“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

United, one of three identities (see below) developed by Brainstorm for Abraham’s Oasis

“We’ve developed brand identities for many Fortune 100 companies, but this had immediate brand impact—potent and direct.”

- Jenni Roberts Associate Creative Director, Brainstorm

The Oasis

In a tiny village in the arid and often perilous region of Ethiopia is a refuge called Grace Village, which was featured on NOVA’s A Walk to Beautiful. It is one of several initiatives of Abraham’s Oasis, an organization focused on farming, health and childcare projects in Ethiopia.

At Grace Village, dispossessed women—women labeled social pariahs—find significance in raising abandoned or forgotten refugee children. It’s a symbiotic relationship that offers the children a nurturing and sustaining resource sorely lacking in their lives.

Karin van den Bosch, the driving force behind the village, is emphatic that these are not outcasts and this is no forgotten outpost; it is an Oasis. She doesn’t intend for the women and children who live there to simply survive; she wants them to thrive. But ensuring that happens is a challenge.

“The uniforms and identities Brainstorm provided help the youth ‘belong to a group,’ to be able to play a sport and forget about their problems for a while, giving these children hope and a way to turn their frustration and pain into joy.”

- Karin van den Bosch Abraham’s Oasis

A Hedge Against Uncertainty

Another childcare project of Abraham’s Oasis is a refugee camp, where they are protecting, clothing, feeding and educating nearly 700 minors who fled Eritrea without relatives. With 1,500 more on the way in the coming months, their budget is stretched thin despite funding from UN’s UNHCR agency.

Soccer, Cows and Schoolhouses

During a speaking engagement in the US, van den Bosch was asked whether the children of Grace Village might be rescued by adoption. She replied, “We do not export Ethiopia’s most valuable resource.�

When asked what Grace Village needed most, her reply was “Prayer.” Eventually she was cajoled into disclosing more tangible needs and their relative costs.

“The milk of a single cow currently meets the village’s needs, but two or three more cows would allow us to meet the ongoing operational costs of our schoolhouse facility,� she said. “That and uniforms for three village soccer teams at our refugee camp: Athletic, United and Oasis.�

Athletic. United. Oasis. Brainstorm’s identity designs for the new faces of Abraham’s Oasis soccer teams.

If a Thing’s Worth Doing

Brainstorm wanted to get involved. Our experience in sports branding and connections to soccer made designing logos and providing the teams’ soccer uniforms seem like the perfect first step.

“We’ve developed brand identities for many Fortune 100 companies, but this had immediate brand impact—potent and direct,” said Jenni Roberts, Associate Creative Director at Brainstorm. “We felt like the Abraham’s Oasis refugee soccer teams deserved identities of the same caliber as our corporate clients. Brand identities either add to, or detract from, any organization’s brand equity value. Large or small, we want to do it right.”

A Measured Significance

Playing before an audience of villagers, goats and milking cows, the Abraham’s Oasis soccer teams measure their brand’s significance by the confident smiles of their players. How do you measure your brand’s significance?

For more information or contributions visit the Abraham’s Oasis contact page.

Eventually, your logo becomes
a touch point by which your audience
either recognizes or mocks your brand.

The Struggle

Many businesses struggle through the development of their business or product logo because they believe the logo is their brand rather than understanding it is but one representation of their brand. No logo can carry your brand without additional context and meaning.

The Context

Context is built in the way your brand conducts itself out in public—obviously frequent and consistent exposure in target-rich environments, but service, quality, aesthetics, ethics, price points, messaging and human and online interaction—in essence, everything defines your brand. That’s your logo’s context for representation.

The Paralysis

Often a sort of paralysis sets in as those uninitiated to the development process wrestle with how to cram an entire brand into a logo mark that has no brand yet. A common inclination is to use a design-by-committee approach and crowd source it by inviting the opinion of anyone and everyone.

Of course, if you ask fifty people for their opinion you’ll get fifty opinions. This method can further confuse and often derail the process resulting in delivery delays and unsatisfactory results as typically, elements from a number of logos are mashed together into one design to appease everyone’s input.

The Summation

A logo is one symbol of your brand, so it’s critical to get it right. Weigh, assess and classify your input, then discuss it with your design professional. If you’ve hired the right firm, they’ll have the demonstrated experience and expertise to take into account all the pragmatics and issues involved with properly deploying not just a logo, but an entire brand.

Eventually, your logo becomes a touch point by which your audience either recognizes or mocks your brand. It is important to get your logo right, but don’t expect it to be your brand from the outset.

Share your experience.

Share everything. Make it easy.

A positive experience with your brand lingers with those who encounter it. It can become part of their life experience, and people enjoy sharing life experiences.

Therefore, it’s important to provide opportunities and simple ways for people to embrace and share your brand content.

Here are 10 ways to distribute your content and extend your brand:

1. Multi-Channel Distribution
   Use multi-channel distribution mediums like Posterous.com. Posterous allows you to assemble your content in, and send it via email. Simply send an email to Posterous with your formatted content attached. PDFs, text, images, even video are immediately forwarded to multiple social sites of your choice. Once distributed, users or fans can easily share your branded content with others.
2. Widgets
   Use widgets like Share This, Add to Any, or Add This to enable single-click sharing on other web sites and social media pages.
3. Micro-blog
   Create an account and build a following of constituents, friends, like-minded individuals, clients and prospects on a micro-blogging site such as Tumblr, or Twitter. Post short messages with information or links to your content and users can re-blog posts of interest. You can also feed your micro-blog to your web site, Facebook page or other online destinations for real-time updates.
4. iPhone apps
   Aggregate your content from multiple sources into a custom-branded iPhone app where fans and affinity groups can follow the content from your blog, web site, and social communities, all on one portable device.
5. Downloads
   Give your content away in the form of portable ebooks, white papers, digital audio and video downloads. Spread the word.
6. Flash drive
   Hand a prospect or influential person your content on a portable device like a branded flash drive. Encourage them to share its content with others. They’ll remember you and your company when they use the drive for their own storage and file transport needs.
7. Incentivize others to share
   Create a contest or sweepstakes to pull people to your content, then encourage and incentivize them to share it with others.
8. Think about the copyright
   Use Creative Commons to manage the proper usage of your shared content on sites like Flickr; it protects you, the author, and facilitates liberal sharing of your content.
9. Share the responsibility for content creation
   Extend the reach of your content to different audiences and demographics by collaborating from the outset to make your content, “our content.” When people share in the process of content creation they become invested and far more apt to share the experience and results with people they know.
10. Branded Watermarks
    Tastefully embed a logo or other watermark in the corner of your photos and encourage users to make them their own in device backgrounds or other digital applications.

Have an idea about making your media and messaging movable?
Share it with us.

Image: jonathanvlarocca

Unlike traditional marketing,
conversation implies that you know
your audience.

Social Cultures

Envision social domains as environments—geographical destinations with varying demographics, practical uses, and cultural inclinations. Hi5, CyWorld, Twitter, LinkedIn, Xiaonei, Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, and to a lesser extent Ning sites and IM aggregators, are macro-cultures with diverse market proclivities and subcultures.

Social Tools

The way we conduct ourselves within those subcultures is akin to a dialect or preference. The tools we use are the words and media we employ.

The tools we select reveal us as finish carpenters (Laugh aloud) or rough framers (lol). Grammar, the words we use, the language we speak; our topics (or lack of same); the videos, pictures and links we post; to whom we speak and who responds all combine to classify and define us within a given subculture.

Social Sharing

If businesses and marketers fail to invest the time to understand the accepted tools and nuances of the specific culture they hope to reach, they won’t be welcome on the ‘job site.’

As with traditional marketing, “Know thy audience.” But, unlike traditional marketing, conversation implies that you know your audience; that you live and work among them in a culturally appropriate manner, using culturally accepted tools.

That knowledge and those tools will certainly vary, domain to domain, culture to culture.

This article began as a comment on Beth Harte’s post, Social Media, It’s About the Tools Right? on The Search Engine Guide.

Image: tashland