September 5th, 2008
Caroline Harrison’s latest Insight considers how some advertisers shun traditional advertising methods and rules to grab your attention. The million dollar question is how much does this really work?…
Earlier this year Cadbury’s Dairy Milk ran an advert on TV which featured various cartoon-like airport vehicles racing along a runway to the tune of Queen’s 1979 hit ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. After two minutes of this strange scene, the advert came to a conclusion with a giant bar of the aforementioned chocolate appearing in the middle of the television screen.
The first time I saw this advert it held my attention for two reasons: firstly, the fact that Don’t Stop Me Now is one of my all-time favourite songs kept me hooked, but secondly, I was also quite mystified by what was happening in the advert. Was it promoting a new Disney/Pixar animated movie like ‘Cars’? Was it mocking the Heathrow Terminal 5 fiasco which was all over British newspapers at that time? I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be an advert for chocolate – after all, where was the link between what was unfolding on the screen and the product the advert was promoting?
What I don’t actually remember thinking at any point was ‘I must go out and buy myself a bar of Dairy Milk‘, so in that sense the advert failed in its job. However, there is no doubt that it did elicit some kind of response from me: it propelled me to ask friends whether they themselves had seen the advert; it made me forcibly stop family from leaving the room if the advert came on TV so they could ‘experience’ it too; and I am today talking about it in this Blog post. In many ways I have, in effect, been doing the job of advertising this product on behalf of Cadbury’s.
Advertising serves many different purposes: broadly speaking most adverts aim to either create awareness and/or trigger a direct response, whether by informing and educating, reminding or motivating.
Some adverts are blatant, in-your-face hard sell, encouraging you to buy, buy, buy. Others adopt a ’softer’ and more subtle approach, informing you about a product or service and perhaps bringing to your attention its benefits. And then, of course, you have the adverts, like the one in question, which I believe are designed purely to make you sit up and take notice; to grab your attention in some unique way; to create a buzz and generate interest in the offering.
I’d be very interested to know what impact this latest campaign by Cadbury’s has had on sales of Dairy Milk. For me personally, hearing the song Don’t Stop Me Now does not actually stimulate thoughts of chocolate, whether Dairy Milk or any other kind. Anyone who has ever lived in the Manchester area of England will probably understand that the shopping mecca that is The Trafford Centre has already become intrinsically linked with this song following years of TV & radio advertising. What a shame that when I hear a great song I think of a shopping centre! But then doesn’t that just demonstrate the power of advertising?
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September 2nd, 2008
Back in February 2008, B2B International Director Nick Hague contributed an article – Differentiation Through Being Green – to our Thursday Night Insight series.
In it, he discussed how business-to-business companies may be able to set themselves apart from the competition by enhancing their green credentials and by being seen to care more for the environment. However, Nick warned that this approach should not be adopted for purely financially-motivated reasons; being environmentally-friendly and promoting sustainability have become hugely important issues in this day and age, and they should not be taken lightly.
In a similar vein, the following article – taken from the August 2008 MediaBrains newsletter – looks at how the b-to-b sector can benefit from greater social responsibility as a whole – as long as it’s done in the right way, for the right reasons:
Corporate philanthropy: Does it make sense for B-to-B?
With leadership comes responsibility. Countless companies use that phrase in their corporate messaging in explaining why they donate to charitable causes.
Corporate giving, also known as social responsibility, corporate philanthropy or corporate citizenship is commonly described as aligning a company’s activities with the social, economic and environmental expectations of its stakeholders. Real-life examples include Dell Computer’s Plant a Tree for Me campaign. As part of the online ordering process, consumers can check a box and Dell will make a donation to plant a tree in their name. In the BtoB sector, Applied Materials, a manufacturer of semiconductor chips, has donated millions in disaster relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in South Asia and the tsunami in India.
Corporations make contributions for a variety of reasons: in an attempt to impact society; to seek public acceptance and applause; to increase their name recognition among consumers; to develop a better public image; to achieve greater consumer loyalty; and to improve community relations. Not to mention the tax benefits.
A study shows that corporate philanthropy even results in better profitability. Companies that give more to charity are more profitable, according to a study published in the Wall Street Journal by Dover Management, who operates a mutual fund that invests in corporations committed to charitable giving. The survey says that companies with a solid link between giving and operating earnings outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by 3.5 percentage points over five years.
OK. So philanthropy can be a bit self-serving. After all, it does offer some tangible and tempting benefits i.e. more profits and better branding. Philanthropy has a huge impact on branding," says Kendall Webb, CEO and founder of JustGive.org, a non-profit charity portal for businesses and individuals. "I don’t think companies give for that specific reason only, but the payoff is there. Consumers are looking for more meaning in the products they’re buying and they really buy into an idea like corporate giving."
Hold on. There’s a key word in that statement: consumers. Does the same hold true for BtoB buyers? Are a BtoB’s clients influenced by a record of corporate giving? No research that we know of has been done to support or negate that question, but it has been proven that in general, people (including BtoB buyers) do business with people and companies they like. And contributing to a worthy cause certainly ups a business’s likeability quotient.
Complementing advertising and public relations efforts, philanthropy is undoubtedly a great way to create a positive corporate image. Doing good is apparently good for you.
But beware: Savvy BtoB Buyers will see through poorly veiled attempts at charity just for the PR value. Your efforts will be viewed as nothing more than superficial window-dressing. Rather, if you’re going to do philanthropy, do it for the right reasons: because, similar to the rush that individuals get from volunteering, corporate philanthropy feels good and it’s the right thing to do. Focus on a good cause that makes sense for your organization. And operate with a perspective broader and longer than your own immediate, short-term profits. After all, with leadership really does come responsibility. You’ll have the greatest impact on society that way - and your customers will take notice.
Also, make sure corporate giving is a proactive, rather than a reactive, activity. Corporations who proactively seek social issues to support are viewed as acting in a philanthropic manner. Those who react to negative publicity are seen as trying to cover up, or correct an error.
Another key to success: make philanthropy a planned part of the company’s budget. That way, you’ve allowed for the expense far in advance and have a continuous charitable fund available.
In summary: Give charitably the right way, and everyone wins.
MediaBrains philanthropy
During the month of August, MediaBrains is donating 5% of all proceeds to help needy children buy school supplies.
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Social Responsibility, Environment, Industrial Research, Branding |
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August 29th, 2008
In his most recent Thursday Night Insight post, Matthew Harrison ponders how advancements in technology have impacted on – and continue to affect – the way we live our lives and conduct our business.
My colleagues may laugh, but I’ve always considered myself relatively in-touch with the latest technological developments. I’ve never been the sort of person to buy Stuff Magazine, prance around the living room with a Nintendo Wii or stay up all night in my anorak cyber-scuffling with a student from Malaysia, but nor am I a technophobe. In fact I like to think that I use technology as and when it enhances my life, but within the realms of social acceptability.
Indeed, deep within the bowels of the B2B International website, you may find that I ‘pioneered’ our online focus groups. I was also the first person in our organization to own a Blackberry, much to the derision of my colleagues, many of whom are now putting their marriages at risk by becoming full-time Crackberry addicts themselves. I must admit to a complete inability to attach a projector to a lap-top and make it work first-time, but from what I’ve observed this is true of most market researchers.
A technology we all now regard as a basic tool of the workplace and our social lives is, of course, email. How would we market researchers cope if we still had to print and bind reports, and courier them through to our clients? How would we or our clients feel if every update had to be by phone or face-to-face, with fieldwork updates out-of-date as soon as they were produced and questionnaires faxed back and forth until they were finalized? There is no doubt that email has improved not only the speed and ease of communication, but also – as a general rule – the quality of communication.
As with my professional life, my social life and personal interactions used to rely heavily on email communications. Weekends away, news on the latest engagements and pregnancies, photographs of friends on exotic holidays – every communication of any substance was performed through email, with short-term arrangements and snippets of information communicated through cell-phone.
But some time around last Spring, something strange started to happen. I was living in China at the time, and I noticed the steady stream of social emails start to diminish. This left me perplexed and a little worried. Had someone decided to firewall the endless news of weddings, births and christenings on the grounds that it was too tedious for human consumption? Had I offended somebody? Had everyone forgotten about me? As the weeks passed and the stream of emails became a trickle, I genuinely started to fear that the word had got out – that it was Matthew Harrison who spoiled that wedding in 2003 by insisting the DJ play The Locomotion.
But one night, as I lay awake plagued with self-doubt, it struck me. Was it a mistake to ignore all of the invitations? Was I wrong to dismiss this phenomenon as a silly fad indulged in by teenagers in low-slung trousers and nosey twentysomethings who should know better?
“THAT’S IT!” I yelled, leaping out of my depressed slumber and cart-wheeling across the bedroom.
“IT’S FACEBOOK!! I knew I wasn’t a social pariah! I knew Dave and Liz wouldn’t forget to send me the pictures from their long weekend in Budapest! Where’s my laptop?”
That very night I joined the masses and became a Facebook User.
Fourteen months later, I have a grand total of 57 friends, ranging from my nearest and dearest through to childhood friends that I haven’t laid eyes on for two decades. There is something about the public dissemination of ‘personal’ information that I feel uncomfortable with, and something not quite right about a 31-year old having what is effectively a homepage. But the truth is that this is how my peer-group (even my parents) – my ‘audience’ – is now communicating, and that, therefore, is how I have to communicate. To reject this means of communication would be social suicide.
In the market research industry and more generally across business markets, the latest consumer technologies tend to be watched with a mixture of interest and wariness, before they become adapted for business use and then accepted by the wider business community. Just as B2B International looked at online discussion forums being used mainly by teenagers and turned them into a market research technique, so Facebook and similar social networking tools are now evolving into business applications. I now work at B2B International in the USA and yesterday subscribed to LinkedIn, the business networking tool allowing businesspeople to make contact, recommend and communicate with each other. Four clients within a month had asked me for my LinkedIn details, and I wasn’t going to risk my communication from clients and potential clients drying up.
How far this type of application will replace existing means of communication for businesses, or even evolve into a technique that can be used for market research purposes, is unclear. However, doing business depends on communicating with those whose needs we can profitably fulfil, and those who shut out messages that are being transmitted through new and innovative means risk more than a few sleepless nights.
Matthew Harrison is a Director of B2B International, based in New York. He can be contacted at matthewh@b2binternational.com, on +1 914-761-1909, or on LinkedIn.
Posted in
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August 27th, 2008
Today we’re publishing the eleventh (and final!) chapter from our eBook - Questionnaire Design, by Paul Hague.
This week’s closing segments looks at some "Examples Of Questions", which provide illustration of all the principles outlined in the rest of the eBook. These questions can also act as a useful template for constructing different types of questionnaire and include:
- Questions for starting a questionnaire
- Questions for testing awareness
- Questions for gleaning behavioural information
- Questions for obtaining attitudinal information
- Questions looking at buying motivations
- Customer preference and satisfaction questions
- Price testing questions
- Classification questions
As always, this week’s chunk of the eBook is available both as a pdf and as a podcast. To download each, just click on the appropriate links below.
That’s all for now, but be sure to check back very soon, as we’ve plenty more podcast (and eBook) goodness lined up. Watch this space…
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August 26th, 2008
A recent online survey conducted by BtoB found that more than half of business-to-business marketers are increasing their overseas marketing budgets. This is in the face of global economic tightening, which is being felt in the United States as much as – if not more than – anywhere.
Although the survey only questioned a relatively modest 274 marketers, it should come as no surprise that organizations are increasingly turning to non-US markets for business opportunities. Indeed, over the past 12 months, US companies have commissioned B2B International to conduct competitive intelligence studies and to research market assessment opportunities in more than 60 different countries worldwide.
Of those respondents to the BtoB survey who indicated that they expect to be increasing their non-U.S. marketing spend:
- 60.0% plan increases of between 1% and 10% this year over last
- Around a quarter plan increases of between 11% and 20%
- 8.8% plan to up spend between 21% and 30%
- 6.4% plan increases of more than 30%.
Of those companies who are not expecting to see any increase in their international marketing budgets, the vast majority (87.8%) plan relatively minor negative adjustments of between just 1% and 10%. 12.2% are decreasing non-U.S. budgets by more than 10%.
Of all the b-to-b marketers responding to the survey:
- 25.9% said non-U.S. business makes up between 1% and 10% of total company revenue
- 9.1% said non-U.S. business makes up between 11% and 20% of total revenue
- A further 11.7% stated that non-U.S. business makes up 21% to 30% of their total revenue
- Approximately one-quarter confirmed that more than 30% of total revenue comes from outside the U.S.
- By contrast, approximately a quarter of respondents indicated that none of their revenue comes from outside the USA.
In spite of looking to increase international marketing budgets, many companies highlight the difficulties associated with this, including the challenges of entering new markets, handling different languages, and coordinating global efforts. To read about BtoB’s survey in full, please click here.
Posted in
Marketing, Global Research, Recession, Market Intelligence, Market Assesment, International Market Research |
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