Have you ever wondered about asking consumers about their feelings...

while they are sitting in a boardroom that reminds them of their employer's meeting rooms, with a microphone dangling in front of them and a camera facing them - and an obvious one-way mirror - making them feel like specimens in a bizarre lab where their every movement and utterance is being examined by some faceless people and recorded for later dissection?

Doesn't sound terribly healthy, does it?

Yet that is the focus group business in virtually every North American focus group facility today.

Let's talk to some of our customers about how they feel.... um, right. We'll just stick 'em in one of those rooms around a big table. Put a camera in front of them and get them to sign a release for the video rights. Sure is a great way to encourage some natural responses and some creative thinking, isn't it?

So why do these companies continue to do it?

First - because they don't know any better. It's the way it's always been done. The competitors do it. The rooms are more flexible that way.

Second - the clients like it. They want to be behind that mirror. They feel more comfortable in rooms that remind them of their environments - never thinking whether that's the environment that the users of their products would relate to best. They feel powerful, looking at their customers in a detached way which makes them feel safe.

Third - nobody ever really stopped to question it.

So I'm asking - whatever happened to getting a bunch of people together in someone's basement one night to talk about what they think of laundry detergent? That's what qualitative research started out as. It's how it's still done in European facilities, and in other parts of the world.

Isn't that what ethnography is, at it's core? It's nothing new, just a great sounding word that some people use impressively in proposals - and get paid more because it sounds terribly scientific. But it's nothing more than - going to people where they interact with the brand, in their own environment, in a natural setting, and getting impressions...feelings...insights...the real stuff. And don't forget - while it's easier for recruiters and respondents to schedule groups after working hours, it really makes little sense to ask people to discuss breakfast cereals at 7 pm. The when matters almost as much as the environment.

In the UK some years ago I noticed that they were holding focus groups in converted houses, with kitchens, living rooms, and other home type appointments. Sure, they had mirrors. But overall - they were natural. Instead of boardroom tables they had casual seating arranged in a semi circle, with a chair for the moderator in the middle. There was a mic but no camera. Why don't we do that here?

Another possible reason we don't do that here - the moderators.

It seems to me that North American moderators fall broadly into two camps - the 'happy, bouncy, upbeat' type who make respondents feel good and are animated, engaging, positive - even if they never really get anything terribly deep out of the group, and the 'I'm in charge, in control, and like to hear myself talk' type who impress clients with their control of the group and ability to keep the discussion focused on, and moving efficiently through the study guide. In between are a very few truly good ones who know that people rarely even understand their own feelings on bands and products, because they aren't generally in the rational realm, and can even more rarely articulate thm. So they use exploratory techniques, rojective techniques, associative techniques - not the " tell me if you would describe the product as a tiger or a lamb" type of question, but using photo collages, imagery, other types of left-brain explorations to really get to the connections between people and the brand. They get people's emotional side engaged, they get people out of their comfort zone in a non-threatening way so they can have real conversations with people that get to what their real drivers are.

Those latter types need new and different types of focus group facilities (like ad agencies have been building) and the first two types are what keeps the traditional facilities in business. But they are dinosaurs, and headed for extinction.

Not to make an unpleasant association, but let's think about common police interrogation techniques. Well, interrogation has come along way. Today, cops use techniques to build trust, to connect emotionally with the suspect, to move beyond the prepared and rational responses to the emotional core - which is where they will develop the associations that bind the suspect to the crime.

They don't ask the obvious because they will get the expected rational answer. So why do so many moderators still do the obvious?

If you want to get at how consumers feel, don't ask them under a mcroscope in a lab. Don't herd them into labs or rooms and stick a camera in their faces. Either go out to where they interact with the brand - and at the times they interact with the brand - or do it in an environment that at least attempts to approximate one that is natural and will encourage the expression of left-brain insights - which are, after all, the ones that give marketers what they really need to bind consumers to their brands.

The REAL Media Revolution - it's not what you think.

Remember 10 years ago - we continually heard that the internet was going to replace newspapers, that TV was going to become a streamed over the internet thing making cable, satellite and air broadcasting obsolete, we would be turning on our living room lights while we were coming home from our cars over the internet - and that Y2K was going to be a catastrophe.

None of that has happened! Let's look at the world as it really is today:

The myth of TV’s death:

- TV spending (major networks) as a % of total advertising spend in 2005 is within 1% of what it was in 1969, measured in relative dollars! In other words – it hasn’t declined a bit.

- Actually, TV viewing hours are continuing to increase.

- People today spend more on their TV’s than on any other consumer electronics product – and have on average one TV more than the number of people in the house.

Among young people, TV is even more than ever the dominant media. Youth TV viewing hours continue to increase. The peak of TV viewing has yet to be reached – as the baby boomers get older it will go up more.

People spend as much time reading newspapers today as they did in 1945.

Newspaper advertising has increased just as much as internet advertising over the past 5 years.

Maybe overall readership numbers are coming down as younger people tend not to read them, but it sure hasn't had much impact yet.

Time online has remained constant at an average 20 minutes/day/household between 2000 and 2005.

The fastest growing advertising medium for the past 5 years – and the one which will continue to grow the fastest – is the oldest, dating back to Roman times – OUTDOORS.

The moral of the story: NEW TECHNOLOGY DOES NOT REPLACE OLD TECHNOLOGY.

So what is the real revolution?

The REAL revolution is in our consumption of CUMULATIVE media.

In 1945 – 4.4 hours/day.

In 2005 – 8.8 hours/day.

CUMULATIVE means the increasing LAYERING of media – utilizing multiple media simultaneously.

As more of the world becomes literate and has access to TV, internet, etc. this will increase.

Layering might seem to imply that “universal gateways”, presumably via cable, phone lines or satellite, which have been talked about for a decade will become a reality. But this is simply not true, for three reasons:

- a simple trip to Best Buy will show that electronic devices simply do not interface with each other and manufacturers have no interest in moving towards compatibility,

- consumers neither want nor trust bundled providers,

- over 50% of the 200 million + VCR’s in the US are right now flashing “12:00” – because people won’t spend more than max 10 minutes to figure something out before they give up and move on – and simple, seamless universality is not even being worked on yet.

WE HAVE YET TO DISCOVER WHICH MEDIA ARE BEST AT ADDRESSING WHICH COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES.

We do know that advertising will adapt to changes in the media mix.

So - WHICH MEDIA ARE REALLY IN DECLINE?

There are only two forms of media which really are declining.

The first is due to marketing and management issues – RADIO.

Ground-based free radio is declining in North America because of the decline in relevance and quality of content and over-regulation. It’s as simple as that. Nothing to do with technology, nothing to do with changes in lifestyle – in fact, as people are spending more time in their cars, it really should be increasing. But by-the-numbers corporate style playlists and loss of personal connection have made radio bland experience – by being too safe it lost its resonance.

The second does come from technological change.

Face to face – or word of mouth – is in decline as it has been supplanted by the internet. The last face to face generation was the WWII generation – who joined clubs, associations, groups, etc. and interacted person to person in the community.

As an aside, but a relevant one, the QUALITY of human interaction is declining as a result of this change – the general decline in the “civil society”.

It is interesting to note, however, that the internet is the LEAST trusted media – less trusted than even a company’s own salespeople! This has interesting implications – TRUST is becoming harder and harder to attain – and sustain – in a society where there is so much mistrust.

FIXED PRICE VS. A LA CARTE:

If we agree that today’s empowered consumer ‘chooses’ to allow the brand into their lives and chooses what messages they allow in, we also must allow that increasingly the relationship is moving away from being passive to being an active choice – indeed, choice in a layered environment is paramount (as the music industry has reluctantly learned) and the era of bundled services at fixed prices is ending – the era of choice in unbundled services, at yet to be determined market prices is fast approaching.

The "A La Carte" era - the era of choice, and the era of layered consumption.

How does a marketing communicator break through? With a hammer?

No. Today's consumers aren't what our parents were - relatively trusting of authority, corporations and television as well as media in general. They believed what they heard on TV and read in the papers - and they believed the words of authority figures who they generally aligned themselves with.

If there really is a revolution in media today, it's not in the vehicles themselves - it's in the hearts of the recipients, who are armed with instant information, instant feedback from peers and trusted sources, instant comparative information, and more competitive sources than at any point in history. They have hugely effective bullshit meters with a low tolerance for messages that aren't believable, lack validity or try to manipulate them - and they can punish brands that let them down.

This, combined with the fact that today's consumers of simultaneous media will only choose to tune in to messages that (a) they directly ask for or (b) they allow to reach them because they connect emotionally or in terms of identity means that create demand through blitz advertising - we need to dig deeper - to engage.

What is ENGAGEMENT with consumers...

and how does it differ from emotional connection...and actually, come to think of it, why does it matter anyways?

Engagement is the latest buzzword. Two years ago “emotional connection” was hot – now it’s engagement – which is in truth just another recycled concept good marketers have always intuitively known.

There are many different definitions of engagement, none are right or wrong, none are entirely satisfactory because no single definition fits every circumstance.

If advertising is about trying to rope people in large numbers, and is relatively passive, engagement is about going out to people where they live, how they live, what their values are and what they trust.

People need to ‘invite’ the brand into their lives – the old notion of ‘permission marketing’.

ALIGNMENT + TRUST = ENGAGEMENT

Both the message and the vehicle it is delivered through must be trusted in terms of alignment with the consumers values, lifestyle, etc. –

- the message must resonate

- the vehicle must be trusted

Engagement is perhaps the over-arching unifying concept – where the sum of the communications channels intersect.

We talk about the collapse of mass markets (maybe they were a myth all along), the decline of TV as a mass medium (later we will see this as another myth) – but these aren’t the real issues! If we agree that the emotional connection is the over-riding requirement, then we need to engage with consumers on multiple levels that most closely align with their sense of self, through media which they trust sufficiently to let the message in – the closer the alignment and trust, the greater the engagement AND emotional connection will be.

WHAT DOES ENGAGEMENT MEAN TO RESEARCH?

Maybe not a lot that should be news. Intuitively, the good marketer has always known that engagement was the goal. Maybe it brings up the need for a comprehensive communications plan, but again – good marketers always knew a communications plan was needed.

What it really means - the important thing - is that we need to stop using the hammer and nail approach, and measuring how many hammer hits and whether the consumer realized they were being hit - and realize that because the ad screamed at them so loudly and outrageously that they remember it, like it, could recall it unaided and connect it to the brand, and they answer that they are more likely to buy it as a result (often because by that point they figure it's the logical thing to say) - doesn't really tells us if the ad really got them at the deeper level where the real connection to a brand really lives.

I read about a recent study - a really good one done by an ad agency - that asked, among other things, what motto or slogan people associated (unaided) with Coke. A significant majority cited "Coke Is It". General population, aged 18 to 55. "Coke Is It". UNBELIEVABLE! Thing is - that slogan hasn't been run in an ad for over twenty five years. But still - it made such a deep emotional impact with a generation and got so deep into their DNA it's been passed down to a generation that weren't even alive when the ads were run - that's how deep real engagement goes.

We need to ask the questions that get to that. "Did you enjoy the ad?" and the like are skimming the surface at best.

We need to understand the WHEN – WHERE – and HOW of:

- shopping/purchasing behaviors

- media habits

- brand touchpoints, including where those touchpoints are physically

Engagement is where these intersect, placed into the CONTEXT of values and trust.

This of course means our questions need to be different, but also, our probing needs to be different, and in my opinion it again exemplifies the need for a quantitative into qualitative approach, and again tells us that it is likely that a verbal/ prosaic method yields only data – since emotions and engagement lie primarily in the non-verbal realm, a visual and associative approach is needed.

In other words - that "holistic' approach to defining a brand DNA and that carries through the whole strategic marketing process. A cohesive approach that moves beyond old notions of 'quantitative' and 'qualitative' divisiveness to come to a unified approach that recognizes that non-linear, emotional factors are primary to a lasting and motivating connection and measures those factors using qualitative techniques with simple quantitative measures.

A discussion of CD remastering...

That I posted on the Organissimo board in response to continual bitching by some folks about comparative sound quality of Rudy Van Gelder's Blue Note jazz remasters compared to the earlier CD version...the post I was replying to was complaining that Rudy's remasterings sound nothing like the original LP's....my beef is - so what?

"Yes - the RVG's sound nothing like the original LP's. I doubt he even tried to use any LP's as a reference.

There's nothing wrong with a preference for the original LP's and no one could argue with that.

What your very valid comments bring up in my mind are two questions:

First - should we adhere to the original vinyl as some arbitrary reference, or should we try, as apparently RVG has, to simply get the most out of the tape? It seems to me that RVG has in some ways exceeded the limitations of the vinyl - and although I love the tonality and presentation of his remasters, I would have to agree that it is not the tonality originally conceived.

On sheer musical terms, the RVG's work big time for me, and that view seems to have some currency as the RVG's are a big success worldwide. But as a historical artifact, they are not accurate - if the position is that the ultimate arbiter of historical accuracy is the vinyl.

I would say that the only true original was what happened live in the studio on that date - but since RVG was the only one there still involved today for the most part, and his recollection is personal and not verifiable, it will remain a matter of opinion.

Second - even if we agree there is some reference standard, should we not try to improve or (more controversially for sure) reinterpret from that standard? The medium is the message as Marshall McLuhan said, and vinyl had it's own unique message and so does CD. I think it's a mistake to try to turn CD into vinyl, it seems to me to be a route to misery (as I see on that ...board...all the time - people expending a lot of negative energy and, as Nessa says, horseshit on trying to turn CD into something it's not, instead of encountering it on it's own terms) - instead of enjoying it for what it is, and the unique things it brings to the table, all too often the music- and the wonderful opportunities to re-examine and re-encounter the music anew are being lost in a pointless quibble about historical accuracy (as if that ever existed - artists in the vinyl era were just as frustrated with how vinyl distorted their intentions as they are with CD today) - and audiophile-obsessive concerns.

My take on this - the CD medium has given new life to massive amounts of music that we would never have had come to our attention again in the vinyl era. In certain genres, it has virtually rescued from oblivion - the massive resuccitation of the classical genre in the 80's with the rush to re-record for CD, and the massive amounts of previously unrecorded music that came with it - the massive reissue campaigns that have brought obscure and previously buried work to light and allowed a re-examination of many artists, both pivotal and peripheral - the indie movement that brought power to the garage bands again - and so on.

Simple fact is, so many people of an older generation who can't stop living in the past pine after that vinyl era and it's particular sonic palette as if it were some type of golden age - when the real evidence before us is that the golden age is RIGHT NOW - today - here and now - where we have vastly more music available, from a much more diverse artistic base, more accessible, and in general, sounding better than ever before. Not even at the absolute peak of the vinyl age was there anywhere near the amount of music available in any genre as there is today. Not even close. People tend to forget - for two decades now we have been bringing back stuff that went into the remainder bin in the early 70's and had been consigned to oblivion. And there are many, many artists for whom CD has revived a for all intents dead career.

Personally, I have too much fun enjoying it all to worry about the things that Hans and some others worry about, and would rather spend my time digging the music than bitching about whether I can hear any no-noise or not.

My two cents on a Sunday morning."

Here's the twins on April 2 2006...

you have to admit they are cute ones. Liam's on the left, Laura's on the top. 18 months. Liam has a limp right now, he must have fallen or pulled a muscle while climbing, which is a favorite activity of both these days. Laura is climbing too, and treating Liam much better - not biting him or pushing him around, still bossy though. Liam can cause a major fuss when he doesn't like something but is a sweet little guy.

Thoughts on marketing research - in no particular order...

I ran a major marketing research company for 9 years, although I'm far from a market researcher - actually, I was pretty cynical about market research in general going in because I saw clearly what it could become and what it seems to be developing into.

To give a little background - when I went into the marketing research industry so short a time ago, it was still an industry populated by giants and visionaries - Angus Reid was still Angus Reid, Taylor Nelson was still a fabulous independent, and Martin Goldfarb was still running the original Goldfarb - the one that meant so much. When "globalization" became the buzzword of the late 90's, an explosion of acquisition took place - a frenzy of consolidation into large conglomerates that pushed most of those visionaries to the side and, as the beancounters and cost cutters got in, moved the industry into a period of commoditization. From where I'm sitting - it got safe. It became corporate. It became an industry dominated by factory type operations churning out very good, but very safe, ideas - and because of their size, those large firms had a large investment in certain methodologies and technologies to protect - big phone rooms, big CATI investments, big investments in process oriented reductive quantitative products, and big investments in focus group facilities styled after a 1960's board room.

What's the problem with all that? Well, I suppose nothing, if all you want is to find out is a simple answer to a simple question. In reality, there is some fabulous work being done across the marketing research industry in social research, political and opinion polling, in health care and many other areas. But what I find missing from marketing research - the part of it that relates to the world of marketing - is just that - the marketing part.

Too much emphasis on advanced statistical techniques as an end unto themselves as firms look for higher margin work (having commoditized the rest), too little emphasis on real marketing insight, too little willingness to move off methods that probably no longer work (if they ever did) and a dogged persistence in thinking that qualitative and quantitative research are two different, mutually exclusive things.

A few years ago, I noticed the marketing research industry splitting into two camps - the big conglomerates, the 'factory' type operations, who are tremendously efficient machines and who dominate the industry through their size and control over it's key institutions, and the 'boutique' firms, who differentiated themselves either by specialization (not a bad thing, but vulnerable) or by being 'insight' providers - in essence, allow the commoditization of the process parts and provide a high level of consulting advice (the interesting ones).

There's a third type today, and it's coming in under the radar of the industry. That is - the small, integrated marketing services firm that provides broad marketing advice, usually starting at the brand level, and working it's way down to very actionable strategic and sometimes tactical advice, using certain market research techniques as a support and platform for their studies - but what's different about these firms is - they have integrated the research and internalized it in their process in a holistic manner, they don't sell market research as a side option, they don't call themselves market research fims, they aren't members of the market research association (but they are members of the marketing associations) - they are evolving completely under the radar of the research industry - and in my humble opinion, this might be the next wave.

After all, there's only one reason why marketing research exists, and that is, as a component of the strategic planning process. And the biggest problem today is, the factory operations that churn out studies, but don't have enough connection to the issue that matters the most.

The big conglomerates will always exist and will keep getting bigger. The smarter ones - IPSOS, Maritz, Leger - are becoming integrated operations that build on their various component synergies. There will always be good specialty firms, the ones that can't differentiate themselves won't survive or at best will remain flat. But the biggest growth is likely to be outside the mainstream.

Interesting thought - some of the big conglomerates have been reluctant or slow to get into the internet, and have hesitated to build strong qualitative divisions. Why? Because both those areas are difficult to reduce to a process, difficult to control, and operate in somewhat uncharted territory. But in both cases, that's where the insight business is still evolving and bringing out new concepts.

And I don't buy in to the argument that it's the client's fault, you know, the old 'well, the client doesn't get it' line - sure, it's true, the client doesn't get it - if they did - they wouldn't need to hire someone to give them advice, would they? We need to respect the clients and have a professional obligation to gently educate them and use our knowledge to orient them towards the right approaches and solutions. The firms that aren't doing that are just turning out reports, and one day, the pendulum will swing back towards the ones who have the vision - and unfortunately for the research industry today that is still focused on getting bigger and more efficient, too many of those are quietly developing outside that industry - and are coming up fast.

Next time I might actually talk about what I really think is wrong with marketing research today! Thanks for getting through these rambling thoughts.