ResearchTalk/ MarketingTalk/ AdTalk community (OUP confirm they’ll snail mail to anywhere in the world).

All you need to do is leave a comment in this blog post, or email us at letmetalk@gmail.com, saying why you’d benefit most from receiving the book. We’re open to giving it away to absolutely anyone in our community – agencies, students, or other – simply convince us that you’d benefit most from it, so be creative and sincere.

Other rules
• deadline for entries is midnight (US PST), Fri Jun 6th 2008, so don’t hang around
• OUP is giving away one copy of the book
• you must supply your accurate full name and email address with your entry (this is the way we’ll get in touch if you win)
• maximum one entry per person
• judges decision is final
• we reserve the right to cancel the giveaway at any stage, or to extend it
• E&OE

We’re new to this giveaway thing so if we’re missing any important rules then do tell

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

Our Spotlight column in the Oct ‘07 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

Now that new media accounts for a significant portion of advertising revenues, advertising bodies are investigating how to future-proof its self-regulatory framework.

And according to Christopher Graham, director general of UK advertising regulator the ASA, that’s because people see traditional media including TV as ‘push’ and so uncontrollable by the recipient, whereas new media is more ‘pull’. He adds: “…people have an expectation about the internet. If they encounter some nastiness they just go away… in context, they would probably expect some advertising to be, frankly, raunchier or sexier than on TV.” A conclusion supported by a 2005 research study commissioned by the ASA.
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Our Spotlight column in the Dec ‘07 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

Barely nine years old, few would deny that Google has had a significant impact on the world. But does Google bode well for the MR sector?

So could this understanding one day trounce what MR has to offer?
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