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We're no longer just award-winning journalists, but award-winning pumpkin carvers! Yes indeed, Marketing News took home the first place prize in the American Marketing Association's 1st Annual Pumpkin Carving Competition. The free candy for judges may have helped, but as managing editor Allison Enright said, "It's not bribery, it's marketing."

From left, back row: Piet Levy, John Frank, Elisabeth Sullivan
From left, front row: Allison Enright, Sally Schmitz

Happy Halloween everybody!

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Earlier this year, Marketing News wrote and blogged about State Farm's Hispanic marketing effort in Los Felinos de la Noche, a regional Mexican band created for the brand. We also hinted at furthur things to come in 2009.

Well they've since come true. The band, renamed Conjunto Raza Poderosa (roughly translated to Band of Powerful People) as a result of a fan poll, went from a single spot in a State Farm Spanish-language commercial, plus TV appearances and a tour in 2008, to its own reality show on Telemundo this fall, La Banda Del Pueblo (roughly translated to "The Band of the People"). The show documented the bandmates' attempts to break it into the big time. Cumulatively, the first six episodes have garnered 2.7 million viewers.

Throughout all of these efforts, State Farm is present as the band's fan, the company that gave it its start - but the band doesn't go about singing about State Farm. In other words, the brand isn't omniprescent, but the effort is still an attempt to connect the insurance provider to Hispanic consumers, to stress an emotional bond and support for a beloved musical genre, and on a broader scale, Hispanic immigrants' American dreams.

Look back at our May 6 blog on the band here, and check out the initial Marketing News article here.

The La Banda Del Pueblo finale is this Sunday at 5 p.m. ET on Telemundo.

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About 230 participants from more than 28 countries flocked to Chicago this week for ESOMAR's fifth Online Research conference. Covering everything from research via online communities to co-creation efforts, from mobile research to maintaining online research quality, there wasn't exactly a dominant lesson except perhaps for this: make the respondents happy.

"We shouldn't be doing market research to people but with people" was the message Steven Schwartz, a member of the program committee and manager of research quality and standards at Microsoft, said he took away from this year's conference. And in a presentation on Tuesday, Anthony Hamelle, CEO of social web researcher linkfluence in Saint Denis-Cedex, France, said researchers should not think of respondents as participants but as co-researchers.

That theme stood out amidst several highlights from the conference: Via innovation in online research, participants could become research partners, and researchers in turn can make the process more enjoyable for participants. Quite frankly, they must, it was argued.

Here's a list of just eight of the highlights from the conference. The first four are from day one; the second four, from day two.

1. Colorado-based market researcher Ron Riley talked about the online research he conducted on behalf of the Obama campaign in 2007, including an interview format including voice analysis and video, so the interviewers could benefit from an "ethnography light" experience.

2. A study conducted for MTV Networks showed that the right ad can make the right online video game more enjoyable. Alison Bryant from Jonesborough, Tenn.-based researcher Smarty Pants said an ad for a cheerleader movie before a cheerleading game increased game favorability by 40%. Research indicated 80% focused attention on pre-roll ads, and determined that 15-second pre-roll was the sweet spot for garnering optimal attention levels, particularly before action games.

3. Co-creation was a big buzz word at the conference, with a case study for Swarovski being a stand out. Volker Bilgram from the customized innovation team at HYVE AG in Munich, Germany, discussed an online community where consumers could design watches featuring Swarovski crystals. More than 1300 designs were created and reviewed by participants and judges at Swarovski. On the back end, research determined what kind of watch faces, wrist bands and the like were preferred, and then Swarovski took such data to B-to-B watch manufacturers.

4. "We want to move from a culture of interviewing to a culture of caching," Annelies Verhaeghe, a researcher at InSites Consulting headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, said during her presentation "Getting answers without asking questions." Emilie van den Berge, project leader of research and intelligence for entertainment network provider RTL in The Netherlands, then discussed how researchers passively measured online chatter for the show "X Factor," and with the findings, made changes to the "American Idol"-style singing show. For instance, studies showed one contestant, Jamal, wasn't heavily discussed online. So the producers gave him a makeover, and he came seemingly out of nowhere to become a finalist, establishing a buzzed about Susan Boyle-style underdog story for the season.

5. About two years ago, the Advertising Research Foundation established the Online Research Quality Council, the fruits of which are starting to bear. The council's research study about research, estimated to be worth $1 million and involving over 100,000 interviews and the participation of researchers at companies such as Coca-Cola, Nielsen and GM, netted some fascinating findings, ARF Chief Research Officer Joel Rubinson said during his conference presentation. For instance, purchase intent is related to panelist longevity, and one person taking up to 10 surveys a month can actually be a good thing for researchers in terms of respondent engagement. Now eight different companies, including Unilever, General Foods and Capital One, are testing out some conclusions drawn from the council study. Rubinson expects pilot testing to be completed early next year.

6. Three years ago, Kim Dedeker, chair of the Americas for Kantar and a Procter & Gamble research vet, proclaimed that if researchers neglected to get more in touch with consumers' lifestyles, "the consumer-research industry as we know it today will be on life support by 2012." Speaking from the crowd at this week's conference, Dedeker said that today, given broader industry efforts, there is no longer a question of customer research being on life support but how high is up in terms of opportunity.

7. Marketing research consultant Ray Poynter brought a whole lot of energy with him from the U.K. for his animated presentation on online communities. Sharing insights from a Mars Food Australia-commissioned study, Poynter said that only 34% of respondents said they enjoyed online community-based research, 30% said the return was worth the effort, and only 35% felt they could get their views across. Focus groups fared much better in all three categories. Nevertheless, 80% of those who experienced online research communities said they would do them again. Poynter's takeaway: "I'd say it's a good start, but we must do better."

8. Even the presenters during the mobile research portion of the program agreed the industry today isn't as advanced in the space as many expected. But Steve Lavine, CEO of Toluna USA in Dallas, shared findings indicating that survey response times on mobile were twice as fast as response times online. "Where speed is of the essence, this is a great technology," he said. And Chris Ferneyhough from research firm Vision Critical, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, shared data indicating survey results were similar via mobile and online surveys amidst Canadian respondents. Sonia Bishop, also from Vision Critical, suggested keeping mobile surveys concise, at 15 questions max.

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Vovici Corp.'s Roderick Morris breaks down three different metrics used to measure customer satisfaction.

Morris, Vovici's senior vice president of marketing and operations for satisfaction research, was a source for the Marketing News Core Concepts article "Measure for Measure: The Pros and Cons of Formal and Informal Customer Satisfaction Measurement," out in our Oct. 30th issue. He's also the co-presenter of an American Marketing Association webcast "The Customer Satisfaction Survey: Measuring Customer Experience to Build Customer Loyalty."

In our interview, Morris broke down a few different metrics used to gauge customer satisfaction levels. Alas, there wasn't enough space to fit it to print, but that's where this handy blog comes in.

Here are Morris' reviews of three different metrics:

1. CSAT: “That’s often based around a question such as, ‘How satisfied are you with your experience?’ … That’s an all right metric for understanding satisfaction, but it doesn’t help you understand what the growth potential is for a given customer.”

2. ACSI: “It’s the most well known customer satisfaction [metric]. It will take the response to a few different questions: ‘What is your overall satisfaction?,’ ‘What extent did it meet your expectations?’ and ‘How well does it compare to the ideal?’ … There’s a lot of benchmarking data … but there’s not much focus with ACSI around the likelihood to buy more or recommend [a product or service].”

3. Net Promoter: “It’s gotten a lot press. It’s been called the ultimate question: ‘How likely is it that you would recommend a company to a friend or colleague?’ … From a CEO perspective there are so many metrics that are tracking across different parts of the business. … In that respect, [Net Promoter] is attractive. … The problems are it doesn’t work well in an industry without a lot of competitors, and it doesn’t accurately differentiate promoters or detractors.”

Look for "Measure to Measure" in our October 30th issue (members should have it already, or will get it soon) and on MarketingPower.com in the near future.

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On the second morning of the AMA's Marketing Research Conference in Palm Desert, Calif., Dr. Magid Abraham accepted the 2009 Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award, a prestigious award granted annually since 1948. Abraham gave a stirring speech about his career in the marketing research profession, and the audience learned about his roots as a "farmer's son" in Lebanon through his current role as president, CEO and co-founder of comScore Inc. Trained at MIT, all his work has followed his view of "automate to dominate," which allows researchers to let technology handle all it can and "save brain cells for insightful analysis." He said, "We are more successful when we simplify."

Summing up on the rewards of operating in the fast-changing marketing research industry: "This is an industry that rewards creativity and entrepreneurship."

Learn more about Magid in his own words by reading a Q&A interview conducted by Staff Writer Piet Levy in the Sept. 30 issue of Marketing News.

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The death business is a business like any other. It needs good marketing and research to optimize profit. At lunch today at the AMA’s annual Marketing Research Conference in Palm Desert, Calif., a series of roundtable discussions grabbed attention and gave meaning to the idea of “lunch and learn.” Like many conference attendees, Gayle Lloyd is an expert researcher. Unlike most attendees, however, Lloyd is the head of product research and competitive intelligence at Batesville Casket Co. in Batesville, Ind.

The company is the largest player in the casket manufacturing business, but there are still a lot challenges facing the industry, such as the growth in cremations and rising funeral costs beyond the casket purchase.

Lloyd presented a Batesville’s research case study to the 10 attendees at the roundtable lunch with Chris Diener, senior vice president of methodology at Lieberman Research Worldwide, her research partner for the study. Once you get over the ick factor of marketing caskets, you realize it is a business like many others. It’s a manufacturer operating in a maturing industry in the B-to-B space. Its approach to research, as commented by several at the table, was incredibly similar to the approach the auto industry takes. The study presented how the research process winnowed a list of 90 new product ideas down to two that will be launched this November. LRW and Batesville Casket fielded answers from more than 700 qualified participants (those who had made a casket purchase decision for a loved one in the last five years) that walked them through the custom casket purchase process and measured the value and perception of the casket options. In the end the research balanced the profitability of the product to the needs of the family purchasing the casket. The kicker: the online research process helped remove some of the oddities that pop up in focus groups when talking about caskets. No one asked if they could climb in and close the lid.

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Here's a fact you may be shocked to know - 66% of GE's 5,000 marketers have had no formal marketing training, and 66% have had less than five years' experience. That's where the mega-conglomerate's new internal marketing approach comes in.

Steve Liguori, executive director of global marketing for General Electric, talked about the new internal Gold Standard marketing model, and a special social media service for GE marketers, at the Business Marketing Association's MarketingMasters Luncheon Seminar just a few hours ago.

Following the study in 2006 and self-assessments in 2007 to 2008, the central marketing team is maximizing all of the company's marketing's talents, to make sure the multifaceted but immature team is united in core competency areas. From there a Gold Standard vision was developed, exploring eight broad skill areas, such as strategy and innovation and segmentation and targeting. They were then defined and described in a handbook complete with sub-skill definitions, case studies and examples. The team researched various models from the American Marketing Association, Procter & Gamble, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets and elsewhere for inspiration, Liguori says.

Next spring, every GE marketer will do a self-assessment and rate their capabilities against appropriate skills and their sub-areas defined in the handbook. Where there are gaps, there will be training techniques designed for marketers based on their career level. It should also break down barriers between departments, providing a bonding experience that better illustrates the greater organization and purpose, Liguori says. "It's not that marketing in healthcare is different from marketing in energy," he says. "The industries are different, but the skill sets aren't different."

GE will also dish out quarterly "Marketing Rock Star Awards" for standout marketers who display strong innovation, integration, instigation abilities and implementation of practices, people who possess "leadership DNA," Liguori says. The company also built an internal combination of Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social sites last summer called MarkNet, a social site strictly for GE marketers to network and learn from each other. "Any marketer, any division, any level, any geography can find someone who's got the expertise to [solve a problem]," he says. Within 60 days of launching, 40% of GE's marketing community signed up voluntarily, and next week, the internal Web site will get an upgrade, and likely prompt more sign-ups, he says.

"My wish for you is you can get your hands around this too," he advises. "We're sure not declaring victory, but we really think we're on to something in trying to push ourselves and our marketing organization to a better place and a much, much more rigorous and disciplined place, to understand all the complexities. ... What are you going to do with your team, to get them motivated, to get them pointed in the right direction? I know 98% of you can't build your own [Gold Standard plan], but you can get pretty smart pretty quickly by seeing what's available to you and adapting it for yourself."

It'll be fascinating to see how GE gets such a huge team, working in everything from healthcare to television, all on the same page, and how its external marketing abilities will benefit. This is something Marketing News will certainly keep an eye on.

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