How to Create an Unforgettable Brand

Written by Jillian Ogawa via UpCounsel.

Startups are known for having a “go big or go home” work ethic, but unfortunately, the same approach often backfires when applied toward marketing. Some startups spend too much too soon on big marketing initiatives that either prove ineffective or, at the other end of the spectrum, too successful to the point that they aren’t able to keep up with customer demand. Other common mistakes include focusing promotional efforts on marketing channels that are irrelevant to the target audience or copying the marketing efforts of competitors.

Startups can’t really afford to make these kind of mistakes. They only have a few months to make an impact on the minds of consumers, so it’s important to develop a strong brand will drive your marketing efforts toward platforms and methods that effectively communicate your brand ideals. 

The key to making your marketing efforts work smarter – not harder – is having a brand message powerful enough to guide your company through all stages of growth.

Likewise, a resonating brand message enables startups to quickly identify effective marketing opportunities that drive their brand forward.

Click here to read the full post on UpCounsel.

How to Incorporate Your Customers into Your Marketing Strategy

Written by Christina Morales via UpCounsel.

Shopping has never been more accessible and more of a sport than in recent history. With mobile devices and cloud services, you can access just about any product, brand or store, compare prices, read reviews, make a secured purchase and then track the delivery of that purchase as it gets scanned at each drop off point. Consumers have never had more options or information than they do now, which is certainly a double edged sword for companies.

Want to reach your customers and stand out in the crowd with your marketing strategy? Then consider these following tips:

1. Market Research – I love shopping online. I mean, what’s not to love? I get the best deal, I don’t have to run around to a bunch of stores, and returns have become incredibly easy as many mega web stores offer printable return labels and shoot an e-mail as soon as they receive the product and process your refund. Most of the time, within a week of receiving my order I have a request from the company to write a review (aka market research). Why is this important? You need to identify issues and solve them so your customers will return (and will hopefully leave positive social media feedback). If everything went perfectly, it’s a wonderful boost for company morale to acknowledge that your employees are doing a great job.

Click here to read the full post on UpCounsel.

eSports, Graduation, and Miami

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind.

Not only was I inundated with final exams, group presentations, and my capstone project to wrap up my Masters program, but having also recently landed a position with Universal Music Group in Miami, I had to find a place to live & coordinate my move from Madrid to the Sunshine State which had to happen before my graduation ceremony!

eSports

The first thing on the agenda was the capstone project. The Market Research and Consumer Behavior Masters program at IE requires a final 8-week project, which allows students to integrate all the knowledge and skills that were mastered during the program, to develop a unique solution to a real-world challenge provided by the client. My six-person consulting team was assigned the task of validating current business drivers and gauge new opportunities within the eSports industry in the Peruvian market.

I had heard of the term "eSports" here and there before the project, but I can honestly say that didn't know much.

I knew of PewDiePie, who's currently the most subscribed-to YouTube personality (for the sake of comparison, he currently has a whopping 64 million subscribers while Beyoncé has 17 million), and his rise to fame on the platform from video content in which he would document the playthrough of video games while including commentaries and reactions as he played through them.

I also knew of Twitch, the Amazon-owned video game live streaming video platform, but I couldn't come to grasp the interest in the platform. I couldn't understand why someone would want to spend time watching someone else play a video game. Then I thought back to my younger days (when I was a bit more into video games). I remember having just a good of a time watching my friends play Super Smash Bros. instead of playing. I didn't need to be playing to have a fun experience with the game itself.

As I came to find out, eSports is considered competitive gaming at a professional level and in an organized format (a tournament or league) with a specific goal (i.e., winning a champion title or prize money) and a clear distinction between players and teams that are competing against each other. The eSports industry is also rapidly growing. In the coming year, the global eSports economy will ballon to $905.6 million, up 38% YoY and, according to market research firm Newzoo, the industry is currently estimated to reach $1.4 billion by 2020.

Overall, this was a fascinating project to work on. The industry growth figures were pretty impressive, so I'll be keeping a close eye on eSports moving on. Being that our presentation to the Telefónica team took place on July 5th and was hired to start my new position with UMG on July 10th, I had to fly out Miami the day after our presentation. Not much time to celebrate, but there was plenty of time down the road for that.

Graduation

After setting up shop and getting settled in Miami for about two weeks, I had to fly back to Madrid for graduation.

The jet lag was awful, but there were no regrets in my decision to fly back out for graduation. Being that I graduated early from high school and that I had to travel during my Bachelors graduation ceremony from LMU, I hadn't graduated on stage since kindergarten. That being the case, my family really appreciated seeing me formally receive my diploma in the traditional graduation get-up and what not.

It was a quick four days back in Madrid, but I now officially have my Masters in Market Research and Consumer Behavior. Feels good to write.

Madrid - it's been great, but onto the next chapter...

Miami

I'm now back in Miami.

I swear, every time I hear "Miami", I think - palm trees, cuban food, and Will Smith (yes, I'm an 80's baby and very clearly remember the chart-topping single from The Fresh Prince). A friend had also recommended that I check out the HBO series, Ballers, which is set in Miami. I'm not a huge Dwayne Johnson fan, but the trailer looks pretty good.

I can't say I would have imagined relocating here prior to my position with UMG, but I've lived by the ocean for the majority of my life (with the exception of Outat El Haj and Madrid) so I thought "why not?".

My first non-consecutive three weeks at Universal Music have been wonderful. I have a good grasp of the business side of things and I'm now learning the proprietary insights tools I'll be using for work. I also went to my first concert (Pusha-T at Story) and my first work-related show last night (Nacho at The Fillmore). All in all, everything's been great and Miami's starting to feel like home. More updates to come.

The view from our office.

Adventures in Taste Testing for New Product Success

You know how people say the devil is in the details? Well, that couldn't be truer than with taste testing.

During college I participated in my fair share of paid food research studies (which was a great way to make a quick buck as a college student btw). While I took part in these taste testings, I never really gave much thought to the complexity of the research until years down the line when I decided to conduct taste tests for a food product I was considering bringing to the market.

As with most consumer usability testing, consumer taste research design is pretty complex. Some of the considerations include testing location, in addition to whether you want to reveal the product brand, conduct the research with a group of people verses one person at a time, and who exactly you're going to be recruiting for the study. Mike Burkenbine and Kathryn Korostoff do a great job at breaking down some of the research details below.

Some of the key take-aways from the video include:

• In-facility testing is vital. In-store/in-restaurant should be conducted as a second part to the research.
• "People eat with their eyes" - be weary of variables, whether it be the color of the packaging or serving utensil, that might affect gustation via vision, audition, olfaction, and somatosensation.
• Ethnographic research might be best for packaged products that are made to be used at home (e.g. frozen meals).
• Conduct blind testing first to check if the target market likes the product, then conduct further branded testing to check brand association.
• Beware of regional differences in taste preferences.

If you've ever wondered how CPG companies and restaurant chains what food and beverage products to sell (and mitigate some of the business risk of launching a potential flop), consumer taste testing is the way to go.

Social Noise: Cacophony or Symphony?

Imagine the powerful business insights you could gain from an organic form of market research where the focus group was made up entirely of people already engaging with your brand or your industry...

Is social listening the answer?

Snapchat & A Mid-Term Surprise

It goes without saying - time has a tendency to fly by.

We wrapped up our second term in the Masters program last week, which felt surprisingly shorter than the first term. Both terms were both the same length of time, but I think there was a handful of reasons why this term felt so much shorter. Beside the fact that I've been keeping a bit busy with juggling school, my work with Inside ETFs, being an IE Marketing Club Officer, in addition to keeping a social life and sustaining a steady weekend workout regimen, I felt better prepared for this term than the first. Time management has always been a personal forté, but this time around I felt like I had a better grasp of how the program courses were going to be run, the potential workload, and my classmates (which whom I was going to be working with in our assigned team for the classes for the duration of the term).

Nevertheless, it was still a demanding couple of months.

One class in particular - Managing the Customer, taught by stock market investor, entrepreneur & activist, Pedro David Sañudo - was a bit brutal to get through (it was an intense. week-long crash course), but enlightening. Our team project consisted of implementing a Customer Management Framework to a company of our choosing. Being that Snapchat was undergoing a backlash from users because of its latest app redesign, we thought it'd be the perfect chance to work on a current customer-related issue.

Funny enough, I had coincidently opened up my Snapchat app at a concert a few days prior to our selection of the company for the project, and had absolutely no idea what was going on. You could say that, along with the 1.25 million users that petitioned for Snapchat to revert back to its old design, I wasn't intially very enthusiastic about the new app design. Our team used the CMF to dive into all customer phases: development, creation, growth and retention. With a focus on retention, we provided suggestions for Snapchat to retain their core users. Being that I had previously worked on the initial stages of an entrepreneurial project based the Snapchat advertising platform, this was an enjoyable project.

All in all, it was an extremely insightful term.

A plus - my first term group and I received a little surprise from the Kantar Business Challenge we won last December. Receiving the plaque was quite an honor. It's a nice to receive a little recognition for hard work.

Now that I'm on spring break, I've been looking over syllabi for the upcoming third term and I gotta say, I'm pretty excited. We're going to be covering Behavioral Economics (big Dan Ariely fanboy here), Neuromarketing, Anthropology, and Customer Experience to name a couple of topics. The third term is also going to consist of the term-long Telefonica Integration Challenge, the capstone project for the Master in Market Research & Consumer Behavior where we'll be examining business needs, translate them into desired research methodologies, conduct research, analyze research results, and propose effective/viable business solutions for Telefonica. Couldn't feel more ready to tackle this!

Anyway, I'm off to Morocco to enjoy some home-cooked couscous in a few days.

Here's to crushing the next term.

Skittles & The Solution To Cognitive Overload

Firstly, happy holidays! I'm visiting family here in Stockholm, and I'm sitting here early xmas morning, reflecting on the last couple of months. As mentioned previously, I'm currently working towards getting my Masters in Market Research and Consumer Behavior and I just wrapped up my first term last Friday.

The program has a heavy focus on group projects, one of those being the Millward Brown Business Challenge this last term. The case, which involved the evaluation of a Skittles advertisement, was given to us, along with the case prompt & real supplemental primary and secondary research from Kantar Millward Brown, on a Friday. We had to present our conclusions and next steps to a panel of market research experts the following Monday. Saying that it was an intense weekend would be an understatement. Anywho, looks like christmas came a bit early (we found out that we won the challenge last week).

One of the supplemental research documents given to us for the challenge was an eye-tracker analysis for the advertisement. The technology's quite fascinating. According to Jaime Veiga, marketing professor at IE, we come across 4,000 to 10,000 brand impressions a day. At a supermarket, we have 30,000 to 50,000 products to choose from. Due to the cognitive overload we come across in our everyday lives, brands are failing to connect with potential customers. How are brands supposed to connect with their customers when it seems like every brand is trying to yell over the other in a crowded room? The solution - optimization via biometrics.

During the term, I had the chance to sit in on a talk led by Thomas Ramsoy, Founder and CEO of Neurons Inc, a Neuroscience consultancy company, where I first saw the eye-tracking technology in action.

Purchasing decisions happen in fractions of a second. To capture the attention of customers, brands have to understand how consumers think. Although traditional market research methods help gather consumer information to provide insights, new technologies like EEG scanners or eye-tracking devices provide measurements to how the brain and/or the body reacts to marketing stimuli. According to Thomas, these technologies can predict an accuracy of about 80%. With that being said, I can't wait for my neuromarketing class in the third term.

Overall, it was a great first term. Lots of ups and downs, but a learning experience nonetheless. In 2 weeks, I'll be starting up my second term. Some of the classes include:

• Consumer Decision Making
• Managing The Customer
• Marketing Products & Brands
• Observational Methods
• Product Launch Simulation
• Understanding Consumer Behavior II

I'm going to take the next two weeks to get some much needed R&R to get ready to crush this next term. See you guys in 2018!

Saucin'

I recently came across an article on the importance of market research and felt obliged to write my personal experience with it (since I'm going to be getting my Masters in Market Research & Consumer Behavior 'n all).

I wrapped up my Peace Corps service in Morocco in April 2015. I loved my service (a topic for a future blog post), but as I got closer to the date when I was going to be back in the states, all I could think about was eating foods I wasn't able to have for over 2 years. When I came back, all the foods I had craved seemed to taste exponentially better because of my heightened attention in my consumption. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

One afternoon, my mom prepared a traditional Peruvian dish, Papa a la Huancaína. I had always been a huge fan of the lightly spicy Huancaína cheese sauce served over the potatoes and then the thought hit me: "Why isn't the sauce available for purchase as a ready-to-serve, packaged product in stores? Heck, I mean, I'd totally buy it (at the time being a single 29 year old self-proclaimed foodie/convenience-seeker)."

That idea sent me on a bit of an entrepreneurial journey to bring my mom's Huancaína sauce to market.

I had an inkling that our target demographic would be affluent foodies if the product was marketed as an organic, gluten-free product and stocked in local "healthy" grocery stores. This involved tinkering around with the recipe. And we did. But in order to see how this sauce compared to the original, I decided to learn as much as I could about market research to find out what people thought.

I came to find out that there are 2 types of data collection: quantitative (online, mail and telephone surveys) and qualitative (i.e. phone interviews, face-to-face interviews, focus groups). With the data from quantitative research being highly structured, one could use the data to recognize patterns and draw broad conclusions. Qualitative, on the other hand, is less about the volume of data you'd collect from surveying and more about capturing in-depth options and experience about your business, product, or what have you.

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My first step was to test my theory about the initial demographic I had in mind for the potential sauce product. I decided to pass out samples of the sauce, along with surveys, at farmer's markets and pretty much any place where you'd find foodie's congregate.I also just happened to be taking a Consumer Behavior and Advertising class at the San Francisco City College (CCSF) during this time, so I decided to approach my teachers with the idea of handing out samples and running surveys with their class. They agreed. The results were interesting (folks kept comparing it to Velveeta, which was a thought that had never crossed my mind), but the data was not as statistically significant as I would have liked it to be.

Next, I decided to approach the culinary department at CCSF to see if they'd be able to let me run a few focus groups with the students in the culinary program. Since they had a bit more of a refined taste palette, I thought it'd be great to get their opinions on our original sauce and the organic version. Some insights included that the organic version tasted earthy, perhaps a little too spicy, and the texture wasn't as pleasing as the original version.

Now, mind you, this was my first foray into market research. In retrospect, there were several biases in the implementation of my experimentation. But, overall, it was a fascinating learning experience. I learned how difficult it is to select the right, unbiased candidates for focus groups, how tricky it can be to create good surveys (from which you'd be able to pull valid insight from), and how powerful marketing research could be a tool for business growth. Some important reasons for a business to conduct market research include:

1. Discover who you really compete against in the marketplace (you will be surprised, I promise)
2. Uncover your differentiators
3. Find your competitive advantage
4. Learn what services your clients appreciate most, and why
5. See emerging opportunities in the marketplace
6. Adjust your marketing messages to reflect what customers really want to hear
7. Find out what your customers think about you
8. Discover which weaknesses you need to fix right away
9. Get your Net Promoter Score and find out whether your customers are likely to recommend your company to others
10. Learn how well known your business is in the marketplace
11. Explore why some customers chose to buy from another company, instead
12. Find out how your pricing compares to the competition
13. Find out how important price is to your buyers
14. Discover whether there is demand for your new product or service
15. Recognize emerging trends in the marketplace
16. Demonstrate that you care about your customers — the act of doing research shows that you are interested in them and their opinions
17. Discover the one thing your customers would change about your business
18. Find out if you are well positioned to enter a new market
19. Determine what issues you should be writing and speaking about to engage your audience and build your visibility
20. Find out whether internal perceptions about your company match external perceptions
21. Learn how your customers find you
22. Find out why your customers chose you over a competitor
23. See if your customers are aware of all of your key products or services
24. Find out what you are known for in the marketplace
25. Benchmark your business against competitors in your industry

After a couple months of research, we decided on shifting the business model from sauce production company to an import & distribution company. I had to dissolve the business because of my move to Madrid for my masters program, but lots more market research posts coming up in the near future.

Building Trust in a Digital World

I had the chance to attend an American Marketing Association event last night. Leveraging digital tools, Paolo Parigi (Lead Trust Scientist at Uber and Adjunct Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University) gave a presentation on the topic of trust - an important psychological factor in business, specifically within the sharing economy. His methodology, referred to as an online field experiment (ofe), in assessing how interactions and user experience creates, increases, or decreases trust and how to discover which is happening and what might be causing it, involved the usage of investment games. Below are a few snapshots I managed to capture during the presentation. Parigi addressed certain scenarios when it would be best to use ofe's and, taking into consideration how varied trust can build across different cultures, acknowledged that ofe results would vary across countries. All in all, an insightful presentation.

Madrid's A-Callin'

Looks like I'm moving to Madrid to get my Masters in Market Research & Consumer Behavior.