Blog articles about Brand Communication

From a single corn flake to a global presence, Kellogg’s has been fueling better days for more than a century. Today, the food-manufacturing giant markets 24 brands, in 180 countries. The sheer size of Kellogg’s, coupled with today’s changing insights environment, created a daunting challenge for the company’s global insights team last year.

How could they decrease turnaround times for claims research, standardize approaches for comparability of results, while extracting better insights and decreasing costs all at the same time?

What you missed from Quirks Brooklyn ‘BYOB (Build your online brand)’ session

“How many of you have purchased alcohol online? What about groceries?” This is how Lisa Caro, Director of Insights & Analytics for Emerging Opportunities, Constellation Brands, kicked off her remarks to a room full of insights professionals at The Quirk’s Event in Brooklyn. The responses to those two questions reflect the challenges and opportunities that alcohol brands face in eCommerce.

Explore a driver analysis solution for analyzing stated and unstated factors

Tracking studies provide extensive information on brand perceptions over time. They play an important role in understanding what influences consumers and professionals to make decisions. However, as these groups become more empowered and have more choices to consider, your approach to brand trackers needs to evolve as well.

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.

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. 

“Alexa: do you remember the last consumer tech “must-have product” to hit the shelves?”

According to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), it was the iPhone (2007) and iPad (2012). And now voice-controlled smart speakers, like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, have achieved that coveted status. CTA predicts 56.6 million smart speakers will be sold in the US next year; two years ago that number was just 7.2 million!.

Voice technology is set to fundamentally change the environment in which consumers make decisions, and who (or what) influences that decision. To stay ahead of the competition, brands will need to exhaust every opportunity to optimize their position in this new “4th sales channel” of voice commerce. 

Do you know how voice searches for your product category begin?

Getting Started with AI: Speed + Quality

From Uber’s self-driving cars to Amazon’s warehouse robots, artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be reaching human-level dexterity nearly everywhere. You might be wondering like us: how are brands actually taking advantage of next-gen automation innovation in market research today? Can artificial intelligence identify better insights cheaper? Will computers and robots render human researchers useless? As market researchers, who also happen to be human beings, we’ve been exploring many of the same questions!

Danone, one of the world’s leading food companies, recently sought to understand consumer consumption drivers for a new product category. 

The increased adoption of voice assistants is forcing many of our clients in the consumer goods category to ask, “Alexa, how are you affecting consumer decision behavior?” From search through the path to purchase, the implications of voice-enabled technology are far reaching for brands. Now recognized as the “fourth sales channel,” voice tech represents an evolving channel, requiring new insights. You know you want to gain consumer preference in this lane, but what questions should you ask?

Remind yourself why the right customer decision journey framework matters—and which one you should be using.

Today’s consumer path to purchase has evolved a great deal. To succeed in the omnichannel world, you can’t afford to rely on outdated assumptions regarding your consumer’s decision journey.