Primary Research Yields Better Creative Concepts
The mantra for many creatives is, “think like the target audience.” For too many agencies, it becomes guessing what the target audience finds important, knows or thinks about a particular product or service. It is not fact-based! As Lisa Fortini-Campbell writes in Hitting the Sweet Spot, “Consumers have sweet spots… And when your marketing or advertising idea hits [that sweet spot], your sales will go flying…
"Consumer Insight + Brand Insight = Sweet Spot.”
As the anvil salesman sang in “The Music Man,” “You gotta know the territory.” In marketing, that means not just knowing the facts of the marketplace, but having an in-depth knowledge of the whys and wherefores behind those facts. In their book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout said, “Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products.” To understand those perceptions, agencies need to conduct primary research with the target audience, your clients’ customers.
You Get Insights by Asking
At a Second Wind meeting in Las Vegas a few years ago, Tony Mikes took us to the offices of R&R, the agency that developed the memorable Las Vegas tourism campaign, “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas®.” When asked how they came up with the theme, creative director Randy Snow said, “We talked with our customers (those folks that come here frequently) and they told us what to do and say.” He went on to describe some of the qualitative input they built on, such as: Frequent visitors have a drawer or closet at home where they keep clothing they only take out when they go to Vegas. By listening to the “voice of the customer,” R&R developed an iconic campaign that builds on this adult, get-away experience.
Step by Step
Several years ago, Tony presented his three-step process to creating better advertising:
- Who do you want to reach?
- What does s/he think and feel about your product?
- What do you want your audience to think and feel about your product after seeing your advertising?
I think not enough effort is devoted to Step 2.
Perhaps, in recent years, the combination of shrinking marketing budgets coupled with the proliferation of online, do-it-yourself survey tools like Survey Monkey and Zoomerang has allowed marketers and their agencies to convince themselves that doing a quick, online survey really gives them a feel for or sense of the marketplace. Well, to be crude, they may have “copped a feel,” but they haven’t gotten to the good stuff.
Getting to the Good Stuff
When I was with Adamson Advertising, we won our first million-dollar account, a manufacturer of brief cases and portfolio cases, primarily because we took the time to call product retailers across the country to learn about the category, and the prospect in particular. At the time, in the mid-1980s, we learned that while the product was used primarily by males, most were purchased by females as gifts for their men—something the manufacturer did not know. We recommended switching their media and creative away from a strictly-male orientation, and blew the CEO away.
In marketing research, we were involved in testing some new TV spots for a health care entity aimed exclusively at seniors. Their new agency had come up with creative that failed to make the phone ring with calls for new appointments. During in-depth interviews (IDIs) with seniors, we learned that while the spots were quite clever and subtle, they failed to connect with a target audience that didn’t “get” clever and subtle. Seniors as a group tend to respond best to straightforward, plain and simple messages. One spot had the cutest little dog… and over 35 percent of the seniors viewing the spot thought the service being offered was veterinary, not human treatment. The creative director said to me, “What’s wrong with these people? They don’t get my message.” No, they didn’t, because he didn’t take the time to understand his audience.
Former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley once said, “The simple principle in life is to find out what she wants and give it to her. It’s worked in my marriage for 35 years and it works in laundry.” He changed the way the company thought about its customers, about women, moving from testing the acceptability of specific products they developed in the lab to observing women using their products on a day-to-day basis. Now, they only go to the lab when they have a good understanding of the features women care most about and can focus efforts on addressing those concerns or filling those interests.
Objectives, Sources and Methods
When I work with great clients, I like to start by asking, “What are you going to do with what you learn?” From there, we work together to develop the best methodology, including:
- What information is needed?
- Who would be the best source(s) for that information? (Sometimes, this is a study unto itself; I find that frequently, clients don’t know who the key influencers are.)
The last step is deciding on the methodology—what is the best way to learn what we need to learn? Too often, clients come to marketing researchers and say, “We need to do a survey”—when, in fact, maybe they don’t. They may need to do focus groups or in-depth interviews or observational (ethnographic) research instead.
We like to spend as much up-front time as possible with clients, digging deeply into what they really need to know. This sometimes includes group meetings with their staff, reps, marketing folks, execs, et. al. As mentioned above, it frequently turns out to be a whole additional study, but an internal one. Although It can be hard to charge for this “advance ground-laying,” we try to make the client see the value; if you can prove the value in one case, it will be easier to sell in the future.
Primary, qualitative research can be invaluable in today’s more intimate, one-to-one marketing environment. Smaller agencies can take advantage of this method—if they start with smart planning and a clear understanding of the intended result.
