Developing Superior Advertising Effectiveness Measures, and Delivering Faster Results

Modifying a classic marketing research initiative for the 21st century was an exciting challenge TideWatch undertook on behalf of a large media and entertainment company. The goal was to revitalize an ineffective ad tracking program for their theme park, enabling the client to address the fastest growing portion of the population, and position the effort to transition to a web-based approach; all the while, maintaining full comparability with the traditional, telephone-based methodology.

As our first step, we adopted a hybrid Internet/phone interviewing approach to run concurrently and maintain accurate controls during a transition period. Using both data from the phone portion of the hybrid, and the latest available census figures, we developed a weighting scheme to ensure all the data reflects current population characteristics whether the data emerged from the telephone, or online side of the equation with total accuracy. As things now stand, our client is perfectly positioned to switch to an exclusively Net-based approach, and to do so without any affect at all on the measures that mean the most to them.

In addition to the advantages of greater precision and better measurement, an additional benefit of Internet-based tracking is that it gives our client faster visibility and reporting regarding ongoing ad effectiveness. Now, instead of having to wait a month or more for the results, they can see and act on them almost immediately.

Leveraging our significant experience in cross-cultural research, we also implemented a Spanish-language-of-choice interviewing program for the telephone side of the study that incorporated bilingual questionnaires, and was conducted by interviewers with the ability to transition seamlessly between English and Spanish, thereby eliminating any language barriers.

Naturally, we also sought to make the measures themselves more effective, and more actionable for our client's business, and we have realized substantial successes on this score. Yet this is a case where breakthrough thinking around ways to get the data faster, better, and more cost-effectively was more than half the story.

Leveraging the Success of a Traditional Brand in a New Market

For a brand focused solidly on entertainment, entering into an entirely new business (highly competitive wireless market) represented one of the most significant strategic initiatives undertaken in the company's recent history.

To help this client assess the potential opportunity and evaluate how best to maximize core brand strengths in this new media space, TideWatch conducted multi-phased qualitative and quantitative research. How would consumers respond to the company expanding into this market? How could the existing brand heritage be leveraged for a successful new product launch? What else could the company do to increase its chances of success in this new market? How, in short, could our client help potential customers to say Of course! when they see wireless provider and this familiar brand? These questions critical to the research, and critical to our client's business, were the focus of our efforts.

One of many key findings revealed by our research was that to successfully approach this new market arena, it would be highly beneficial for the client to re-prioritize the equities normally associated with its brand. Although the client's technological leadership is universally recognized, it is not the first thing people tend to think of in association with this company. In this particular situation, placing greater emphasis on the company's proven technological heritage, over and above its more traditionally conceived entertainment image, would help strengthen the company's brand in this market and maximize its chances for success. Our success was in identifying ways to help our client and our client's customers connect the dots between these two orientations.

Maximizing Strategic Opportunities in a Newly Merged Market

We're proud to say that some clients have been with TideWatch since our company's inception back in 1998. One example is a large regional managed care provider for whom weve consistently performed a variety of studies, from ad hoc to annual tracking efforts.

A recent merger prompted a series of studies aimed at identifying how to best position the new organization in each distinct market, and among multiple groups of constituents, including members, benefits administrators, healthcare brokers, and physicians.

Initial efforts revealed strong perceptions that healthcare mergers benefit the companies involved more than consumers. Faced with this reality, our challenge was to identify ways to help the merged company effectively approach the market. Our goal was to determine how best to leverage the national muscle of the acquiring company, so the merger would be seen as a positive event, rather than as reducing customer service or undermining our client's strong and highly differentiated brand.

What we discovered was that brand, indeed, matters. In a market that is generally viewed as being highly commoditized, and where brand is perceived to have little effect on service or satisfaction, TideWatch succeeded in helping our client build a distinct and approachable brand. This was no small task, as each major constituency had its own expectations, and perhaps most importantly, its own language that communicated authentic expression of what the new company represents. Our solution was to combine these expectations in a unified analysis, and help the merged entity move forward in the spirit of partnership with each party: member, benefits administrator, broker and physician.

Setting New Standards for Foreign Language and International Research

Working with a client at the forefront of an exploding industry presents exciting opportunities for conducting multi-market research studies. This has certainly been the case throughout our involvement with a leader in highly competitive infant, toddler and early childhood education and entertainment category.

What began as an annual tracking study conducted in the U.S. has since evolved into a comprehensive, multi-phased quantitative research initiative in five countries, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the UK.

Our thorough evaluation of the full competitive set highlighted growing opportunities in this burgeoning market, as well as the resulting impact on our client's market share and performance. We also examined how the full marketing might of the worldwide client organization could be leveraged to fully capitalize on new technologies and delivery mechanisms, including consumer electronics, CDs, DVD entertainment systems, books and interactive products.

We conducted segmentation research and launched a brand tracking study among expecting, first-time and experienced moms to identify their individual questions, concerns, issues, and attitudes regarding our client's products as well as child rearing in general. Our research revealed several distinct types of mom, each with very different needs and motivations for selecting products in this category. Based on this, TideWatch highlighted ways to best appeal to specific consumers ranging from discriminating moms, to champions of technology, to those simply looking for something to occupy their kids.

Throughout all our studies, but especially those conducted in foreign markets, TideWatch takes care to recognize cultural issues that can affect the collection of data. In Japan, for example, moms attitudes toward technology, as well as what constitutes appropriate parenting, differ significantly from those in the West. Similarly, for domestic studies, we adopted a Spanish-language-of-choice approach, and modified the traditional bi-cultural/assimilated/Spanish classification system to accurately reflect this fastest-growing demographic of moms.

The most important choice here, however, may have been our commitment to continual revision and expansion of the research effort to stay at the front of this expanding market, all the while maintaining the trending and tracking markers required to allow our client to know exactly how far they have come.

Demonstrating the Extraordinary Power of Personal Values

Is it simply a matter of perceived product quality, or is there something deeper that drives the purchase decision in the natural personal care category? To answer this question for a national market leader, we concentrated our research not just on the product and brand, but also and far more importantly on the personal values functioning as the foundation for product and brand preferences. Our goal was to study consumer attitudes toward life, family, and work, to determine how these values could help the company better promote its products and brand in the mainstream personal care market.

All our efforts, from focus groups, to one-on-one interviews, to quantitative research were aimed at identifying the fundamental personal values that could best segment current and prospective customers. Learning what motivates their customers as people gave our client a fundamental change in perspective: their marketing, packaging, and communication efforts now focus on the language and actions of values first, and discuss product only once the ground of values has been firmly established.

As part of our methodology, participants from one of the qualitative waves of our research program were given recyclable cameras and asked to create a visual journal of their lives. Later, the participants presented these photos integrated within personal journals, describing why they took certain pictures, what values they conveyed, and why they were important to them. This exercise not only provided the opportunity to walk in participants shoes, but also to understand their perception of the values shaping their lives.

This approach was also leveraged on the business-to-business side, with a values-based orientation employed at professional conferences, through one-on-one interviewing, and in the evaluation of values-based marketing materials aimed at health care professionals.

Today, this client has a deep understanding of who their customers really are, because it has a firm grasp of the values they share. In addition to driving new product development and packaging design, the impact of our research extends into advertising and marketing to ensure messaging always focuses on the key matter: the values their customers live.

Shaping Future Product Development

Since 1998, TideWatch has conducted over 70 research projects for one of the worlds largest auto manufacturers. Based on our record of success, the client selected us to help implement a strategic study in the business-to-business space. The purpose of this project was to imagine the future consumer and explore how changing wants and needs, as well as evolving technologies, might shape the relationship people have with their automobiles 20 years into the future.

The venue for this research was the annual Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference and the Laguna Seca Racetrack in California. The thought leaders at the conference develop next generation products for work and play. Comprised of renowned CEOs of technology and related companies, programmers, designers, visionaries, professional artists, writers, musicians and other celebrities, the attendees are ideal prognosticators. Knowing that developing a meaningful dialog with these untouchable personalities would be critical to the projects success, our client relied exclusively on the skill of TideWatchs interviewers to tap into the minds of these participants.

One of the main attractions showcased highly interactive web functionality that could potentially lead to involving consumers in the process of designing future vehicles. The site incorporated tools that allowed users to customize aspects of vehicle design not just options and accessories but the actual future design of a vehicle. The test site enabled users to see how their custom designs would perform in different weather conditions, with a different number of passengers, or even with different types of tires. For example, if a 90-pound dog were in the back, how much headroom would it have? And how would towing a 5,000-pound boat affect performance? This tool allowed consumers to have a more intimate experience with vehicle design and preference, as well as provided the auto manufacturer with highly-specific consumer data.

Another component of this research initiative was a highly exclusive think tank, conducted at Laguna Seca Racetrack near the TED conference. There, 15 of the worlds most exotic sports and luxury automobiles had been assembled. Attendees were divided into groups, and while some were participating in focus groups and web usability studies, others were out on the track putting the cars through their paces. The afternoon culminated in a round table panel discussion where all participants came together to share their reactions and opinions of the site, and discuss their own organizations strategies for satisfying future and yet-to-be-identified consumer demands.

Positioning a company for the future requires understanding the audience of the future. By soliciting the insight and creativity of these proven visionaries, our client hoped to inject new energy and cutting-edge design into their long-established brand.