Market Research Articles

The definition of aficionado is: a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime: aficionados of the finest wines. Synonyms include: connoisseur, expert, authority, specialist, pundit, enthusiast, devotee. There are pizza aficionados, hand gun aficionados, aficionados of bourbon, bottled water, daffodils, fine writing instruments, NFL quarterbacks, and just about any category or commodity you can think of. Me? I’m a fan of hand guns, daffodils and high-end roller ball pens. But as the definition includes someone who is “very knowledgeable” I couldn’t really call myself…

  The Information Age has created its share of billionaires: Jeff Bezos ($130 B), Bill Gates ($90 B), Mark Zuckerberg ($71 B), Larry Ellison ($58.5B), Michael Dell ($22.7B,) to name a handful. And why not. They created a historic revolution in global communication and a titanic shift in commerce. I mean it wasn’t that long ago that the Pony Express, was carrying mail from St. Joseph Missouri to Sacramento (about 1,800 miles) at the blistering pace of 10 days from start…

There is marketing magic in harnessing the power of a negative mindset. It was just such a mindset that Unilever (owner of the Dove brand) found when they conducted an enormous survey of 3,000 women in 10 countries and discovered that only 4% of those surveyed considered themselves beautiful. Those survey results became the basis for one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history and changed the social construct of what is considered beautiful. ‘By leveraging market research to…

  The odds were 3 to 1 that Britain would remain in the EU before the Brexit vote: Odds makers showed 75% to stay, 25% to leave. The world was stunned with the outcome. But if the 3:1 odds for Brexit were stunning, consider the odds in August of 2015 that Donald Trump would become President of the United States - 25:1. I confess, I considered his candidacy a virtual impossibility when he first announced. The outcome of the 2016…

  We are 90 days past the Presidential election, the White House is firing off Executive Orders like an administrative Gatling Gun and Democrats are still wandering the halls of Congress gobsmacked that a guy that laquers his hair is the President of the United States. How could they have gotten it so wrong? The Presidency belonged to Hillary. Following in the footsteps of her predecessor, her election would be historic - the first woman President of the United States.…

I received a number of intensely interesting emails from an article I sent out last week on the subject of PR (public relations). Seems it’s a hot subject. Which prompted me to write a follow-up. In last week’s article, I quoted from a groundbreaking piece written by the Godfather of Positioning, Al Ries. http://www.ries.com. The point of that particular quote was that PR should proceed advertising. But there are other mind-grabbing principles in that article, which is entitled Positioning in…