To some extent, this is the same debate that affects all research. But the polar opposites of commercial impact range from projects that are seen to be ‘game changers’ and generate massive ROI, to those that perhaps never even see the light of day. I was talking to a banking type recently, one who works
The gondola end. Putting aside the question of why it's still called a gondola (!) it’s the primary driver of volume for most packaged goods companies. Buy an “end”, get the sales. Simples. If expensive. Most brands’ total sales volume is dependent on buying a fair smattering of these through the year. For some, it’s
Sandwiches at the debrief? Travel expenses? No, it's much worse than that. It's time. The biggest actual cost of any research project is the time spent on it. Your time, your team’s time and even more so, the recipients’ time. It's like an iceberg. The bit that sticks up and everyone pays attention to, is
One of the most simplified ideas in category management and shopper marketing today is “satisfying the shopper”. It’s even the proposed goal of the Category Management Association (The CMA, a professional association, that exists to help its members drive meaningful category and brand growth by building shopper satisfaction and facilitating strategic collaboration between retailers, suppliers and
My starting point here is that there is a shopper in the store, with a need for your category or product. They may not be thinking about it, but they are at least an occasional buyer and right now they don’t have any at home and/or they could happily use or consume one. Clearly, not
After extensive research with my kids (yes, they are over the age of majority!), I can report that dating has remarkable similarities with in-store marketing. Not convinced? Then read on. Step 1. Getting noticed Wow, a lot of pre-nightclub effort goes into looking right. Choosing the right outfit, sorting the hair, doing the make-up, to name just
Humans have a natural psychological bias to be unhappy about losing what they already think they have rather than being excited about getting something extra. A recent study showed people would pay more to stop the aircraft passenger in front from reclining into “their space” than they would to put their seat up if it
An “addiction” could be defined as something that is pleasurable short term but you know is damaging long run. I think we would all concur that promotions risk being exactly that. There is a critical problem here, for me, in how we assess promotions, even in terms of pure economics. We drop the price by
I hear more and more often about the need for shopper marketers and category managers to think about shopper missions as the underlying construct for their plans. I totally agree. Brand managers think “consumer needs” to build their thinking. Shopper mission is a kind of the shopping equivalent. Of course, at the macro level, this
There is a hunger in our frenetic business world for simplicity. But any researcher knows that the human mind is incredible and impossibly complex. Any understanding of decisions and attempted prediction of behaviour requires skill, experience, several different research techniques, and a lot of judgement. There are no simple answers. It’s tempting for any of