Bureau West

Brand loyalty has great value to advertisers: loyal customers refuse to purchase competitive brands and are even willing to pay more for your brand.  How do companies engender brand loyalty?  They do it by developing an emotional connection to their brands among their customers.

When we work with clients to create brand strategies, one of our main goals is to figure out how to develop that emotional connection.  We utilize a combination of market research along with a brand workshop with client executives to answer the following questions:

• How do customers feel about the brand and its competitors?
• What would get them to love a brand in this category?
• What is the “DNA” of our brand, the values we can leverage?
• Gap analysis: how do get to from our present situation to the desired emotional attachment?

Of course, the above is easier said than done.  When asked, customers don’t always want to admit to having “feelings” when it comes to a brand.  And company executives don’t always want to admit to the gap between where their brand is and where it needs to be.  But there are techniques to overcome those challenges.  We have a presentation that goes into detail about how to do so: “Charting the Course to Successful Brand Strategies,” and would be happy to present it, either in-person or via online meeting.  Just call me at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

As you may know, I’m part of an international alliance of researchers, ThinkGlobal Qualitative.  We recently conducted multi-country research with dog owners.  One of the goals was to generate new product ideas.

We utilized a hybrid methodology, starting with a mobile diary, where dog owners in each country answered questions each day on their smartphones over the course of a week.  We then conducted an online bulletin board focus group, where participants could interact with each other.  This combination of methods was particularly effective: the mobile diary increased participants’ awareness of the details of dog ownership and primed them for the group discussion.  The diary, followed by the synergy of the group discussion, led to a large number of new product ideas.

One benefit of conducting the research in multiple countries: we were able to learn from each other.  After we saw some diary responses such as “nothing new to report today,” we came up with the idea of adding a “question of the day” for the U.S. research: each day, in addition to reporting about their interaction with their dogs, participants were also asked to focus on a more general question that helped prepare them for the coming discussion (e.g., best ways to teach your dog something new, biggest challenges of dog ownership).

Are you looking for new ideas?  Please contact us to discuss.

Sources: “Mobile Unleashed: Dogs Go Mobile and Connect Online,” ThinkGlobal Qualitative, 6/5/14; Bureau West research

 

I’ve just arrived back from giving a presentation at the Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research in Budapest.  My presentation discussed ways to recognize when research participants are lying and methods to get past those lies, to understand what they really think.

The conference included many fascinating presentations, including several others that focused on ways to obtain a more accurate understanding of respondents’ thoughts and feelings.  One was given by my friend and colleague Daniel Berkal of The Palmerston Group in Toronto.  He gave a presentation about ways to combine ethnographic methods with focus groups to obtain deeper insights.  We recently combined methods at Bureau West when we conducted shop-along interviews with individual women at supermarkets followed by focus groups with all the women together.  That way, the women were able to talk about their shopping behavior as it happened, and then we also benefitted from the synergy of the group discussion.

Daniel took the approach a step further when he was tasked with learning about alcoholic beverage consumption at night clubs.  He recruited people to come to an evening at the night club to be filmed in reality-show style.  The club was kept open to other customers, though they had to agree to be on film – much like the situation in an actual reality show.  The next day (during the day), the people who had been recruited as research participants came back to the club for focus groups.  Placing them back in the same location helped them remember more detail about their experience.  In addition, Daniel and his colleagues played video of the previous evening to obtain more detailed reactions.

This type of approach, combining immersive research with a retrospective method such as focus groups, provides clients with more insights on ways to connect with customers and ways to more effectively promote their products.

Looking for ways to get inside your customers’ heads?  Please call us at 818-752-7210 to discuss.

Sources: “Breaking Down the Glass – Incorporating Immersive Ethnography with Conventional Techniques to Create Deeper Understanding,” Daniel Berkal, Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research, 5/1/14; Bureau West research

 

A continuing care retirement community felt it needed to fix a broken business model, expand the scope of its non-traditional support and off-campus services, and modernize its image to stay current with trends in marketing to seniors.

An all-day brand workshop was conducted; the management team dug deep to identify what should stay and what needed to be fixed.  The session revealed significant agreement on core values, but several serious divides as to how the community could evolve as a business going forward.   One area of disagreement: to what extent would the community’s religious affiliation impede its ability to reach new secular prospects?

Research was conducted to test the assumptions generated during the brand workshop.  Many of the concerns were debunked.  For example, most prospects felt that, if the religious aspect were not ‘front and center,’ it would not have a negative impact.  In fact, the faith-based affiliation was viewed by some as a positive – being a non-profit made the community more desirable and reliable.

Based on the research as well as the core values garnered from the brand workshop, a new business model, brand architecture and brand identity were developed.  The focus of the community’s marketing strategy shifted from being print-heavy to one primarily driven online by a comprehensive website that integrated 4 business units under one single portal, the introduction of e-marketing, resident populated blogs, and other social media tactics.

What started with one brand workshop led to a new, contemporized and highly relevant brand. In only 18 months since its launch, the community has expanded from one market serving 925 people to three markets serving over 2000 with campus and community-based residential, support and enrichment services.  A success story indeed!

Can a brand workshop benefit your company?  Give us a call at 818-752-7210 to discuss.