“No great marketing decisions
have ever been made on quantitative data.”?

John Scully
Former PepsiCo president, former Apple CEO

The Tree of Knowledge

Marketers commonly use decision trees to assess features and benefits to determine what is most important to consumers. Quantitative results can be obtained by asking respondents a sequence of very specific questions that branch out using if/then methodology.

Unreasoned Response

In a focus group years ago, an outspoken man was asserting himself by speaking out of turn, disparaging the process, and scoffing at the premise that brand had any bearing on his buying decision, ultimately proclaiming, “I’m just here for the money.”?

“Control” Group

Experienced focus group moderators realize if unaddressed, dominant individuals can establish control, affect the group and ultimately hinder true and useful input. The deft moderator began to ask a series of if/then comparative questions that challenged the man to reconsider his inherent assumptions. In essence, the moderator drove him through a decision-making process to help him formulate reasoned positions.

Once back on topic the naysayer became the moderator’s most vigilant and attentive advocate – offering considered and definitive feedback. The rest of the group followed suit.

“The only relevant test of the
validity of a hypothesis is comparison
of prediction with experience.”?

Milton Friedman
Nobel Prize-winning economist

Overrated Ratings

Similar principles apply to common online qualitative tools such as the five-star, numerical value, or Likert scales used to value or measure a respondent’s level of agreement with a given statement. Although quick and simple for respondents to complete, unlike decision trees, these methods ask subjects to value an attribute or preference without any measure of comparison, which lacks objectivity and is prone to positive or negative bias when respondents rank nearly everything of high (or low) importance.

Minimize Error

In What Do Customers Really Want on the Harvard Business Review site, Eric Almquist and Jason Lee explore Maximum Difference scaling. An extension of the Method of Paired Comparisons where subjects select a preference from two choices, MaxDiff asks respondents to identify their highest and lowest preference from a subset of attributes or statements. Multiple subsets are tested as part of a series. Almquist, a partner at Bain & Company, talks through one MaxDiff study on the relative importance of restaurant attributes in this presentation.

Asking respondents to rate selections is helpful and informative, but requiring them to decide between selections forces them to weigh answers. It inspires considered input, and generates more defined, useful and valuable feedback while eliminating undecided responses and mitigating positive and negative bias.

Maximize Outcome

Qualitative research adds relevance and validity to quantitative findings. In brand marketing research, consider your premise and process carefully from the outset to limit risk and maximize return. Remember, research often drives strategy, strategy drives spending, and spending drives outcomes – both good and bad.

Let well-considered decision trees help you branch out in the right direction.

image: pkeyn

It’s about bringing content into the environment you’re already in, not creating an environment conducive to your content.

Introducing the iPad

The iPad has been highly successful since its recent introduction, selling 2 million units within 60 days. The iPad benefits from a growing base of Apple customers, software developers, partners and media relations, and builds on the functionality of Apple’s previous mobile devices, leading to their adage, “You already know how to use it.” It looks and feels like the iPhone with a larger screen. Apple has leveraged our familiarity with their existing products and added some innovative new steps. With a stunning design and an advanced multi-touch user interface, this larger-screen mobile device is hard to resist.

Balancing The Mobile Experience

The reach of mobile computing continues to expand as sleeker, more feature-rich devices enter the market. At the very least, these wireless smart devices serve as glorified PDAs that enable users to carry around their most important information wherever they go. At their best, they enhance and enrich the user’s lifestyle through a careful balance of convenience, transparency, relevance, connectivity, and flexibility.

Convenience

As mobile devices merged into smarter and more powerful devices they also got thinner, smaller and lighter and Apple is truly innovative in this area. But let’s face it, with the requisite learning curve, a new device can be anything but convenient. It has to be connected, configured, customized and protected. Data has to be transferred from the previous device and there’s usually some troubleshooting required, even for Apple’s easy-to-use products. And there’s the initial cost, too. But once those hurdles are cleared, we have a convenient device that simplifies and consolidates our personal effects.

Ease of use is also a must, because consumers will not use a product that’s difficult, unstable or uncomfortable to use, no matter how attractive it is. The device shouldn’t require the user to change their behavior in order to use it; it should adapt and complement the user’s existing lifestyle. It’s about bringing content into the environment you’re already in, not creating an environment conducive to your content.

Transparency

Of course, by transparent we’re not referring to a device that is actually invisible (or perhaps missing because it was left unattended a bit too long in a California pub), but transparent in that a user ‘forgets’ the device for the content it holds. Apple’s iPad and iPhone stay out of the way of the on-screen content. In fact, they are mostly screen—apart from a highly designed bezel and a few understated controls. The 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen dedicates much of the visible area to content, giving users a large frame for exploring and sharing their digital lives on the go.

Relevance

With the hardware and underlying software working in the background, content is the primary focus. What makes the iPad so desirable, like its iPhone and iPod Touch cousins, is the level of personal relevance for the user. There’s prestige in carrying a beautifully designed, cutting edge device, but even after the love affair over having the latest, greatest product fades by a few newer versions, it’s the ability to customize and fill the device with personalized content (photos, videos, music, contacts, files, apps, etc.) that makes it relevant, even essential, to our daily lives.

Connectivity

When you hold the iPad in your hands you’re actually holding the entire dynamic content of the Internet (minus the Flash bits, of course) and the bright, large display creates a rich, immersive experience. It gives users who spend time on social media sites the ability to update their status accordingly. Expect to see “Running on my treadmill with my iPad,” or “Laying on the beach with my iPad,” much like “Sent from my iPhone” email signoffs.

Flexibility

Software-based controls keep the device flexible and simplify the ability to adapt the controls for multilingual use. It allows Apple to dramatically improve the user experience through software-driven OS updates and has the ability to drive additional revenue-generation for content and software developers. As our world changes, the iPad will change and adapt to remain viable longer, making it a great investment.

It Just Fits

The iPad was released in January 2010 to mixed reactions. The biggest question revolved around whether there was a market for a touch-screen device that bridged the gap between Apple’s iPhone and laptops. The iPad’s early sales success can be attributed to the simplicity of use of other Apple products, or it could be that it’s a new kind of user experience that just fits.

In future articles we’ll look at some of the reasons that the iPad is destined to stand out and excel in an industry flooded with smart mobile devices.

Free to Brand Entertainment

Chanel tells a romantic tale in this 2:22 video entitled Night Train. It’s a familiar story, the same one Chanel’s been telling generation after generation.

No longer constrained by rigid 30 or 60-second ad models and fee-based, one-view, network television slots, Chanel is free to produce branded video content in various lengths and portable formats. They can post that content across an array of distribution channels on the Internet, free of charge—just like every other brand, large and small. And so can you.

There are a million ways to market a product. But I suggest you not try all of them.

-Tim Siedell Fuse Industries

What Price Value?

Quality content and production values still count if you hope to engage your audience and rise above the 10 billion monthly YouTube views. Expertly filmed, cast, scored and produced, the Chanel video is classic branding aimed at maximizing emotional engagement and memorability—right down to the final love-to-logo-to-product morph brand punctuation.

But proper distribution and promotion still rule the day. Television provided an expensive, reliable, direct and proprietary fee-based conduit to customers. And while today’s brand marketers are blessed with many relatively inexpensive options to reach their audience, they also shoulder all the responsibility and cost of standing out amid a crowded in-bound and social media marketing free-for-all.

What Price Strategy?

This multitude of options places a premium on integrated strategies even for the Chanel’s of the world as they compete with every brand under the sun, including yours. Of course, not every brand benefits from an opulent brand equity, a product men love to smell and women love to wear.

But Night Train’s nearly half a million YouTube views to-date proves proper product planning, positioning and promotion strategies are still the best way to create real value out of an ocean of on and offline marketing and medium options.

Videos, blogs, SEO, email, podcasts, microblogging, fan pages, micro-sites, proprietary online communities. As you plan your next marketing foray into these new frontiers, don’t neglect the benefits of integrated strategy, planning, content and production values.

“How much cheese do you take off the pizza until you have no customers left?”

Gordon Bethune, Continental Airlines turn-around CEO (circa 1994)

Defining Value

Financial results and brand experience – the two are inextricably linked in the equation of profitability. Whether or not they are completely understood and embraced, shareholder results and brand value are ultimately both the responsibility of the CEO.

CEOs who place a premium on brand design and brand experience realize the most sustained return on shareholder brand value. While task-oriented responsibilities for creating brand and shareholder value can be delegated, the final responsibility for valuation outcomes can not be abdicated.

“We push innovation
and design very strongly.”

Bob Ulrich, Target Chairman and former CEO

Particularly in an age of socially distributed messaging, if your product is faulty or lackluster in form and appearance, your service is sub par, or your price inequitable, your profitability, brand and shareholder value will eventually suffer.

A Brand-colored Vision

Withstanding the effects of business fluctuations is often dependent upon remaining true to a vision for your brand. Steve Jobs famously refused to relinquish the reins of Apple to an accounting-minded CEO after a product flop.

Investors and Wall Street alike have always recognized that Apple’s stock price is tied directly to Jobs’ final say and his dogmatic defense of brand design and belief in its business value. CEOs who focus on financial responsibility alone myopically neglect and erode brand value.

However, assuming a CEO holds and adheres to a vision for their brand, as filtered through the eyes of their customers, the resurgent moments can be something to behold as the visionary listens, refines, and launches the brand’s design anew.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Steve Jobs, CEO Apple

A History of Brand Design and Business Value

CEOs who embraced brand design as a means to brand and business value abound: Virgin’s Richard Branson; Yves St. Laurent; Continental’s turn-around agent, Gordon Bethune; Martha Stewart; Target’s Bob Ulrich; and Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, just to name a few.

From product design to packaging, usability to interface design, remain steadfast in your adherence to brand design and its importance to your institution’s value.

How do you rate your brand’s design, your customer’s perception of it, and your vision for where it needs to be?

Image: SixyBeast

Tesla’s celebrity rehab center

Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board:

Top 20 Most Revolting Places on Earth

1. Public transit in Europe on a hot day
2. Wisconsin Statehouse
3. Lick your finger. Stick it in an electrical socket. Kill the power. Turn the power back on. Rinse finger. Repeat.
4. Libya
5. Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Djibouti, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria, Palestine
6. Egypt
7. The intersection of Suppression and Rebellion
8. The taint
9. Down behind the stove
10. The truck stop restroom on the road from San Paulo to Bebedouro Brazil
11. Third world and American meat markets
12. Most touch screens
13. Inside (any) porta-potty
14. The incubating biosphere that is a New York taxi backseat
15. 50 Cent’s mouth
16. Movie theater floors
17. Chewing gum stalactites under restaurant tables
18. Tesla’s celebrity rehab center
19. Bob’s oatmeal bowl at the end of the week
20. Bob’s oatmeal bowl at the beginning of the week

See the entire white board

image: quinn.anya