We’ve all heard about social media and most of us are familiar with it. When online communities allowed for interaction between members, social media began. Remember iVillage? GeoCities? Then there was MySpace, Facebook, blogging, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, podcasts. In a decade, we’ve all come a long way.
I read something today that struck me as so funny that I had to share. From the AP via the NYT:
“Coca-Cola Co. is launching a new social media push that will send three bloggers to more than 200 countries in a year to uncover what makes people happy, as part of the soft drink maker’s ”Open Happiness” campaign.”
The three bloggers, voted for online by the public, will tell stories on the Coke website and via all the various social media outlets, under the “Expedition 206″ mantle. (To read more, click here.)
Actually, I think it’s a cool idea, and is compatible with their brand. But does anyone else find it completely ironic that they’re having to send actual people to so many places to get content from other people who actually live there (or would otherwise attend events such as the Winter Olympics)? Is this really social media or sponsored reporting with a hoped-for interactive component? I guess that’s why they’re calling it a “social media push.”
As a native Angeleno, the business of my hometown is entertainment. Naturally, I’ve done work for the studios, as have most local marketing researchers. While highly creative in some regards, it’s a fairly conservative industry. That’s one of the reasons why we see so many sequels and remakes.
For sentimental reasons, I wanted to see “Fame” remade. I loved the original – kids with a dream going for it. But did I get to the theater to see the remake? No. I was at home watching “So You Think You Can Dance,” a real-life show where kids with a dream go for it – and then some: once the top 10 dancers have been selected, I get to vote.
And that’s what the studios missed. Today, I get to interact with the concept of the original film. I get to help a kid realize his or her dream.
Once consumers get a taste for interaction, whether it’s a fan page on Facebook or voting on “American Idol,” it’s hard to get them to go back to the simpler days when they had no impact on something familiar.
The good news for the studios is that “original” can still trump “interaction.” “Fame (2009)” was neither original nor interactive.
Are these consumer insights part of the entertainment industry’s “new rules”? Let me know what you think.
Yesterday’s Meet The Press on NBC showcased the new Shriver Report, entitled “A Woman’s Nation.” The roundtable discussion was lively and focused on American families, how women are often out-earning their husbands in the U.S. (even while still earning less for the same jobs), and the issues the modern family faces (child care and elder care, in addition to heath care).
It was interesting to hear David Gregory, the moderator, say his wife out-earned him – which he didn’t have a problem with – and how he recently went into his female boss saying that with his wife traveling more for work, he needed greater flexibility in his hours. Flexibility was a theme throughout the discussion; a high priority for most American workers.
And while I found this discussion fascinating, what I really found of interest was the “Meet The Press Minute,” from 1972, featuring Gloria Steinem. I began working about a decade after this interview, and it’s like it was a different century. I’ve always been grateful to the women who paved the way before me, but this (cold) “blast from the past” reminds us all that society evolves based on our thoughts and actions. As corporations and individuals, we can make a difference.
To watch, click visit: http://tinyurl.com/yhls8cy.
Last week I attended the annual Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) conference in Palm Springs. It was a great event and I learned a lot. One of the sessions I found of particular interest was on mobile market research; that is, using cell phones to conduct market surveys.
A bit of background from the April 2009 Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project report:
- 85% of adult Americans have a cell phone and, of this group, fully 81% of them have at one time used it for a purpose other than making a phone call
- On a typical day, more than half of cell users (52%) have used it for a non-voice data activity, such as texting, emailing, snapping a picture, etc.
- 65% of all cell/PDA users have ever sent or received a text message; 43% do so on a “typical day”
- 50% of those age 50-64 have ever sent/received a text message (compared to 76% of those age 30-49) and 23% of those age 50-64 send/receive texts on a typical day (vs. 51% of those age 30-49)
- 40% of whites send/receive texts on a typical day, that number rises to 47% for African-Americans and 59% for Latinos
It’s no wonder that mobile research is of great interest to marketers! The primary benefit of this method is collecting real-time reactions as they happen. Highlights from the presentation made by Shaili Bhatt and Shamsu Bhaidani at the conference:
- Mobile research is best used with short questions and when trying to reach “on the go” participants
- If daily responses are needed on a specific topic, mobile research can be used as a quick journaling tool (e.g., “was it a good hair day today or a bad one and why?” or “how’s your hair today?”)
- Mobile research can be used for pre-session homework to support other forms of research
- Questions can be pushed out to participants (e.g., after a TV show they’ve been asked to watch has aired or during the lunch-hour about how they decided what to eat) and/or participants can answer on their own as the activity happens (e.g., doctors sending in short messages when/why they prescribe a particular drug)
- For those with web-enabled phones, participants often can choose to link to a website to enter their response, which allows them to write a message longer than SMS text limits (often 136-160 characters)
- New formats are coming, such as EMS, MMS, and MIM. All allow for greater content sharing, such as the use of images, audio, animation, and in the latter case, two-way communication (on-the-spot follow up questions – wow!)
A few issues for consideration, from my point of view:
- Privacy is a concern. Company-owned phones or phones synched with company systems may be monitored for legal compliance reasons, even when the employee pays their own bill. This might be fine for general interest topics, but certain subjects need careful screening to help protect the participant.
- Since this isn’t something that’s cost effective if you only have a single question that you need to ask, I hope the time comes soon when a company offers an omnibus text service. If we can do this online effectively, having a mobile omnibus should be a snap and would be great for those harder-to-reach audiences. (Note: omnibus studies are typically quantitative, and I imagine that would be the case here too. Although, there’s no reason why someone couldn’t commission follow-up questions with a sub-sample.)
- Someone in our session asked a question about mobile research’s ability to work in conjunction with GPS systems. (That is, the GPS on the phone would tell the system when you were, for example, at the drug store and time the question push or reminder to that event.) We’re not there quite yet, from what I understand; however, I believe this will take mobile to a whole new level.
There are several services available we can work with that have the infrastructure to conduct surveys via mobile devices. Any questions? Let’s discuss.
Don’t know what “crowdsourcing” is? It’s a way to get feedback on an idea/problem from a group of people who share a similar interest. Pose an issue and the crowd offers solutions.
My favorite recent crowdsourcing example comes via Springwise, where they describe how London’s L’Anima restaurant crowdsourced their wine list selection. The restaurant first employed six wine experts, who were grouped into three teams. When the experts couldn’t agree on what to recommend, the restaurant uploaded videos of each team pleading their case for their recommendations; members of the public who had been given advance notice of the wines in the running were asked to vote. This Time Out “Best New Italian Restaurant 2009″ won by getting lots of buzz on Twitter and engaging a new customer pool; “average” people were made to feel they had entered the domain of wine experts; and one lucky winner, selected randomly via Twitter, was given a tour the restaurant and a prize of free wine.
As marketers, you’ve probably been doing a form of crowdsourcing for years: customer studies. Want to bounce new product ideas off of existing customers? Need to refine the next generation of a logo for a well-loved brand among its loyal customers? Both are versions of crowdsourcing.
What makes crowdsourcing more broadly defined today is that we’re able to use technology to find people with similar interests more easily. We can get people to engage with us even if they’re not our customers. Post something on the appropriate social-media website and get mothers from all over the country to comment on a new changing table design. Want to determine which promotional idea is likely to create the greatest buzz? Again, find the right venue and you can quickly and easily get some needed insights.
Is crowdsourcing the final frontier in market research? It certainly does offer great opportunities for unfiltered feedback – at very affordable prices. Think of it as “instant gratification research.” Yet, it does have its limitations, as do all methods.
Are you thinking about using crowdsourcing? Let’s talk it over and see if it’s your best course of action.
