Apple's launch of the iPad was announced earlier this week and here in the office, we've been wondering what to make of it.
The general consensus has been to wear our steady-Eddy hats until the next generation of the iPad comes out, when all the technical creases have been ironed out and the enthusiastic early-adopters have tried and tested it. And when, as our colleague Siamack has noted, they make one with a camera built in.
Expectations are high, of course. Apple have transformed certain products into must-have status symbols. Take what the iPod did for MP3 players, what the iPhone did for the Smartphone; will the iPad do the same for tablet laptops/e-Readers?
No doubt, we shall be blogging about it when it does (or doesn't!)
Unless you've been on the moon this week, you won't have missed the news about Kraft's takeover of Cadbury's.
As
British brands go, Cadbury's is/was one of Britain's most iconic.
Reports in UK media have all been rather negative and admittedly it is hard
to see
the positives for Cadbury's. Trawling through articles, there is talk
of threats to the product taste, to the manufacturing base, to ethical
standards and to job security, while the government is powerless to
intervene (not the case in America, perhaps).
Last night was the Annual AQR's 'Not the Christmas Party' at the prestigious 'Hospital Club', near Covent Garden. Between sipping beer, wine and champagne conversations flowed from early evening until near to midnight. An interesting conversation developed about the qualitative research culture: we are not so great in talking agency-to-agency and sharing our thinking.
Unlike planners and brand consultants (and so on), qualitative researchers aren't as forward in inter-agency conversing, either online (through blogs and Twitter etc) or face-to-face (like Will Humphrey's 'Cwoffee' meetings with planners/media strategists/brand consultants etc). The more we talked, the more we felt this a strange notion. This is because qual. researchers are in the unique position being the lifeline between client and the consumer and have a great deal to offer to the development of brands, communications and marketing as a whole - an area we felt should be capitalised on better.
Why are we not more forthcoming? Here are our hypotheses (at least those I can remember):
The snowy weather has meant too much time indoors. To stave off cabin fever, a glut of DVDs have been dusted off and played to divert attention from the jaw-chattering conditions. One of them, the latest 'Quantum of Solace' film, we see in no uncertain terms Bond's watch-of-choice is Omega, just as his car is an Aston Martin. Following such positive exposure in films, it came as no surprise in the news recently that product placement is certain to extend from films to UK TV, as a paid-for model (following our American cousins) and is estimated to be worth £140 million. Reading in the recent Campaign, advertisers and wider public bodies are voicing concern, and McDonalds are odds on as a 2/1 favourite to appear in Coronation Street, Emmerdale or Hollyoaks.
So what will this mean for UK TV and how will this impact on consumers and research?
A happy new year and new decade (apparently dubbed 'The Teenies')!
Although it has been a short while since our last post, we thought we would begin our first 2010 post about an article we have written and had featured in this month's Research Magazine; it is on the subject of bravery in research and is based on a 2009 post 'Brave Research'.
Although the article is not yet online, we will post a link to the Research-Live website when it is. Until then, take a look at the January 2010 issue for the article "The guts to do the right thing".
