Posts filed under 'Research'
September 3rd, 2008
Despite high gas prices and general economic malaise, consumers are still spending money…but trading down to dollar stores and one-stop-shops like WalMart that are closer to their homes or offices. The biggest loser? Home improvement and home furnishing stores.
TNS Retail Forward’s survey shows a trickle-down thing but not in the way some economic theorists expect - shoppers that traditionally shopped at department stores are moving to discount retailers, and discount retailers are losing their traditional customers to dollar stores.
One of the most salient parts of the research shows that consumers (75% of them) are making a concerted effort to plan their errands to conserve as much gas as possible. Other results from the report:
| Planning errands to minimize the distance traveled |
75%
|
| Going to stores where I can do one-stop shopping |
58%
|
| Going to stores that are closer to home or work |
55%
|
| Doing more activities around the house instead of driving places |
47%
|
| Doing more online shopping |
26%
|
| Visiting friends and family that don’t live close by less often |
23%
|
| Reducing miles driven during vacations |
17%
|
| Walking/bicycling to places instead of driving |
15%
|
| Doing more carpooling |
10%
|
| Using public transportation |
8%
|
| Telecommuting to work/working from home more often |
6%
|
So, what’s a local business to do?
1. Partner with neighboring businesses. Saving on gas is making those “lifestyle centers” and downtown shopping districts a whole lot more attractive - park once and get all your shopping done in one location. Organize a sidewalk sale or cross-promote with your neighbor; chances are, people will be drawn in with the promise of saving a few bucks on gas.
2. Offer to rebate a customer’s gas bill. If you’re in a particularly far-flung location, a gas incentive might just be the ticket…provided customers make a minimum purchase.
3. Make sure your website has pricing information and displays sales details prominently. More consumers are doing online research instead of driving from store to store.
4. Highlight any “private label” brands you may offer. Consumers are now more than willing to try store brands to save a few bucks over name brands.
5. Recognize a shifting demographic in your store. You may be losing regular customers to lower-priced rivals but gaining others that shopped more upscale businesses. Capitalize on these new customers and don’t let them go. Capture their contact information to grow your database.
6. Make sure your customers feel appreciated and informed. Don’t let up on customer service just because you’re down in the dumps about the economy. New customers will turn into repeat customers if you provide a quality product at a fair price and with good service.
We’re all struggling at the moment - believe me, with a husband who drives back and forth to Hoffman Estates every day, I know from high gas prices - but we’re all in this together. As the inimitable Jerry Springer says, “Take care of yourself…and each other.”
July 31st, 2008
Want women to like your brand? Run ads with skinny female models - they’ll like you more but feel worse about themselves.
In a new study created in response to Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” (see ADWire’s previous post about that campaign here), researchers found that ads featuring thin models improved the brand’s image in the eyes of women …. while also making them feel bad about themselves. Read details here.
It’s a paradox I suppose. We women almost instinctively feel bad about ourselves when we see skinny models but actually like the product more than one that advertises using regular-sized women. Maybe because women think the product advertised will actually get them to live the idealized life portrayed by thin models? I don’t really know. But I do know that there are no products out there that will completely transform you for the low, low price of $29.95.
July 8th, 2008
Web site security. Although this is a technical discussion, it can have a serious marketing and business impact. Especially when you are trying to drive visitors to your site and it is down for two weeks because the data has been hacked.
Microsoft has taken the unusual step of issuing a security bulletin for something called “Rise in SQL Injection Attacks”. Although not a particularly attention-grabbing title, this is an exceptional subject for a security bulletin because it’s not about a specific Microsoft product that’s patchable, but rather coding practices in general.
“SQL Injection” is a technique used to “hack” websites, and unfortunately, a great deal of websites are vulnerable to it (some estimates suggest “hundreds of thousands”, but it may be many, many more). Hackers typically use automated tools to find vulnerable sites, and then “inject” malicious code that can do any number of things. In recent weeks there has been a huge surge in the volume of these attacks.
These range from simply adding code that causes a virus infection on a visitors browser, to editing or changing any content on your website, or in the extreme case, completely wiping out the website. The consequences of an attack should be pretty clear - for less extreme attacks, you may not even realise there’s a problem, but it’s more likely that the attack may cause inconvenience or embarrassment. In the extreme case, a well-crafted attack can have disastrous implications to a business-critical website, totally disabling a business, or result in the theft of credit card data and associated financial loss.
Links to documentation on SQL injection and coding best practices:
SQL Server Injection Protection
Preventing SQL Injections in ASP
How To: Protect from SQL Injection in ASP.NET
Coding Techniques for protecting against SQL Injection in ASP.NET
Filtering SQL Injection from Classic ASP
Security Vulnerability Research & Defense Blog on SQL Injection Attack
July 2nd, 2008
Few things have given advertisers the willies more than DVRs (digital video recorders), TiVo and the reality that consumers can now fast-forward through the commercial breaks with ease and aplomb. But data released Monday by TiVo seems to indicate that well-made, engaging TV commercials will continue to be seen by consumers.
In May, the top 4 most-seen commercials by TiVO viewers watching “timeshifted” broadcast TV (meaning they hit “play” on their TiVo instead of “fast forward” and actually watched them) were presented by:
Other marketing segments that saw good viewership of their commercials by TiVo users were Nasonex (my guess is that cute bee voiced by Antonio Banderas drew them in), SC Johnson & Son Inc., American Express, Thompson’s Water Seal (which reminds me it’s time for me to seal my deck too), Macy’s (Usher, Martha Stewart and Donald Trump making fun of his own hair), and Honda Trucks/Pilot SUV.
The results show that good commercials will get seen…but also shows that the more mundane commercials timed just right (allergy nose spray is a huge seller in May, as is deck sealant) will capture viewers’ attention.
The study also showed that simply placing your commercial within a popular program doesn’t mean it’ll get seen by a larger audience. Grey’s Anatomy, for example, is a huge ratings hit…but it also is one of the top “timeshifted” shows and viewers hit fast-forward on the vast majority of the commercials within those episodes.
So, despite the Chicken Little fears of the DVR and TiVo among advertising types (full disclosure - I love, love, love, love my TiVo and will watch commercials if they’re interesting), it all comes down to good content and consumers’ desire to hear your message - if you have both of those, you’re golden.
June 26th, 2008
National advertisers are looking to cash in on the “green” movement, picking up on consumer research that reports 79% of consumers would rather buy products from environmentally conscious companies, with 35% of them saying they’d pay a premium price for green goods. Advertising Age magazine put together a special report about green marketing and the companies that are doing it - including the big boys of Honda, Whole Foods and others.
Locally, we have special reports on the local newscasts and a Go Green blog here at RRStar.com…but little local advertising is focused yet on companies’ environmental policies. Is your company green? Do you advertise that fact? It may be a strong selling point to consumers and the time has probably come to look at the topic as your gear up for next year’s ad campaigns. Take a look at the Ad Age special report and learn what the big brands are doing and brainstorm ways to incorporate a green message in your ads - chances are, it’ll make your bottom line more green too.
June 12th, 2008
Imagine a site that you frequently visit, let’s say amazon.com. Given the exhaustive amount of information you initially find that it is difficult to navigate. But over time, you realize you’re finding the Web site is easy to navigate, more comfortable, and it gives you the information you need. Almost second nature. Is this a result of you simply learning how to navigate the site? Maybe not…
Here’s an article from MIT Tech review about websites that recognize the cognitive style of visitors by the way they click around and adapt their interfaces accordingly:
“The researchers’ initial studies show that morphing a website to suit different types of visitors could increase the site’s sales by about 20 percent. While quite a few sites, such as Amazon.com, offer personalized features, many of those sites adapt by drawing information from user profiles, stored cookies, or long questionnaires. The Sloan system, however, adapts to unknown users within the first few clicks on the website by analyzing each user’s pattern of clicks.
In addition to guessing at each user’s cognitive style by analyzing that person’s pattern of clicks, the system tracks data over time to see which versions of the website work most effectively for which cognitive styles.”
June 2nd, 2008
Today’s Advertising Age published a story that shows conclusively that when it comes to advertising, a good media mix of online, television, radio and print will produce a better return than using one vehicle exclusively.
In a survey of 25,000 consumers done by national media-tracking firm Advertising Perceptions, results showed consumers were more inclined to buy products when they saw a particular brand across media channels. So effective is a mix of media that most product categories studied showed at least a 20% increase in consumers who said they “intend to buy” the products that they had seen in multiple media channels.
For example:
- online and TV viewers were 27% more likely to intend to buy beer than those who viewed TV alone
- 22% more likely to intend to buy apparel than TV viewers alone and
- 21% more likely to intend to buy consumer electronics than TV viewers alone.
Here’s a visual that is pretty convincing:
It seems clear that online advertising must be part of any marketing plan these days, along with a good mix of other vehicles. Each type of advertising channel - TV, radio, print, online - have their advantages and drawbacks, but each makes multiple contact points with your customers.
I could write on this topic exclusively every day for the next year and not cover all the nuances of media buying and placement. Long story short, mix it up in your marketing plan. And don’t just rely on one channel to carry your company’s message.
May 13th, 2008
A few weeks ago, we told you about using biometrics to measure consumers’ responses to advertising. Now, it seems the House of Mouse (Disney owns broadcasting behemoths ABC and ESPN) is getting in on the action by constructing their own advertising biometric laboratory in Austin, Tex.
One of the things Disney will be paying particular attention to are the reactions to online and VOD (video on-demand) advertising … in order to prove their effectiveness to the advertisers that keep pouring resources into these channels. Disney execs are no doubt plotting their business-growth course based on non-traditional advertising - Disney CEO Robert Iger is quoted saying his organization this year will gain $1 billion - that’s with a “B” - in online ad revenue by September. If I had a business that brought in one billion dollars in 9 months, I’d build a lab to prove its effectiveness too.
And we know that when the Mouse speaks, the consumer world follows, so expect to hear more about biometrics and seeing Internet advertising become even more mainstream soon.
April 30th, 2008
Not all media calculations of Return On Investment (ROI) are created equal. A new study finds that an ad placed above the fold is visible to 100% of site visitors, yet only about 60% of them actually see it. The study also states that, below-the-fold ads are visible to roughly 70% of viewers, but only about 25% of them actually see the ads. The ratios continue to trend downward as the ads move from center placements to columns and spots on the far left side of the page.
Yet when we calculate campaign effectiveness, or ROI, we overlook on-page ad placement. And this is primarily due to delivery reports (whether supplied by the publisher, the ad network or a third party) rarely indicate what percentage of the media buy was served above or below the fold.
“It’s give and take when it comes to ad placement,” said Alexys Ruiz, an account manager at Los Angeles-based Revolution Media. “You can purchase specific, prominent areas on a site like a leaderboard or skyscraper, but your CPM is going to be higher than if you just purchase a blanket run-of-site within a network. But I don’t think you go into it thinking that the trade-off is that people won’t see the lower-priced ads. You’re buying with the goal that your impressions will be viewed.” And that is the key. As informed buyers we have the opportunity to drive change. Not only in the way we purchase ad space but also in the way we pay for it. Whether that shakes out in terms of prime placement CPMs in niche markets or causes run-of-network or remnant prices to come down further remains to be seen.
March 31st, 2008
One study showed that award-winning commercials - like the one below by Nike - engaged viewers within 1.5 seconds, versus the traditional 5 to 7 seconds.
Companies like NeuroFocus (in which ratings giant Nielsen bought a stake last year) and EmSense are some of the leaders of this type of work. More in-depth information is available at the Advertising Research Federation, which is hosting its annual conference this week in New York.
