Advertising Strategy varies based on Purchase Timing

Timing Of Political Messages Influences Voter Preferences, Researcher Finds


ScienceDaily (2008-08-15) -- In political campaigns, timing is almost everything. Candidates communicate with voters over a long period of time before voters actually vote. What candidates say to these voters is, of course, important, but it turns out that when they say it also influences voter preferences. ... > read full article

We're Only Human...: Polling the Crowd Within

The article below shows how our minds respond to questions that we don't know the definitive answers to. Basically, when allowed to return to the question and re-answer it at a later time, the "average" of our answers tends to be more accurate than our initial response.

How could knowledge of this tendency be better utilized in market research?


We're Only Human...: Polling the Crowd Within: "www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman."

Market Research from the respondent's perspective

The following unsolicited account demonstrates how respondents often easily see the purpose of research. Humans' natural instinct to scan for, and assign, causation and intent to interpersonal events most certainly influences the survey responses they give to market researchers.

The account also reveals the issue facing market researchers on almost every project: Very few business people are interested in research, as much as they are interested in validation. New and unsolicited information is a risk, until it can communaly seen as an opportunity. The amount of effort needed to convert new information into an acknowledged opportunity leads to most research findings being discarded, discredited or dismissed (as below).


"Okay, so I am paid to participate in online surveys for the construction industry. (I was nominated to be on this panel by inadvertently impressing people with my knowledge and desire to increase my knowledge of the technical component of a building and how we describe and detail it. I am a rare and treasured bird in the architectural industry. I digress. The first several pages are general and anonymous and then the last pages are specific to the manufacturer who is eliciting feedback for specific products and their reception as a new product or image of a current product. Obviously you understand better than most people. So I take a survey and I felt that they were asking the wrong questions, even though it became evident what they wanted. But how do you get that feedback when all the Q’s are rate with a number strongly agree or disagree. I get paid $20 because they know how difficult it is to get an Architect to do something that isn’t an immediate task for an impending deadline. However, I felt some obligation since they a re a good company and I am favorably oriented to the majority of the products so I sent them an email of interesting and unexpected feedback for one of their products in the Chicago Market. It is unheard of for companies to get unsolicited feedback from Architects. I didn’t expect any response, but I was surprised by the dismissive response. She must be crazy to think I am have time to pursue this with a rep.

Is this a common scenario with US corps or corps in general that they seek market feedback from the people who will select and use their product, but when these receive it unfiltered by marketing analysis they don’t know what to do with it?"

The Desirability of High Prices

The High Cost Of Low Status: Feeling Powerless Leads To Expensive Purchases

ScienceDaily (2008-06-26) -- Feeling powerless can trigger strong desires to purchase products that convey high status, according to new research. In a study that may explain why so many Americans who are deeply in debt still spend beyond their means, authors found that research subjects who were asked to recall times when someone else had power over them were willing to pay higher prices for status-symbol items. ... > read full article

Designing Research Events for Accuracy

Too Many Choices Can Spoil The Research

ScienceDaily (2008-06-27) -- The more choices people get, the less consistent they are in making those choices, according to a new study. The study's findings may affect the way researchers examine consumer choices. ... > read full article

"Nature is Prodigal in Variety, though Niggard in Innovation"

While many recognize this observation from Charles Darwin's closing chapter in The Origin of Species, he had borrowed it from Henri Milne-Edwards.

Both of these naturalists were struck by the lack of dramatic innovation in the evolution of living things, and the preponderance of minimal variation and refinement of traits across species and time.

Looking at product development, modern observers see a repetitive pattern of trial and error -- dominated by the refinement and combination of existing ideas and technologies to create products and services that will be selected by consumers.

Interview with the author of "The Myths of Innovation"

If, in life and business, creativity and innovation are nothing but adjectives that accrue to those willing to try and fail over long periods of time -- what leads to our lack of patience in promoting trial and error, and letting creativity and innovation occur naturally?

How much has the belief that creativity is a personality trait cost businesses over time -- as they invested in ideas based on personalities, rather than consumer selection?

Or has it cost business anything at all?

Could the beliefs in dramatic innovation and creativity be -- like religious beliefs -- the stuff of thought that helps keep groups organized around a common activity, and committed to one another in businesses?

Why do Market Researchers Visit Different Cities?

The chart above is based on Richard Lewontin's famous study, as cited in Spencer Well's Deep Ancestry (2007).

The graph shows that the bulk of genetic differences is within a population of human individuals you may find, not between them. For instance, if we sample a population from an average city, not discriminating by race, we would account for at least 93% of the genetic differences.

In a country such as the United States, with a highly mobile workforce, national mass media, and national retail chains, even the population differences between areas are greatly diminishing.

This highlights one of the most perplexing inefficiencies in marketing research -- the ritual of conducting research events and focus groups in multiple cities. Rather expending resources on a larger sample size in a single location, money is spend on travel, multiple facilities and time.

Not only are are travel expenses and time away from the office greatly inflated by this practice, but the likelihood of inserting false or misleading results into the research process is increased -- not diminished. Expecting different results by geographic area can easily be the first step in getting them.

Certainly, environmental or marketplace factors do exist for some products. Marketers and researchers should carefully, and earnestly, identify these before they appropriate research funds.