Issues and Insights
Discover our perspectives on key topics and industry issues that affect the way you think about and connect with an ever-evolving marketplace.
5 Tips to Out-Research Your Competitors
A New Way to Think About Competitive Advantage There are many ways to achieve competitive advantage. You can build a better product, offer better customer service, have a lower price, or be easier to . . . Read More
Tribes and Territories: A New Way to Understand Competitors and Customers - Part 3
Where are your brand’s territories? The Tribes and Territories technique allows marketers to understand their brand’s territory beyond geography and demographics. Your brand’s territory exists . . . Read More
Tribes and Territories: A New Way to Understand Competitors and Customers - Part 2
What does it mean to belong to a tribe? With the advent of the internet, tribes are again becoming an important part of living in society, and their tribal territories are not geographic but defined . . . Read More
Tribes and Territories: A New Way to Understand Competitors and Customers - Part 1
Why Do We Need a New Approach to Competitive Mapping? Farewell, Homo Economicus! Who? You might know him from your Economics class as Rational Man. Nearly all business theory in the past was based on . . . Read More
Are You Talking to All the Right People?
It’s the fundamental definition of marketing: meeting the needs of customers at a profit. And that includes offering the right products or services, at the right price, where and how the customers . . . Read More
Values Mining: The Key to Consumer Motivations
Marketers talk a lot about motivating consumers to do something, whether it’s to purchase a product, use a service, or support an idea or cause. However, motivation is not really the beginning. To . . . Read More
Symbols: Telegraph Your Brand Story for Instant, Deep Resonance
I say, “Swoosh,” and you say… Nike, of course. The Nike swoosh is iconic. Recognized by athletes, spectators, and people the world over, the Nike Swoosh is valued at over $26 billion. Business . . . Read More
See It, Taste It, Smell It: Connecting with Senses to Tell Your Story
Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. The five sources of sensory input for humans are powerful tools for marketers. Identifying the sensory stimuli that are either unique to or associated with your . . . Read More
Add Deeper Resonance to Your Brand Story
“The contents of the collective unconscious are archetypes, primordial images that reflect basic patterns that are common to us all, and which have existed universally since the dawn of time.” . . . Read More
Cultural Roots Drive the most Powerful Brand Stories
Secondary research sometimes gets a bum rap. Perhaps because it is named “secondary” marketers assume it has less value. Not true! Research that was done for a different purpose is often referred . . . Read More
Everybody Loves a Good Story –Tell Your Brand’s Unique Story
Marketers are in love with storytelling, and for good reason. Human beings are hardwired to listen to, connect with, learn from – and most importantly, remember – stories. “Just as the . . . Read More
Mining for Marketing Gold – Find the Values that Motivate Your Customers
Motivations are powerful, but are not easy to get people to identify and articulate in marketing research. Because motivations are about unconscious patterns, consumers think, feel and behave in ways . . . Read More
Motivating Employees: The New B2E
Many corporations spend millions – if not hundreds of millions – on marketing campaigns to build their brand with customers. But many forget their brands are delivered by employees. One of the . . . Read More
B2B Marketing: Not as Rational as You Think
Many marketers believe that one of the key differences in B2B and B2C marketing is that B2B purchase decisions are more rational. While it is true that businesses usually include more people in the . . . Read More
Activating Brand Loyalty in Consumers
In our last blog, we made a case for motivational selling strategies over simple persuasion. Motivational strategies take advantage of marketing materials that connect with customers’ values, a . . . Read More
Would You Rather Persuade, Manipulate, or Motivate? Three Selling Strategies
The job of marketers is to get people to purchase our products and services, at a profit. We use three strategies for that: persuasion, manipulation, and motivation. All three selling strategies are . . . Read More
Think Outside the Recruiting Box for Better Insights
Recruiting the right people is absolutely the critical success factor for qualitative research. But often there is not just one right answer to the question “who knows what we want to learn?” Of . . . Read More
Get More from Qualitative with Pre-Work
Pre-work is about asking qualitative respondents to do some tasks before the focus group, CLT, or in-depth interview (for both in-person or online methodologies) to gather extra information through a . . . Read More