BLOG: Lee Weinblatt

Are your research investments helping the bottom line?

Pick up a copy of the WSJ, Fortune or Bloomberg Businessweek and you will see how things are dramatically changing for the research, marketing and advertising departments at some of the largest CPG companies. The new corporate mandate slashes costs by requiring all expenditures to help the bottom line. What does this mean for our industry? It means that research can no longer exist to mitigate risk; research needs to earn its seat at the table by paying for its own dinner.

In light of this new reality, it is incumbent on us to help our clients get the research results they need to prove value, drive more in-store dollars and make budgets work more efficiently. Here’s a sampling of five ways that our patented truVu™ audio and video recording glasses have gone well beyond justifying the expenses of the research.

• We recently helped a global CPG to strategically reduce their on-shelf SKUs by 25% while increasing the frequency of overall product pick-ups. This uptick in product interaction was essential to the increase in purchase activity because simply noting a package on-shelf has little correlation to sales.

• Working on behalf of a leading retailer, we identified how they should rearrange their organic and nonorganic items to give shoppers a full spectrum of available cleaning products which significantly increased sales in both categories.

• A snack food manufacturer asked PTG to help them increase their struggling in-store sales. What we found is the products lacked commonality in their packaging; however, with a strategically placed design element the SKUs blended together to form the equivalent of an on-shelf banner which greatly increased product visibility.

• Since the impact of a well placed and well designed POP display can offer up to a 300% increase in impulse sales, we were contacted by a multinational personal care company to help them to better understand why a recent POP effort wasn’t performing as expected. The video clips that we captured among shoppers quickly showed how the in-store placement of the display was being entirely missed. Once the display was moved to a different location the POP began performing as expected.

• A beauty retailer was struggling to understand why sales in one of their aisles were inexplicably down. Our in-store and exit interview research showed that the aisle in question lacked any compelling merchandise at the end of the aisle which would serve to entice shoppers to walk down the aisle and increase foot traffic. By replacing the end of aisle merchandise the retailer quickly saw sales bounce back.

Stay tuned for my next post where I will share similar bottom line building techniques for the advertising industry.

Can we stop the commoditization of research before it’s too late?

We have all been watching an interesting phenomenon unfold over the years and spoiler alert: it’s not pretty. As a community of researchers, we’re selling our clients, our products and ourselves short. It started slowly, and then it started to snowball. Before we knew it, we were trapped.

Why did we decide it was time to start offering “lite” versions of our products when we know the modified solution comes with significantly less value? Why did we decide that all solutions, regardless of the predictive inappropriateness, require an online option? Why did we decide that forced exposure results alone provide sufficient precision? Why did we decide to make many of our industry’s most trusted solutions available with a credit card number and an expiration date?

Question: If clients are coming to us with many of the same fundamental brand building issues that were previously addressed with more sophisticated tools, regardless of the methodology, – then why did we stop recommending them when we knowingly have better and more thorough solutions to meet their business issues?

My thoughts are not intended to be a slight against modern research approaches or digital in any way. I’m all for technology and advancement (trust me on this one, I just received my 119th patent); but I’m simply looking to acknowledge that some research objectives are better conducted offline. Perhaps through qualitative…maybe via observational research…or even simulated research. Whatever the case may be, I’m worried that we are allowing our talents, solutions and deliverables to be watered down to solve a straw man argument because in the end, who is truly benefiting from poorly executed Quick Serve Research (aka: QSR)?

Some may argue that client budgets are being reduced so research suppliers are being asked to serve up more for less. Perhaps that’s the case in some instances; however, along the same lines, why don’t home buyers ask home builders to forgo the bathroom or the kitchen? Sure it will save money and time, but what kind of final product will you have?

I would argue that we’ve trained clients into thinking that we can meet their needs with overly simplified versions of our most respected offerings. It’s ok if we can’t meet all of the objectives in an RFP with a 10 question survey and access to a normative database. Good research can be complicated, and sometimes it’s costly, but we shouldn’t shy away from this reality. Some decisions are too big for QSR. Clients can’t afford to make a mistake, and we can’t afford to give bad advice. Let’s make a pact that we should only offer clients our very best solution to meet their individual needs. Only when we trust ourselves to do good, valuable work will we be able to stop the commoditization of research. Who’s with me?

Thanks for stopping by.

Hello and thanks for stopping by the new PTG blog. For those of you meeting PTG for the first time, I would like to offer you a very warm welcome. For our legacy clients, welcome back!

At PTG, our piece of the consumer research pie is devoted to measuring human engagement. We specialize in patented consumer engagement and nonconscious measurement techniques that amplify creative performance, refine product marketing strategies and influence consumer behavior. (more…)