revolution + research = r2

The Winning Super Bowl Ad-

My favorite Super Bowl ad? Not the commercials of men running around without pants, not Bud's auto-tune, not the weird "KISS" ad, not Letterman hanging with Leno, but this from Kia:

Why? Because it reminds me of my sister. Can you tell which is the ad and which is my sibling?

   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJqs3D2vv4I

Canadian Moms Dominate Online - New Series

Despite the existence of numerous studies of American Moms, little research has been done about Canadian Moms, especially in regards to their online behavior. 

My Toronto colleagues, Managing Directors Cora Brady and Kathryn Easter, recently partnered with Sharpe Blackmore Euro RSCG to uncover how Canadian Moms are ‘doing digital’.

Every Wednesday, we'll present key findings from the Canadian Digital Mom study, giving you a peek into the lives of Canadian Moms and specifically, how technology affects their lives – from how they shop, to how they keep in contact with friends and family, to how they raise their kids.

Surveying over 600 Canadian mothers, the research highlights that "Digital Moms" are on the rise, spending on average three hours per day online, and 19% of whom are spending over seven hours per day.  With busy schedules and little time, Moms choose to spend their time online where they can be selective about what they see and read rather than watching TV, listening to the radio or reading a newspaper or magazine.

In fact, Canadian Moms spend 1,000 more minutes online each month that their U.S. counter parts – meaning over 16 hours of extra time online every month, and roughly twice as much time spent online as that spent by U.K. moms.

According to Stacy DeBroff, CEO and Founder of Mom Central, "Marketers seeking to reach Canadian Moms need to ensure that strategic online activity gets embedded into any communication plan."

Mom Bloggers - Stricter Guidelines than Celebs and Journos

Last month, our CEO and founder Stacy DeBroff published an article in Media Post, focusing on Mom Bloggers and FTC guidelines.  She wrote:

Because blogs offer the potential of powerful first-person brand ambassadorship, they have emerged as a key way to ignite consumers. More and more brands want to expose bloggers to their products and services in the hope they will post favorable reviews... With blogger's increased rise in audience and sway comes increased FTC scrutiny.

With bloggers garnering so much attention from brands, agencies and the FTC, we wanted to better understand their perspective.  Last week, we asked Mom Bloggers directly how they feel about the FTC guidelines, how they changed their blogging habits and how brands can best work with them to connect with Moms. Though I'm in the midst of analyzing the results, I thought I'd share some quick prelims:

• 83% of Mom Bloggers believe they now have stricter disclosure guidelines than celebs.
• 68% of Mom Bloggers believe they have stricter guidelines than journalists.
• Nearly half of Mom Bloggers engage in sponsored tweets.
• Finally, though most Mom Bloggers have not changed their blogging disclosures as a result of the guidelines, they do feel more vulnerable to IRS audits.

Stay tuned:  Part II of "Mom Bloggers and FTC" published by Media Post, and the complete Mom Blogger report, will be available 2/10/10.

Iffy ROI - More Popular Than You Think

I'm reading "More Guerrilla Marketing Research" by Robert Kaden, Gerald Linda and Jay Conrad Levinson.

Man, I love it so far. Skipping over the basic overviews, some sections caused me to sharpen my #2 Ticonderoga and do some serious underlying. Like this, from page 46:

It's hard to spend money on research when there is no clear guarantee of a profitable payback. Interesting isn't it though, that spending money to support short-term promotions, circulating additional catalogs or flyers, running a bunch of banner ads, adding to the sales force or tossing a new product or service into the market seems so easy to justify - even when faced with just as iffy a payback.

Love it.

Market Research - Adapt or Die

Bob Kaden, President and Owner of The Kaden Company, recently started a discussion on LinkedIn (in the NGMR Group) by asking “are researchers aggressive enough to have real impact?” He quotes Neeraj Arora of the AC Nielsen Center for Marketing Research:

Marketing research used to be a backroom function, but nowadays the distinctions are blurring between marketing researchers and brand managers. Marketing researchers must have the business savvy of a brand manager and the analytic mind of a researcher. They need to be creative, take risks, spot market trends and pass this information onto CEO.

I agree with with Arora. Traditional marketing research and researchers need to adapt or die. No longer can researchers be content to crunch numbers. We need a new call to action – and a more strategic, bigger picture.

My response:

Perhaps the methodologies and platforms will shape the role.  As research moves into a more organic, dynamic, social media space, how will our industry adapt?

Perhaps the changes will come not from internal brand managers, but from external agencies that change the game plan via social media and other platforms from which they can gather "market research." Perhaps these "hybrid" researchers exist in other capabilities?

Do you think external pressures will help to change the relationship between brand managers and researchers?

What's Going On This Week

According to MediaPost, a Business.com study finds business leaders prefer "passive" social media over those that require more interaction.

From emarketer, digital tools keep Moms connected with their families. More than 40% of Moms wanted technology that would help them be a better Mother.

It's never a good idea to post a photo of your baby smoking a cigarette on Facebook.

Shamable says we're not on Twitter to make friends. They'll call B.S. on you for that one.

Vovici suggests we drop the ageism when it comes to online communities.

And finally, from Tremendous News, 5 Signs That You're Liked On Twitter.

Magical Numbers and Flawed Measurement

In a former life, I analyzed television ratings and demographic trends (you know, the usual: R&F’s, GRP’s, gloriously boring Venn diagrams, etc). Colleagues relied on the information to understand viewership of a given program.  Their need for metrics hardly strayed outside of the framework of key standard quantitative measurements.  Who could blame them? Basic ratings and demographics determined each program’s success or failure.

In fact, the TV and advertising industries have relied on those magical Nielsen numbers for decades. Decades.  Numbers calculated by a monopoly, invented at a time when the average television viewer watched only three channels (four if you count PBS). Though radio analysis started in the 30’s and television analysis in the 50’s, the audience measurement framework hasn’t changed as much as you’d expect since then.

Nielsen bases these standard metrics on flawed methodology and yet in social media and research circles I still hear talk of reach, frequency, GRP’s. As if we can pull social media into the same frame as other measurements. We stick with what we know – but what we know is outdated.

We cannot force social media into imprecise buckets of outdated measurement. 

So, how do we measure it?

• KD Paine says Kill the Zombie Metrics
• Content to Commerce provides 100 ways to Measure Social Media Marketing
• Alexander van Elsas encourages us not to forget about The Human Factor
• Tremendous News drives it home with the importance of The Twitter Avatar
• And finally, Shamable, the no B.S. Social Media Guide says be patient, “Concrete Measurement Will Come.”

I'm of the ABT mindset - Anything But This.

Venn Diagram Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pawelc/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

5 Ways to Help Haiti

Over at Mom Central's The DeBroff DeBrief, Stacy DeBroff outlines five ways our community can help the people of Haiti.  (I donated $10 to the American Red Cross by texting "HAITI" to 90999. It's easy, immediate and desperately needed.)

If you have not yet done so, please consider a donation. Every dollar helps:

The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti has turned exponentially more disastrous as the small island nation remains ill-equipped to handle such a catastrophe. The Haitian people and relief workers need as many donations as possible to handle the devastating aftermath...

Click here to continue to Mom Central's DeBroff DeBrief for 5 ways to immediately donate to any of these crucial causes.

My Husband and I Separated This Weekend

Six months ago, I set-up a joint Facebook page for both my husband (DHR) and I to share.  No, we’re not THAT KIND OF COUPLE.  With most of DHR’s family living variously in the US, Caribbean and UK, I figured it would be a great way for all of us to stay in touch without having to bother with pesky time zones.

And honestly, DHR would have preferred to suck on a couple of old batteries than set up his own page.

At first our shared page reflected my posts, mostly. DHR dabbled. Then suddenly SHAZAAM! My husband developed a full-blown case of Facebook addiction. Compulsively checking our news feed on the sly, posting updates in the middle of the night, wondering aloud WHY, WHY HAS NO ONE COMMENTED ON MY PHOTOS OF YELLOWFIN TUNA? He was out of control. 

We decide the "joint" page no longer worked. DHR needed his own outlet. We separated; he created his own page, I "revamped" the existing one. 

Thinking we were hilariously funny, my husband posted this (and the photo above) on our joint page:

I guess all good things must come to an end. Turns out that Tracey and I are breaking up. Although we had great times together, the time has come for me to get my own facebook page. Look out... friend requests are coming your way.

We crack ourselves up.

24 hours later, however, we were forced to post this on our page:

Thanks to all for your warm wishes. But to be clear, Tracey and I aren't getting divorced. We just broke apart our joint FB page so that we can each have our own.

Apparently, not everyone shares our sense of humor.

Wordless Wednesday