the art of conversation

IN THE KINGDOM OF THE BLAND ...

 

The launch of Kellogg's new cereal Krave has set me thinking. It looks delicious to me - mmm chocolate and hazelnut. But I was wondering whether people want to eat something so scrummy when they are blurry-eyed in the morning. Perhaps it's a cereal to be eaten during the day as a snack? Or back from the pub?  

I was looking at some figures for breakfast cereals and the massive players are the bland ones - the ones that don't engage the 'this-is-yummy' bits of the brain but let the eater come to in their own time. Corn Flakes, the Kellogg's variety, has about 11% share and Weetabix has about 9%. Porridge is doing pretty well, too.  

It seems that it is easy to add on, to make something more delicious, more complicated, and much more difficult to pare down and to reduce. And yet it is the plainer, simpler products that have stood the test of time. Perhaps because of versatility? Or maybe because there's only so much eating time in the day to devote to massively delicious tastes?  Plain crisps sell more than flavoured; plain biscuits more than the chocolate sandwiched with …  

Market research militates against the bland, too. Tasting in groups favours the stronger, sweeter, saltier product variations, because respondents have such a short time to try and the product that makes the most impact tends to be the one that is preferred. Tasting drinks is a case in point. We are able to quaff great quantities of blander drinks, with the stronger and more indulgent flavours reserved for the rarer occasion. So cup of tea anyone? Or would you prefer a hot chocolate with marshmallows and swirls of cream?  

Judith

Research 2010

It was an inspired opening. The first keynote speaker at this year’s annual Market Research Society Conference (Research 2010) was Armando Iannucci.

He was interviewed by Marc Brenner, who was at pains to avoid ‘doing an Alan Partridge’. (He saved this for the Big Thinkers session later.)

Armando has done lots of radio and TV series (eg On the Hour, The Day Today, The Thick Of It) and recently made an Oscar-nominated film, ‘In the Loop’.

He is also very funny. And thoughtful.

He told us about his (incomplete) PhD on Milton’s Paradise Lost, whose opening line matches the rhythm of the Flintstones theme tune. He took it as a sign that comedy may be his calling.

Although he also applied to join the civil service. And considered becoming a priest. I suspect he is a bit of a radical and dislikes being typecast.

So he probably would not much like the Daily Telegraph’s labelling him “the hard man of political satire”.

Thinking about it, he is a bit like Michael Moore. Michael Moore in disguise. A very good disguise, admittedly. But the similarities are there for all who don’t see too well.

They both make films. They both nearly became priests. They are both smart and funny and maverick. They both probably hate fatuous comparisons like these.

More to the point, Iannucci believes that playing films and clips to an audience is the best research you can do. The audience may be cruel and critical and fickle, but “if it doesn’t get any laughs, it hasn’t worked”.

His opening keynote address certainly worked and got the Conference off to a flying start.

NEW RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

 

As Simon Sylvester pointed out in his article Day of the Clones, everybody is pursuing ‘best practice’, and ‘benchmarking’ but this is another way of saying, doing the same as everyone else!

The result is that brand differentiation is becoming the main issue for brands, as in sector after sector, brands are offering the same products, to the same people, in the same style.

Part of the problem is that everyone is doing the same research, in the same way, using the same research companies.

We held a seminar last week on new techniques in qual research. We called it panning for gold, (hence the old timer above) and we focused on trance interviews (hypnosis) and ethnography.

The point is that to come up with new ideas and new ways of differentiating a brand it helps to open up your mind to some new research techniques. After all, as they say, if you always do what you've always done ...

Dominic

In Praise Of ... Ecotricity

 

It's been a while since our previous 'in praise of...' article. Shame on us. Step forward, Ecotricity - 'the world's first green electricity company'. 

Having just signed up to Ecotricity, this risks being tainted by a certain smugness, feeling a bit pleased about 'doing my bit' to reduce my carbon footprint. However, the intention is to praise a company worth its weight in ... um, carbon. If you haven't been put off by the Climategate email scandal and if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, check them out.

Firstly, it is easy to switch. You can either apply through the site OR (as I did) go to the Green Electricity Marketplace website. You can compare different tariffs, green-star ratings and ROCs. The switch is done between current provider and Ecotricity and all I've had to do is ask for my final bill and provide an up-to-date meter reading.

You Can't Put Me In A Box

(Picture by Treehugger)

We did a project for think tank ippr last year, on post-identity politics in contemporary Britain (Discuss), as reported here. The report based on our research, amongst other sources, has recently been released.

In "You Can’t Put Me In A Box”, the report’s authors Simon Fanshawe and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah argue that Britain is not only more diverse than ever before but that diversity itself is growing more diverse. Today, identities are more complex and fluid than they used to be, reflecting shifting interests and allegiances.

The report explores how discrimination and disadvantage do not map easily on to orthodox ‘strand-based’ identity definitions and while it aims to provoke rather than answer questions, it concludes with some implications for policymakers and data collectors, amongst others.

One day, all research projects will be this interesting.

We remember Rover

"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself" - Abraham Lincoln. 

We came across this front cover from Research Magazine. It is from the period just before Rover was taken over by the Phoenix Consortium in 2000, five years before Rover's demise.

It is ironic that although Rover is not around, 'focus groups' are. There were many reasons for Rover's decline, poor product development and strategy, greedy board members and lack of state intervention (to name but a few). But it is a brave or a failing brand that boasts about not listening to the public.