The Use of Images in Market Research

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Over at LinkedIn.com I've been tracking an interesting discussion on the use of images in market research among members (myself included) of the Next Generation Market Research Group started by Ricardo Lopez, President of Hispanic Research, Inc. We've confronted the use of images in research since 1953 finding that whenever you use images you tend to cement images and emotions in place rather than promote discussion beyond those bounds and any advertising agency would agree; and so we switched to "written" creative and stimulative materials finding that they better enabled the respondent's mind to wonder/wander, the way reading a good book forces you to use your imagination and imagine a scene based on individual perceptions and frames of reference to discuss rather than have it presented as a done deal long ago. And with better business building results.

But what is the risk of using images to present ideas? Both Washington Mutual Bank (once the biggest bank west of the Rockies) and Kahn's/Hillshire Farms presented images to respondents to get a bead on how to present their brands to consumers. Both WAMU and Kahn's/Hillshire Farms showed people pictures of farmers dressed in blue jeans and flannel shirts, and scientists dressed in stached shirts and lab coats. There were a range of other images. Obviously, being based in Seattle with lots of rain, forest and hippies, WAMU was perceived to be the "friendly" bank while arch rivals Bank of America and Wells Fargo were perceived to be "those evil starched shirt corporate guys not to be trusted." Similarly, Kahn's/Hillshire Farms products were percieved to be made by honest "farmers" while Swift-Eckrich products were percieved "made and processed" by corporate food scientists in stainless steel by men wearing starched white lab coats." So which image is more appealing? And is this really insight? I think not.

Using this data, though accurate, did not move either business ahead. For friendly WAMU and Kahn's/Hillshire Farms; neither grew their customer base, sustain growth nor were they any more effective at retaining customers. That usually happens when you show people what they want to see. The wisdom of crowds it is not. WAMU got bought out by evil Chase due to its inability to weather a financial crisis and Kahns/Hillshire Farm was sold to the evil white coat guys - erasing all the research time, money and advertising spent on work that went down the drain. What a waste of career time.

Anyway, why does the practice of using images in research persist? And why do academics promote such? Because pictures in research promote what people in the medical community (doctors) call "SEARCH SATISFACTION." A condition where the care or answer givers simply stop looking for better answers when they find one that "works." So should images really be a part of Next Generation Market Research? Well?

Death of an Ad Man

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Ken Wheaton in Ad Age (AdAges) asks interesting questions. Why the ad man is a dead species. My take.

The ad man is a dying breed because what companies once did with their brains they now do with brawn. Take an article out of this week's Advertising Age Magazine for example.
Procter & Gamble wants to sue Kimberly-Clark over its ads that show bricks in purported Pampers. Why is Procter & Gamble "Thick as a brick?"

The marketers and management no longer know how to turn lemons into lemonade. Or to poke fun at themselves and have a good time. In essence, they've become the creative morlocks (the race of sub-humanoid creatures that moved underground in that H.G. Wells classic The Time Machine).

Why not just run with the joke started by Kimberly-Clark? Produce a rebuttal ad that replaces the brick with a baby. In the background you hear New York City construction sounds...maybe a few of those famous cat calls too. Then the voice over cuts in on a close up of the baby and says something seemingly apologetic like "Pardon our appearance while under construction." "Pampers." Cute. Cut.

Thinking further, the decline in business creativity also coincides with A.G. Lafley's tenure as Procture & Gamble's Chairman. On his watch retailers (the tail) wagged the dog for the first time in history. Costco so much as told P&G that unless P&G made a special formula Tide for exclusive Costco distribution Costco would not sell P&G detergents in their stores.
An that's the consequence of not being able to create highly differentiated products and product positioning strategies. And there's nothing the linear-thinking, straight-forward problem-solving quant-jocks can do about it until one of them morlocks decides to poke his or her head back into the creative sunlight founded by the earliest "qualitative pioneers". Do a Google search on that term!

There is something else that gets in the way of today's companies use of creativity in business. It's called "Search Satisfaction." People in companies, such as Procter & Gamble's legal/brand marketing brick layers stop looking for better answers once they've found a solution they like. (Hey, let's sue them!) So they don't look any further. Search Satisfaction also afflicts doctors who stop looking for a diagnosis once they've found an answer that fits the symptoms patients present. What's wrong with that? Well....doctors misdiagnose their patients a much higher percentage of the time than anyone wants to admit.

Advertising Agency Intellectual Property. Are You Kidding?

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Whose Idea Is It, Anyway?

Quit Giving Away Your Biggest Asset

There is a problem protecting an advertising agency's work as Intellectual Property. You can't do it...because most agencies converge on the same positions as their client's category rivals, just saying the same things about their client's products differently - and focusing on the same selling dimensions.

Think I'm wrong? Check it out. Ask yourself, "What is a category?" Answer: A category is a bunch of brands all hanging out on a street corner all doing and saying the same things about themselves differently. If you were not in the category, or "something else," you wouldn't be IN the category.

Classic example: Folgers vs. Maxwell House

Years ago I was called to Procter & Gamble to assess a new, yet to be aired campaign with the global manager of advertising and market research. He unveiled a character named Mrs. Olson who was going to say, "Drink Mountain Grown Folgers. It's the richest kind." Mountain Grown was supposed to be the support point to the contention that Folgers was the "richest kind of coffee." Asked what I thought I said he and P&G were going to loose their shirts because they were just copying Maxwell House and "good to the last drop" by saying the same thing differently. He scoffed and produced research "proving" that this was a highly differentiating top-two box intent-to-purchase campaign.

So I had to break it down for him and all the suits who need things distilled to one word bullet points for powerpoint presentations.

I said look, you say your are the richest kind. The richest kind of what? COFFEE. What about your coffee is the richest kind? THE FLAVOR and AROMA. So for all the MBAs who need things in one word bullet points you are talking about the SENSORY selling dimension. How do foods and beverages look, touch, taste smell and feel.

Now lets look at Maxwell House. They say they're good to the last drop. What's good to the last drop? The COFFEE. What about the coffee is good to the last drop? THE FLAVOR and AROMA. So Maxwell House is talking about the SENSORY selling dimension too. You can't ever copy the leader and beat them. "You have to identify a different selling dimension that is more resonant and relevant to your audience - which is exactly the kind of homework we do."

He didn't listen. The campaign was launched and at the end of the year and at the end of the money not a single incremental pound of Folgers had been sold. I was called back to P&G, this time by the Division President and company Chairman who commissioned our company to do a little proprietary jargon-laden "homework."

By stimulating consumer minds with hundreds of product potentials, consumers began to talk about ground roast coffee in ways the client and agency had not previously heard. Heavy ground roast coffee consumers (the 20% of the audience that account for 85% of the volume) said that they needed their caffeine in the morning "to work and play well with others." Very Dale Carnegie. At work they consumed caffeine in the morning because product usage helped them "show their bosses they saw things other people miss." (Kind of prophetic) Understanding Monday to Friday consumption we inquired about weekends. Respondents stated that if their spouses or girlfriends tried to get them to do or say something before they had their first cup of caffeine, that would start an argument that would last all weekend. They needed the caffeine "to improve the human condition." The synthesis of all this thought led us to state, "We see, the best part of waking up is caffeine in your cup." The brand group went wild. "You can't sell this as a drug!" So we changed the words to the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup. And that's how Folgers came to own the morning daypart.

Now THAT'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY YOU CAN PROTECT because it "differentiates." Rather than focus on taken for granded cost-of-entry SENSORY parameters no one could protect (of course you have to do and be these things) it became far more profitable and effective to focus on the CONTROL selling dimensions pertinent to heavy ground roast coffee consumers. That's the IP!

And in all these year no other GRC brand caught on until recently when Starbucks finally got it with their "THINK EARLIER" campaign. Also control oriented. Now P&G wants to sell the brand. Maybe they can't find an agency to take the business to the next level. I just believe they need to do new homework. The only thing that's happened is that the product and campaign have matured in their lifecycles once again. The brand really hasn't done any homework since 1982. So what's beyond SENSORY and CONTROL? What is relevant and resonant to their heavy user today? There lay the IP.

Martin Calle is an expert witness in marketing and advertising related Intellectual Property matters. As Chief Differentiation Strategist at Calle & Company Martin is currently writing a book for the holidays called "SEARCH SATISFACTION: Why marketers stop looking for better ideas once they find solutions they like."

"Search Satisfaction" strikes 9 out of 10 marketers

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Are you a victim of SEARCH SATISFACTION. Some years ago Miller Brewing was looking for a new brand idea and stopped searching when they found emerging Japanese dry beers - beers with less beer aftertaste. Have you ever met a heavy beer drinker with a problem with beer's aftertaste. Miller was chasing a solution looking for a problem. I led them to launch Cold-filtered Miller Genuine Draft instead, arguably their most popular brand today.

A marketer in your company for example is LOOKING FOR a solution to a problem. And when they find one they feel comfortable with, they look no further. Search satisfaction also aflicts doctors, who when diagnosing problems, stop when they think they have the right answer. Looking no further, they later find they are wrong an uncomfortably higher number of times than you and I would like to admit.

My specialty is positioning brands. I have hit a good many home runs. I have found that brands are like ten speed bikes. They have many gears they never use because search satisfaction stops marketers from doing more homework. There was a Renaissance Period in marketing. People did more digging then. Now we just shoot at commodities from the hip. My grandfather had a farm. My dad had a garden. I have a can opener. So my grandfather was much better at raising brands. Today’s CEOs just jettison brands, managers and agencies - like goals - people abandon their dreams when the price gets too high - when a little homework would have turned that flat C student back into a polished A. Another way to look at this is a way to turn mature earnings businesses back into rapid growth companies or how to reverse the effects of mature product lifecycles. I’d like to trade blogroll links. Can you toss one in my hat? Is that possible?