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September 30, 2013
Second in a 3-part series on the future of MR practices. Part 2 focuses on the impact of changing marketing questions on research approaches
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Second in a three part series on the future of marketing research practices. To read part one on how emerging media behaviors are affecting research practice, click here.
By Joel Rubinson
Today I will focus on the impact of changing marketing questions on research approaches.
In a traditional marketing era, marketers built brands largely based on running paid advertising to generate awareness, interest, desire, and hopefully action. In this worldview, consumers were not part of the media equation.
In a digital, social, and mobile world, consumers can be a significant part of the media process as they:
A great articulation of this contemporary view comes from Coca-Cola who put its new vision on YouTube for marketing and new measurement systems, called “Liquid and Linked”. You will also be amazed by the way the storytelling is done.
Marketing used to be like football. Launch and run campaigns and wait to hear the post-mortem from research on how successful they were. Run a play, call time out to huddle up, then decide what play to run next.
Now, best marketing practice is more like soccer; constant action in the form of responding to consumer-initiated conversations in social media, search and digital behaviors across screens that are 365/24/7. Even paid digital advertising is constant as it is no longer time-restricted the way TV advertising is restricted to the time the show airs. Soccer marketing requires agility as you could be anywhere on the field at any point in time.
New marketing questions
Overall, the best statement of the new marketing challenge I have heard comes from Clive Sirkin, the CMO at Kimberly-Clark who states, “It’s about lean marketing in a digital age”.
Important marketing needs that research must respond to are:
Soccer research is the enabler of soccer marketing. Embrace the power of digital and social data, finding strategies for creating holistic insights and metrics delivered at the speed of light. I advise my clients to embrace a few “musts” for marketing research’s future:
Stuck in the mud researchers need to stop viewing social media conversation as an imperfect sample and start thinking of it as a near CENSUS of something that marketers are trying to achieve; buzz, amplification, and ambassadorship. In addition, it has been statistically proven to be highly correlated, if done correctly, with survey metrics of brand health.
Over time, progressive client research teams will reduce their costs for data collection, redeploying these funds to where insights value creation now occurs: synthesis of disparate data streams into insights that lead to action and improved marketing productivity.
Note: the football vs. soccer marketing analogy was something I first heard from Wally Marx in a speech, the person who launched Soft Soap and a great thought partner for me over the past 30 years.
Second in a three part series on the future of marketing research practices. To read part one on how emerging media behaviors are affecting research practice, click here.
Today I will focus on the impact of changing marketing questions on research approaches.
In a traditional marketing era, marketers built brands largely based on running paid advertising to generate awareness, interest, desire, and hopefully action. In this worldview, consumers were not part of the media equation.
In a digital, social, and mobile world, consumers can be a significant part of the media process as they:
A great articulation of this contemporary view comes from Coca-Cola who put its new vision on Youtube for marketing and new measurement systems, called “Liquid and Linked”. You will also be amazed by the way the storytelling is done.
Marketing used to be like football. Launch and run campaigns and wait to hear the post-mortem from research on how successful they were. Run a play, call time out to huddle up, then decide what play to run next.
Now, best marketing practice is more like soccer; constant action in the form of responding to consumer-initiated conversations in social media, search and digital behaviors across screens that are 365/24/7. Even paid digital advertising is constant as it is no longer time-restricted the way TV advertising is restricted to the time the show airs. Soccer marketing requires agility as you could be anywhere on the field at any point in time.
New marketing questions
Overall, the best statement of the new marketing challenge I have heard comes from Clive Sirkin, the CMO at Kimberly-Clark who states, “It’s about lean marketing in a digital age”.
Important marketing needs that research must respond to are:
Soccer research is the enabler of soccer marketing. Embrace the power of digital and social data, finding strategies for creating holistic insights and metrics delivered at the speed of light. I advise my clients to embrace a few “musts” for marketing research’s future:
Stuck in the mud researchers need to stop viewing social media conversation as an imperfect sample and start thinking of it as a near CENSUS of something that marketers are trying to achieve; buzz, amplification, and ambassadorship. In addition, it has been statistically proven to be highly correlated, if done correctly, with survey metrics of brand health.
Over time, progressive client research teams will reduce their costs for data collection, redeploying these funds to where insights value creation now occurs: synthesis of disparate data streams into insights that lead to action and improved marketing productivity.
Note: the football vs. soccer marketing analogy was something I first heard from Wally Marx in a speech, the person who launched Soft Soap and a great thought partner for me over the past 30 years.– See more at: https://blog.joelrubinson.net/2013/09/new-marketing-questions-drive-new-research-approaches/#sthash.z7pcNMQ6.dpuf
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