SKIMspiration blog

Cooking up consumer insights for the creative masterminds

Consumers around the world are eating up the convenience, choice and personalization that online meal-kit delivery services offer. Today subscription boxes offer a variety of options for online shoppers and a host of challenges for brands. To stay ahead in this competitive online space, you must delight your customers with every box that hits their doorstep.

But what type of consumer insights are needed to inform the creative masterminds behind what goes in that box every week or month?

We recently set out to help a leading meal-kit delivery company answer just that. 

Using a subscription pricing model to lay stable foundations

Funda is the top online real estate platform in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. It’s been described as the “Amazon of houses” in its homeland, because it’s said that almost every house that’s sold in the country will have been advertised on its platform first.

The online leader generates revenue by charging realtors to promote residential and commercial inventory on its platform. When there are more homes than buyers, properties are advertised longer and funda sees revenue soar. However, when the market is booming, properties sell quickly, listings come and go on the platform, and revenues dip.

How a new view on the purchase decision spectrum can drive better market research outcomes

I recently got in a taxi cab with a few colleagues and we were so engaged in conversation that we didn’t realize we weren’t moving until the driver asked: “So, where are you headed?” As heavy Uber customers, all of us were in the habit of not specifying a destination verbally since the app conveys all the pertinent details to the driver. We assumed that upon entering the car, the driver should know where to go!

On that taxi ride, we reflected how consumer behavior, and our habits, changed so drastically in a few short years thanks to new technology. Uber disrupted consumers’ traditional routine (hailing a taxi on the street) to form a new habit (grabbing your smartphone to “call” one). What started out as a deliberate new choice to use a rideshare app, quickly turned into an automatic, or habitual, behavior.

This scenario perfectly illustrates our view of the consumer decision behavior spectrum: The Habitual-Deliberate Decision Loop. Disruption of consumer behavior seems to be happening at a faster and more frequent pace than before. We introduce this loop to offer brands a new view on how to analyze, disrupt and reinforce your consumers’ decisions.

With the increased adoption of voice technology, smart speakers and digital assistants, there’s no denying that Alexa, Siri and Google Home are changing consumer behavior. However, to what extent? Are consumers simply curious about these devices? Are their purchase decisions being guided by AI?  Will purchase trials shift to new shopping habits? 

As decision behavior experts, we set out to examine these questions by conducting research on consumer attitudes and adoption of voice technology in the U.S., U.K. and Germany (the markets the technology manufacturers have focused on). This infographic previews some of the research highlights.

Key takeaways on voice and digital assistants from ESOMAR Congress 2018

Artificial Intelligence, voice and digital assistants were all the buzz at ESOMAR Congress 2018. The promise is that when these technologies come together in digital personal assistants, they’ll make our lives easier, remove our “choice stress” and will become our trusted advisors. Sign me up! But, how will voice technology affect consumer behavior and how will brands tackle this new decision environment?

Our recent voice trends research included qualitative interviews with digital and eCommerce experts on this very topic. At ESOMAR, some of these respondents participated in our “Brands on Fire – How to adapt to the new market reality of AI platforms” panel. Danone, Wehkamp, Beiersdorf, Ericsson and SKIM had a lively discussion on the digital implications of AI for brands, marketers and insight professionals. I, along with Yasemin Ozdemir, had the honor to moderate the panel. Here’s what you missed and need to know.

Voice technology and Artificial Intelligence were all the buzz at IFA, Germany’s largest consumer electronics show in September. Established players launched new products in Europe and there were a few surprise offerings from new market entrants.

Google introduced its premium smart speaker -the Google Home Max- here in Germany, along with a bilingual voice assistant feature that responds to queries in English and German interchangeably. And telecom giant Deutsche Telekom introduced plans for its own smart speaker activated with the magic words “Hallo Magenta.” This introduction is the first smart speaker coming from a German company and includes Amazon’s voice assistant “Alexa” too.

As I was setting up our new office in the heart of Berlin, I reflected on how much technology has disrupted consumer behavior from the time I grew up here. Is Voice all hype in Germany? How and will German consumers embrace these AI technologies? What are the implications for brands?

My team and I recently set out to answer these questions in Germany, and also in the US and UK. We explored  from the consumer and brand perspective.

Here I’m sharing the Germany insights, which we unveiled at ESOMAR Congress 2018 in Berlin.

How pharmaceutical brands Analyze patient needs to maximize your impact on treatment success

Emotions affect our behavior, what we do and how we do it. In the same way, as the patient voice grows more influential, their emotions also affect decisions about their care and satisfaction with treatment. Yet patient research shows, particularly in the case of chronic conditions, that many of their emotional needs remain unmet. Frustration with progress, stress from the burden of taking more medication, or a sense of isolation are common, making them less likely to commit to their treatment or gain the maximum benefit. All of which could be bad news for your brand.

Originally designed for the desktop environment, conjoint research on mobile requires a more innovative approach

Ensuring your market research survey is mobile-friendly is no longer a “nice-to-have” for insights professionals. With more survey respondents opting for smartphones and tablets over computers, this requirement poses an ever greater challenge for conjoint analysis.

Conjoint is the go-to methodology for measuring customer preference for product features, to determine how pricing changes affect product demand and to forecast likely acceptance of new innovations. However, it was originally designed for desktop and doesn’t marry well with the smaller screen sizes and shorter attention spans of today’s mobile respondents.

Conventional research approaches to understanding prescribing behavior lack the insights required today

A physician’s decision – or reluctance – to prescribe your drug over the competition has long been influenced by a number of factors, such as clinical efficacy, sales rep touchpoints, marketing materials etc. However, the proliferation of online medical information, social media referrals and wellness apps have added more considerations to the mix as patients take more control over their health. Now physicians, and other healthcare professionals, are assuming more of a “listener” role during consultations vs. solely the “adviser” role.

This shift in interaction between prescriber and patient, coupled with mounting time and cost pressure from the payers, places more importance than ever on accurately understanding why and when physicians make their prescribing decisions.

Robots, tech trends and market research innovations take center stage in Rotterdam

Summer in the Netherlands not only blooms tulips, but also inspiration for marketing and market research executives at our annual SKIMspiration event. On June 21st, we opened our headquarter doors to clients and industry peers from leading companies across the Benelux region, such as Unilever, Roche, IKEA, and Aegon. Attendees, ranging from brand marketing and shopper insights managers to net revenue management and healthcare professionals, all joined us to learn how to Drive Digital Success.