Research

Are you aware that most individuals refrain from purchasing products or services of which they possess inadequate knowledge? That’s why it’s a big challenge for companies to get consumers to think about their brand and its benefits. When consumers already know a brand, they don’t need to process information to purchase. Imagine being the brand that everyone remembers! You need a clear strategy to position your brand in the consumer’s mind to achieve this. Discover effective ways to enhance your brand recall!  

What is brand recall?

Brand recall or Brand Awareness refers to consumer familiarity with your product or service. Your goal is to get consumers to recognize and choose your brand first, not just your friends and family. 

Brand recognition is strongly linked to branding so that good brand management will work positively on brand recognition. The variables that define brand recognition are:

• Brand awareness, is an indicator to determine brand awareness or Brand recall. Indeed, if I ask you about a soft drink brand, one of the first that comes to mind is Coca-Cola. This is spontaneous awareness. On the other hand, if I give you a list of soft drink brands and ask you which one you know, we are talking about suggested awareness.
• Brand image: defines the values that consumers decode and associate with your brand.
• Brand positioning: indicates the place your brand occupies in the consumer’s mind about the similarities and differences of your competitors.

Working effectively on these variables will allow you to raise brand awareness, have strong brand recognition, make it well-valued in the market, and get consumers to buy your products.

Why brand recognition is important

Would you like your brand to be the first choice in the minds of your consumers when they need a product or service? Then you need to increase your brand awareness!

Increasing brand recognition will allow the consumer to associate your brand with the product category or specific actions, making you stand out from your competition. In this way, you will also allow the consumer to establish positive experiences with your brand, which will generate a more significant value towards it. All this will improve the connection with your consumer.

This connection that is created with the target encourages their trust and credibility towards your brand. Become the top-of-mind brand in the consumer’s mind and achieve greater loyalty and positive recommendation!

How to maximize brand recognition?

To generate brand recognition, it’s necessary to build awareness, a good image, and positioning. All this will allow you to gain relevance and differentiation based on a unique value proposition. Your goal should be to become part of the consumer’s lifestyle and buying habits.

And for this, having consumer insights will allow you to identify, on the one hand, the needs and desires of the consumer and, on the other hand, the image and positioning of the brand according to their perceptions. With this information, you can optimize your brand awareness strategy, thus maximizing brand recognition. And how to do it? Through market research.

5 branding strategies in FMCG

To generate brand recognition and position itself as a strong brand, being part of the consumer’s lifestyle and buying habits is key. And for this, it’s fundamental:

• Segment the market and the consumer: knowing your target audience and having a good segmentation allows you to communicate more personally with the target and achieve a greater connection with them. In this way, you generate trust among consumers and, consequently, loyalty and recommendation.
• Visual identity: since all the elements that make up a brand send a message to the consumer, it’s necessary to maintain a clear and coherent visual identity in any communication, whether it be on the packaging itself, advertising, point of sale, etc. 
• Personalize your brand: as part of your image and positioning strategy, define personality attributes that differentiate your brand and allow you to establish an emotional bond with the consumer. Treating your brand as if it were a person will allow you to work on values such as closeness and proximity. 
• Tell a story: stories generate connection, so creating a narrative around your brand will allow you to offer the consumer something real, closer, and closer. Hence, the relevance of storytelling as a marketing strategy is to humanize your brand and generate a greater connection with your audience. 
• Socialize with your target audience: create a community around your brand and interact with your target, generating content of interest and sharing it on social networks. An interaction that works in favor of personalization and humanization of the brand. Making your brand social will allow you to achieve a greater presence in the consumer’s mind and, consequently, a better brand recognition.

Today, brands face an increasingly changing consumer, influenced by market trends and the socio-economic context. This change in customer behavior makes it difficult to make decisions on marketing strategies, including the launch of new products. For this reason, it’s crucial to maintain continuous conversations with consumers and obtain real-time insights. 

Want to know how to harness the power of data in real-time to maximize the success of your new products in unfamiliar markets? Read on to find out how you can minimize risk in your decision-making, reduce costs and maximize the success of your marketing campaigns.

How to maximize the success of a new product?

The development of a new product requires a large investment, so having insights at each stage of innovation will allow you to ensure the success of its launch. Assessing your new proposal among the target audience allows you to maximize its potential and ensure its acceptance among consumers. 

You can easily access customer data through different types of studies, such as the idea screening, the product naming test, the concept test or the claims testing. All these studies allow you to obtain actionable insights in real-time in an agile way for the optimization of your marketing actions and campaigns.

What does the word insight mean?

The term insight refers to the perception of a reality, i.e. the consumer’s perceptions, an opinion, a behavior or an expectation. Thus, an insight expresses a consumer need or desire. 

Real-time analytics are very important for you to be able to orient your strategies and respond to the needs and desires of your consumers. In general, we differentiate between three types of insights:

• Emotional insights: they are part of the lifestyle and are the ones that allow the consumer to empathize with your product and brand.
• Symbolic insights: needs that revolve around the consumer’s personality traits, how the consumer wants to appear. 
• Cultural insights: related to consumer behavior, behavior linked to their social environment (routines, environments, beliefs, etc.).

In order to connect with the consumer you must observe, analyze and understand them. To do this, you must identify what they want and/or desire, what their motivations and barriers are and, finally, what you can offer them to satisfy their needs. 

All this information is available through market research, which allows you to obtain insights in real-time in a fast and agile way. Platforms like Zinklar offer you an easy way to have ongoing conversations with the consumer in order to make more informed and accurate decisions.

The importance of real-time insights

Real-time insights allow you to access high-quality consumer information quickly and efficiently, and without the need to be a research expert. Insights on how to:

• Optimize the product before launch.
• Ensure that the new product or service meets a need.
• Confirm its relevance and differentiation.
• Anticipate the competition.
• Maximize its potential in unknown markets.
• Segment your target audience

In this way, you will gain a competitive advantage since you will have key information about new markets, as well as unmet needs or desires among your buyer persona. 

Discover 5 tips for marketers to become an insights rockstar. 

Why make decisions based on insights

To enhance your brand you must make risky decisions that require significant investments. Therefore, it’s crucial that you have real-time insights that allow you to connect with consumers and respond to their needs and desires, thus ensuring the success of your brand.

Putting the voice of the consumer at the center of your decision-making allows you to enhance your brand and optimize your marketing actions and strategies. Thanks to platforms such as Zinklar, you can have ongoing conversations with your consumers and access valuable insights in an agile and decisive way.

Don’t let uncertainty prevent you from maximizing the return on your marketing investments. Discover how the voice of the consumer can help you make better decisions and maximize your brand.

Ready to work with real-time insights?

As consumers, we have a particular preference for brands that represent our lifestyle, i.e., our values, tastes, needs, etc. A choice that we feel in large part because of brand identity. For this reason, you must communicate your brand attributes effectively to your consumer, especially in a sector as competitive as the food and beverage industry. A strong brand identity will allow you to be present in the consumer’s mind, thus achieving a better conversion into sales. Read on to learn how to build a winning brand identity!

What is brand identity?

Brand identity is the visual presentation. All the branding elements promote the recognition of your brand and achieve its style, defining its corporate identity. We are talking about all those features, “key visuals” of the brand, which aim to transmit its values and personality. 

Keep in mind that when we talk about brand identity, we are referring not only to the logo and its set of elements (typography, color palette, graphic language, style guide, etc.) but also to the values the brand wants to transmit. All these values aim to achieve brand recognition and establish a competitive advantage through brand positioning.

Coca-Cola is a clear example, as its brand identity is not only formed by the color red, its typography, the shape of the bottle, etc. but also includes values such as “happiness,” a differential value proposition that connects with the consumer.

Difference between brand identity and brand image

Brand identity is something tangible since it’s its visual presentation; however, brand image and positioning are more challenging to define since they are those unique attributes that the consumer perceives of it. These are elements that the consumer decodes and associates according to the brand’s message communication.

Each brand has its position in the market, which results from how the consumer perceives and compares the brand with others in the same category. It’s like a mental map that the consumer creates based on brand identity, information, attitudes, brand experiences, etc.

Why is brand identity important?

Brand identity is crucial to the success of your brand. You will be at the consumer’s top of mind if you have a strong visual identity and an effective emotional strategy.

Having a well-developed brand identity and image generates brand bonding, positively impacting consumer behavior. In addition, with good positioning, you will gain the trust of consumers since you will show them that you understand them and respond to their needs and desires.

Thus, good development of the brand identity allows you to:

• Convey the desired brand personality
• Good brand recognition 
• Differentiation from the competition
• Gain trust and credibility
• Consumer loyalty, which converts into sales.
• Segmentation of the potential target: attract new consumers.

Creating a brand identity: key aspects

To develop and strengthen your brand identity and image, you should focus on marketing actions that allow you to communicate your brand values considering the consumer’s needs and desires. In this way, you can create a relationship and linkage with the target audience.

Key aspects of building a winning brand identity:

1. Market analysis: you need to know the market and its players in detail to differentiate yourself from the competition and make your brand unique. Performing a FADO analysis, exposing strengths, threats, weaknesses, and opportunities, will allow you to design successful strategies. 
2. Target audience identification: since not all consumers have the same needs and desires, it is essential to segment the target. Identifying specific demands according to segments will allow you to respond better to each of them.
3. Brand image and positioning: communicate a differentiated value proposition, ensuring that the brand conveys the desired values to be relevant and preferred by the consumer. A coherent and dynamic image that will adapt to brand strategies. 
4. Communication. All your communication must be coherent and maintain the key visuals of the brand. This includes both offline and online communication, where you can use social networks to strengthen the connection with the consumer.
5. Monitoring. Brand monitoring allows for greater control and optimization of the investment. Having information on key metrics allows you to adjust and implement the necessary changes to strengthen your brand identity and image. 

All this information is easily accessible through market research, which gives you relevant insights to develop and strengthen your brand identity and image. Consumer insights with which to connect with your consumer, achieving a greater loyalty of your target audience and a more significant competitive advantage in the market. 

With the Zinklar platform, you can easily and quickly design the studies you need to build a winning brand identity. Contact us to get started today!

Product development is about creating and improving products by implementing new ideas, technologies, and processes to meet market needs and enhance the consumer experience. This process is carried out in different stages, including research, design, prototyping, testing and launch.

New product development aims to create unique, innovative, cost-effective, and attractive items for the target market. To do this, it’s important to conduct market research for new product development to gain insights into the preferences and needs of your consumers. Read on to find out where to start!

What is new product development?

Product development is the process of researching, designing, creating, and launching a new or improved product. This process may include different stages, such as identifying market opportunities, generating ideas for new products, evaluating technical and economic feasibility, designing and prototyping, testing, and marketing and communicating the final product.

Why should your brand take product development?

For successful new product design and development, you need to listen to the voice of the consumer, so you need to conduct research. To do this, you have specific research tools for each of the phases of new product development, such as the idea screening test. This process allows you to evaluate new product ideas and select the ones that meet the expectations of your target audience, ensuring that your marketing objectives are met. 

With the idea screening test, you can know the potential of a product or service and its possible optimizations before launching it. Its benefits include: identifying the ideas most likely to succeed, confirming that they meet a need, determining whether they are considered different and relevant to what already exists, verifying or defining the core target, and validating that they fit with your brand and its values.

After the idea screening test, you can conduct a concept test to find out the degree of acceptance of the winning idea already developed among the target audience. In this way, you will be able to adapt the product to the consumer’s preferences, thus allowing you to define a successful launch and minimize risks. 

After the concept test, you have other tests to optimize the different product features based on consumer preferences, such as the naming test, the claims test, the packaging test, and the price test. You can also perform a Conjoint Analysis to identify the features most valued by consumers, determining which combination is likely to be the most popular with buyers. This type of study is effective for both new launches and existing products.

What is the role of market research in product development

Listening to the consumer’s voice at every stage of the new product development process is essential for you to create relevant offerings tailored to the preferences of your target audience.

Market research allows you to gain insights into consumer needs and preferences and gives you a competitive advantage by giving you access to the drivers and barriers that condition the purchase of a product. Give voice to the consumer and ensure the success of your new launch!

How to develop new customer-based products?

You must include research in the development process to develop new customer-centric products that will allow you to understand consumer preferences and tailor the product to your target. This way, you can create products that generate revenue and improve your market share.

Through idea testing, you can validate your new ideas and discover which of them best fits consumer preferences. With the Zinklar platform, you also have templates with which to design the study you need to ensure a successful product launch. Don’t wait any longer, and surprise your consumer!

Today, consumers have access to a wealth of information and products, so positioning your brand at the top of mind can be very complicated if you don’t have the right tools. Market research is one of the crucial solutions for any brand looking to succeed in a competitive market. Discover the key benefits of market research and everything you need to know before launching your first study!

What is market research?

Market research is a systematic and objective process to obtain relevant information for decision-making. It involves identifying, collecting, analyzing data, and distributing insights, especially related to identifying problems and opportunities in the marketing field.

Market research links companies and market reality, thus, the consumer’s voice. A voice that you as a company are interested in listening to adjust your offer to the real needs of your target audience and to market trends.

So how can the voice of the consumer help me with my marketing strategies?

What is the importance of market research?

Having information on the market, especially on the target market, allows you to reinforce and adjust your commercial decisions, minimizing risks and optimizing time and money.

It’s essential to bear in mind that, inevitably, every decision within the company is influenced by the environment, which will undoubtedly condition the desired success of your product or service.

While it’s true that there are factors beyond our control, such as economic factors, we can control other conditioning factors; these are the famous P’s of the marketing mix.

What are the benefits of market research?

Conducting market research allows you to know and identify how you should present:

• the product, to arouse greater interest in the consumer and stand out from the competition.
• the price, to know what the consumer is willing to pay for what you are offering.
• define attractive promotions for the consumer.
• Points of sale: where and how the consumer would like to find your product. 
• How your product or brand should relate to the target customers.

To know where and how you can influence your marketing strategies to be more successful, you need to capture the voice of the consumer. How? With market research.

What is a market study?

Market research allows you to know data related to the behavior, interests, needs, attitudes, motivations, barriers, etc… of your consumer. In other words, you get to know them better to offer them what they need/want. You can do this through qualitative research or quantitative research, and it will help you to identify and define opportunities for your brand and/or product.

Types of research according to their function:

1. Descriptive function: collect and present data from the snapshot of the moment.
   • Market analysis
   • Brand Tracking
   • Opinion Analysis
2. Diagnostic function: evaluate data based on one or more hypotheses.
   • Innovation Test
   • Advertising Test
   • Customer Experience Analysis
3. Predictive function: estimate results based on an assumed scenario.
   • Media Analysis
   • Distribution Tracking

Make it happen and gain insights! Include research methods in your business strategy and design your plan according to consumer needs and desires, making it a success!

Faced with the constant dynamism of the market, your brand must adapt to stay competitive. It’s essential to know the market, your consumer’s perceptions of your brand, and their relationship with it. One way of achieving this goal is to obtain a global vision by measuring your Brands Health. A type of study that allows brands like yours to identify strengths and weaknesses and areas for improvement to strengthen the relationship with consumers. Read on to learn more in detail about brand health metrics!

What is brand health?

A Brand health study is a set of metrics that allows for measuring how much the brand contributes to achieving your objectives. Through this analysis, it’s possible to measure the performance of your brand concerning your competitors based on consumer perceptions and experiences. A measurable performance is based on the identification of key variables such as brand awareness, brand reputation, and share of voice (SOV). Thus, the health of the brand.

In this way, the brand health score provides you with a diagnosis of your brand, thus identifying the areas (awareness, reputation, image, etc.) where you can implement improvements to stand out from the competition and strengthen the relationship with your target audience.

Brand health provides a global and at the same time detailed vision of the state of your brand, both at a specific moment (BHC Brand Health Check), as well as its evolution (BHT Brand Health Tracking). It’s a very useful tool as a starting point in the analysis of developed markets, in existing brands, in rebranding processes and/or to study the interest of new markets and/or new brands (identifying key points to work on for the success of the new brand in the market)

Why is it important to measure brand health?

Considering that building a strong brand is the most important determinant of your success, measuring brand health allows you to identify how your brand is doing in the market. A brand analysis that measures your health in relation to the competition based on the opinion and experience of consumers. A key opinion since a brand is not only defined by the values and positioning it communicates but also by what the target audience perceives and feels about it.

The main benefits of measuring your brands health are:

• Identify your brand’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as possible improvements.
• Determine the position of your brand against the competition.
• Knowing the perception of the target audience (customer experience) about your brand.
• Offer a comparative vision, allowing you to identify opportunities.
• Estimate the performance of your brand, as well as those aspects that prevent you from having a better performance.

In short, knowing the health of your brand will allow you to direct and focus your marketing strategies.

Key metrics for measuring brand health

As we have seen, to measure brand health it’s not enough to determine its positioning and reputation, but it’s also necessary to identify the relationship and valuation of the consumer, to identify the key attributes that allow the brand to be present in the consumer’s mind, thus standing out from the competition.

To do this, it’s necessary to consider the different aspects that influence the sales funnel. The critical metrics for measuring brand health are:

• Brand awareness: the presence of the brand in the consumer’s mind.
• Relationship with the brand: purchase and conversion.
• Brand satisfaction: whether the brand meets the target audience’s expectations and whether they would recommend it.
• Brand positioning and image: the attributes associated with the brand, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses.
• Brand leadership: the brand’s degree of differentiation and power concerning the competition. 
• Brand perception: the valuation and feelings that the brand arouses, as well as the association of consumers to visual elements (logo, typography,…) or messages.

Metrics that provide actionable information as to which variables should be worked on to achieve the desired objectives.

Brand health questions

To conduct a brand health study, it’s necessary to have exploratory information to determine both the competition and the attributes and variables to be analyzed. In the case of new markets or brands, it would be advisable to conduct a qualitative study beforehand to have consumer insights of the category.

Brand Health is a quantitative study where the key questions to measure brand health are: 

• What [category] brand do you know? (spontaneous)
• Which of the following brands do you know? (suggested)
• Brands purchased in the last 12 months/ last 3 months/ most frequently?
• Reasons for purchasing the most frequently purchased brand?
• To what extent would you recommend brand X? (scale 0 to 10 that allows to classify consumers into detractors, neutrals and promoters, in addition to the calculation of the Net Promoter Score NPS satisfaction index.
• What does brand X convey to you (spontaneous)?
• To what extent do you associate each of the following characteristics with brand X (rational and emotional attributes)?

Depending on the secondary objectives of the brand, you could plan questions related to your brand’s perception in terms of visual elements or messages. 

Knowing your brand’s health will allow you to consolidate it in the long term, thus ensuring its success in the market. You can carry out your brand health study quickly and agilely through the Zinklar platform. Request a demo!

In a competitive market, where the main difficulty for brands is to stand out from their competitors by positioning themselves in the consumer’s top of mind, brand funnel analysis is critical to identify business opportunities and design marketing actions to increase product sales or services. 

If you want to attract consumers, convert them into leads, and transform them into your brand’s consumers and promoters, read on!

What is the brand funnel?

The brand funnel, also known as sales funnel, marketing funnel or conversion funnel, is a customer journey that helps to understand the stages of client engagement with a brand. A funnel that goes from the general to the specific, detailing all the stages a consumer goes through to become a brand promoter.

Thus, the brand funnel represents the process that consumers follow from the moment they become aware of the brand until they become loyal consumers, based on a series of pre-established phases in which the level of conversion from one stage to another is identified. This conversion makes it possible to determine the percentage of consumers who are lost in each of the phases, as well as to design and adapt the relevant strategies according to the desired objectives.

The main objectives of the brand funnel are:

• Reach and engage new consumers who fit your target.
• Attract new potential consumers, getting them to consider buying the product and trying it.
• Convert consumers into repeat buyers, i.e. brand loyalists.
• Transform these loyal buyers into promoters and brand advocates, so that they continue buying and recommending us.

How to make a marketing funnel?

To define the brand funnel it’s necessary to identify how many of your consumers are in each of the following stages of the funnel:

• Awareness: total number of consumers who know the brand, whether or not they have tried it. 
• Consideration stage: consumers who are willing to buy the brand.
• Conversion: total number of consumers who have tried the brand and made a repeat purchase.
• Loyalty: consumers who are loyal to the brand, i.e. who declare the brand as preferred.
• Advocacy: consumers who are brand promoters who are committed to the brand and say they would recommend it.

To determine the marketing funnel, it’s necessary to size each of its metrics, to know the percentage of consumers in each of the phases, as well as the conversion rate of each of them. Brand funnel metrics be measured through research, conducting Brand Health, Brand awareness or Brand Positioning studies.

Knowing the health of your brand will allow you to visualize your consumer journey as a funnel. In this way, you’ll be able to optimize conversion, reinforcing the areas where your potential consumers get lost in order to increase the percentage of those who reach the end of the funnel, thus increasing sales.

What types of brand funnel are there?

Mainly, three types of funnels are defined according to the objective they pursue and, therefore, according to the stages of the funnel in which you want to work:

1. Attraction funnel (top of the funnel): works the first phases of the funnel, where the objective is to make the brand visible and attract potential customers. 
2. Maturity funnel (middle of the funnel): belongs to the middle stages of the funnel, where the main objective is to gain the consumer’s trust by achieving proof and repeat purchase.
3. Loyalty funnel (bottom of the funnel): it’s the final part of the funnel, where the consumer’s preference towards the brand is worked, thus achieving their loyalty to turn them into promoters.

According to the type of company and brand, the funnel can be adapted and customized to suit the needs and objectives of each one.

What is a sales funnel?

The sales funnel is a system that builds customer loyalty, a process established to ensure that a potential customer meets the objective set. It is necessary to know your target audience and define the funnel thinking about how to capture it. Know their needs and how your product or service can meet them.

Also, the sales funnel will serve to identify which consumers interest you, segmenting the target without addressing all the potential in the market. 

How to make a digital funnel?

The digital funnel is defined as those stages that a user has to go through from the moment he/she arrives at a website until he/she performs an action that meets one of the established objectives. For example, signing up for the Newsletter or completing an online sale. These actions must be well studied and optimized to achieve the final objective: sales and customer loyalty.

The 3 main types of digital funnels allow to know and define business opportunities:

1. Traffic acquisition funnel (top of the funnel): aims to make the website visible and attract potential traffic, i.e. to get visitors to your website and get them to register by leaving their email address. This first stage requires a significant investment in terms of time and money (SEO, social networks, advertising campaigns…).
2. Lead maturation funnel (middle of the funnel): the objective is to gain the lead’s trust through content and valuable resources, usually shared through email marketing and/or social networks.
3. Sales and loyalty funnel (bottom of the funnel): to make the leads make a purchase, winning them over to achieve their loyalty and subsequent advocacy.

Digital funnel example: Netflix

An example can be found in the streaming service Netflix, a content platform that successfully converts its customers through a simple funnel: 

Attraction phase:

• Home page: unveils the latest movies and series, where it displays its “free trial and no obligation” message (sales pitch that works consideration). 
• Pricing page: explains clearly and simply the different options.

Maturity phase:

• Registration page: the customer is linked to the brand.
• Payment information: allows payment through different options, with special emphasis on data security to increase customer confidence.

Loyalty phase:

• Registration page: the customer is linked to the brand.
• Payment information: allows payment through different options, with special emphasis on data security to increase customer confidence.

Sizing your Brand Funnel will allow you to identify business opportunities, design strategies focused on your target audience. Through the Zinklar platform, you can carry out your study in a fast and agile way. Request a demo!

When it comes to buying a product, many factors -beyond the need itself- influence our final decision. Drivers and barriers are one of the critical factors that make us decide to buy one or another product and/or brand. Therefore, knowing the consumer’s motivations and barriers is crucial when expanding into a new category. Thanks to market research, we can identify the drivers and barriers of our target, thus determining the opportunities that will ensure success in the new category. Read on to learn more about how to conduct a Drivers and Barriers study.

Drivers & barriers in market research

The drivers & barriers of a category are all those factors that influence the purchase and consumption decision, i.e., all those motivations and barriers that lead us to choose one product over another. Choices that go beyond the decision at the point of sale, since as a consumer, we have a mental map in which many elements are involved, both rational and emotional, in relation to each category.

Brands must know the motivations and barriers to purchase and consumption and their importance for the consumer. In this way, it’s possible to understand why a consumer is loyal to our product, and why we fail to attract new consumers. Insights will provide us with the keys to identify what elements are necessary to attract consumers.

Why is it so important to know the “Drivers & Barriers” when expanding into a new category?

Knowing the purchasing and/or consumption habits of a category is a fundamental element for any company since understanding the factors that influence consumers when purchasing your products will allow you to promote those that most capture their attention and, in this way, increase sales.

Therefore, it’s essential to know the factors that influence positively and negatively to design strategies adapted to consumer demands. Hence the importance of understanding and sizing consumer insights on:

• The drivers of the category, thus knowing what currently motivates the purchase and/or consumption.
• The barriers currently hinder the category’s purchase and/or consumption.

All these insights will allow us to identify the opportunities for entry into the new category and define the “triggers” or key levers of action to achieve an impact on the consumer’s purchase decision.

Drivers and barriers research

To analyze the Drivers & Barriers of a category is key:

• IDENTIFY a list of motivations and barriers.
• DIMENSION each of the motivations and barriers.

To identify the Drivers & Barriers, it’s recommended to conduct a qualitative study that allows knowing in depth what mobilizes and stops the consumer, thus obtaining sufficient information for designing a list of drivers and barriers for the category. Answering, for example, questions such as:

• Why do consumers buy a product for the first time?
• Why do consumers make repeat purchases?
• Why have consumers stopped buying?
• Why have NON-consumers never bought the product?
• What should the product offer to make the consumer decide to buy it?

Once the list has been defined, it’s essential to determine the weight of each driver and barrier through a quantitative study, thus identifying the importance of each for the consumer.

Knowing what drives the consumer will allow you to design and adapt the product to entry into the new category, ensuring the success of your product.

Drivers and Barriers examples

A leading premium formula milk brand in the infant nutrition category decided to enter the infant cereal category. The brand’s goal was to be considered a global benchmark in infant nutrition, but the leading brand in the infant cereal category was very well positioned. Read the full case study here.

So the first step was to conduct a consumer habits study of the category, identifying drivers and barriers. This was followed by a concept test, where naming options were tested and options for possible packs with images of the baby with the cereals were included. The results showed a higher preference for the brand name followed by the category and a significant predisposition to purchase the product. 

A communication plan was then created in collaboration with nutrition experts and the communication was tested to identify the most relevant messages. During the first 6 months of the new launch, the brand tracked Brand Awareness, which increased from 23% to 55%.

Brand positioning is the place a product or service has in the consumer’s mind, making them prioritize your brand over the competition. Therefore, considering the number of stimuli we are exposed to as consumers, it’s key to have a strong brand positioning statement. But what does excellent brand positioning mean? Read on to learn more about brand positioning research and the types of marketing strategies that brands can implement!

What is brand positioning?

According to Philip Kotler, renowned marketing guru, “positioning consists of designing the commercial offering in such a way that it occupies a prized place in the minds of consumers.” In other words, every brand occupies a position in the market due to the association of attributes and characteristics that consumers associate with it concerning the other brands with which it competes. 

It’s a mental map from which the consumer forms a brand image, a representation configured from rational and emotional attributes resulting from information, attitudes, user experiences, etc. A perceived image that is compared with competitor brands, thus establishing similarities and differences that will determine the brand in the market. This is why it’s important to define the corporate identity by which the company wants to be known and remembered by its buyer persona. For example, if Apple comes to mind when we think of high-end cell phones, it means that its brand positioning in our minds is excellent.

Why is brand positioning important?

Brand positioning will determine the consumer’s priority when choosing your brand over a competitor’s brand, which is why it’s so important to have a brand positioning strategy.

According to Forbes, brand positioning should focus on the space you want in your consumer’s mind to differentiate you from your competition. A difference that is established through the positioning map. In this perceptual map, the relative positions of the different competitors are visualized based on two axes that represent the desired attributes: for example, a vertical axis defined as “quality” and a horizontal axis defined as “price”. 

Following the example, such a map would represent the brands according to their position and image in “quality-price”, thus identifying the distances and similarities between the brands in the category. Knowing how to highlight your brand from an excellent brand positioning so that your target audience remembers and thinks of your products or services when they are going to buy or need your service, instead of remembering your competition, is key to achieving a successful brand and products. That is, a brand with greater awareness, credibility, better image, and higher sales volume.

Thus, it’s essential to have objective information on the positioning perceived by the target customers. For this, it’s necessary to analyze the competition and know the consumer’s perceptions. Perceptions that can be identified through market research.

What are the types of brand positioning

There are different strategies for competitive positioning a product:

• Based on competition

Brand positioning strategy focused on the competitive advantages of the product or service. It’s about differentiating your brand with respect to the competition that is offering the same product.

An example would be the comparative spot of Tropicana, which presented itself as “100% pure-squeezed juice” and compared itself with Ocean Spray, which is made from concentrate.  

• Based on an attribute or characteristic 

A strategy that focuses on highlighting a physical or technical characteristic of the product. An attribute that is unique or that hasn’t been communicated yet by the competition to the consumer.

A clear example would be the Heineken tagline “Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach“.

• Based on the benefits 

A strategy that focuses on highlighting the brand promise benefit, i.e., what the target market gains from consuming the product. For example, Actimel’s ads “Actime, immune support”, where it shows how daily consumption of the product strengthens the defenses and helps to take care of the whole family.

 

• Based on the use or application 

Strategy focused on highlighting the benefits of the use of the product based on some differential feature of the packaging that facilitates its application. An example would be spray sun creams. 

• Based on the quality 

Ideal strategy if the product’s value proposition is unique. It’s a strategy that allows communicating the superiority of the product without having to compare it with the competition, but simply communicating that it’s a high-quality product.

An example of quality is found in Nespresso:

 

• Based on the price 

Strategy that consists of positioning oneself as the cheapest price in the market. For example, IKEA, that is famous for offering good quality furniture at a lower price than its competitors. The brand positions itself as an affordable home and office furniture company.

• Based on lifestyle

Positioning strategy that takes into account the lifestyle and attitudes of the target audience, thus presenting itself as the best alternative in the market. An example would be organic or vegan products, niche markets where your audience values being targeted. For example, Nestlé’s Vegan Gourmet “offers you a wide variety of delicious products made from vegetable proteins so you can enjoy your favorite dishes”.

• Based on user type

Brand strategy that presents a product or service as the most suitable for a specific type of user. It’s usually presented through the use and experience of the product by a celebrity, seeking to identify and inspire the user. For example, KIA and Rafa Nadal.

• Social positioning of the company

Strategy that seeks to join new trends (climate change, ecology, healthy living, quality time…). These trends are taken into account by the brand when promoting its products, seeking, for example, an image of respect for the environment and social values. We can see this in the H&M campaign, within its Sustainability line “Let’s clean up“, where its main message focuses on “It is time for fashion to be beneficial for people and the planet“.

• Brand repositioning

Strategy that consists of reorienting and redefining the current positioning. Partly due to the great competition and constant changes in the market, it’s possible to find the need to reposition a brand, that is, to change the consumer’s perception of the brand. An example would be Starbucks, which launched its largest marketing campaign in company history to reassert the quality of its product. A successful repositioning that enabled the brand achieve a record $16 billion in annual revenue.

How to create a strong brand positioning through research

In order to develop a brand positioning strategy successfully it’s essential to have unbiased information that allows you to:

1. Analyze the current positioning of your brand: does the consumer perceive the brand as you wish to communicate it, or, on the contrary, does the image communicated by the brand differ from the image decoded by the consumer?
2. Knowing the competition: what’s the competition communicating? What’s its brand image? What’s its competitive advantage?
3. Identify the target audience: what are the target consumer’s preferences and motivations, are there different types of consumers? A market segmentation that will allow you to define a focused and objective strategy.
4. Determine the competitive advantage that makes your brand unique.
5. Develop the communication strategy that will allow your brand to be foremost in the mind of the target. Strategy where an advertising campaign can be carried out, although there’s a growing commitment to advertising on social networks, since it doesn’t require large advertising budgets.

 

All the information you need can be easily obtained through brand positioning market research, studies that will allow you to identify key consumer insights, such as the strengths and weaknesses of your brand and the competition according to the positioning in the mind of the consumer, as well as the perceptions, motivations, and preferences of the target audience.

Don’t hesitate to contact our team of experts to find the solution that best suits your needs and ensure the success of your brand positioning strategy.

Throughout the purchasing process, many decisions are made, although the last and great decision is made in front of the shelf, where the presentation of a product is part of it. Therefore, offering the public a good packaging design that is attractive, relevant, and different is necessary while being perceived as functional and practical. And the best way to ensure that your packaging meets the points mentioned above is to test your pack proposal with your target through the package design test.

What is package design testing?

Throughout a consumer’s purchasing process, the last and big decision takes place in front of the shelf with an evaluation of the product via its packaging design. Therefore, taking care of the details is essential to stand out, arouse the consumer’s interest and positively influence their purchase intention. 

Insights and brand teams need to offer consumers attractive, relevant, and different packaging that is functional and practical. In addition, consumers increasingly value environmentally friendly products that are part of a circular economy. And the best way to ensure that your packaging meets the above points is to test your pack proposal with your target. 

Researchers carry out packaging tests to know the consumer’s opinions regarding the presentation of a product. Utilizing a survey, the target public is asked to evaluate its format, materials, label, colors, visual impact, usability, etc. In this way, an offer can be validated or optimized to make it a success.

The consumer can evaluate a single packaging proposal or different alternatives through a monadic test to identify the packaging with the most significant potential.

Market research allows testing a product’s packaging and the consumer’s reaction to the concept, price, name, or claim, among others.

What does the package design testing measure?

The packaging test is a study that allows knowing the strengths and weaknesses of a product’s packaging and the messages it conveys. Thanks to this technique, it’s possible to obtain consumer insights that allow knowing if the presentation of a product will have the desired success in the consumer. 

This market research technique can measure several aspects of a product’s packaging, including its aesthetic appeal, usability, branding effectiveness, and ability to communicate important product information. 

Why packaging design testing is important?

The packaging test is a significant study to avoid creating a product that fails because its presentation is inappropriate, doesn’t correspond to the brand image, or is different from what the target audience expects. Launching a product with the wrong packaging implies investing a lot of resources and effort to reverse the situation and improve the consumer’s opinion. It may also happen that the public needs time to adapt to the changes in a product. For example, AB InBev has launched a new circular packaging for the entire portfolio of beers from Budweiser Brewing Group that is now plastic-ring free. 

 

When is a packaging test conducted?

Packaging tests are usually carried out after the design process and before launching a product on the market to evaluate and ensure the development and use of packaging on the future consumer, both for new products and for packaging redesigns. In this way, brands can analyze the performance of their offer and study the purchase motivation among the target audience, as well as possible optimizations and fine-tune before putting the product on sale.

The advantages of testing your packaging design with your target audience before launch are many: 

• Validate your packaging proposal
• Optimize your product
• Differentiate yourself from the competition
• Know consumer preferences
• Minimize risks
• Reinforce brand recognition

In short, put the consumer at the center of your decision-making. The packaging test lets you gather consumer feedback and involve them in product creation. 

How to create a packaging design test

Packaging testing can be done through market research. Researchers just have to choose the solution that best fits your needs. Some insights platforms such as Zinklar offer a packaging test template to create surveys easily and efficiently, obtaining the results in a few hours.

6 key questions for your packaging test

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like this [[PACKAGING / BOTTLE etc…]]?
2. On a scale of 1 to 10, to what measure is this new packaging visually appealing?
3. To what extent is it DIFFERENT from what you can find in your regular store?
4. To what measure does this new packaging meet your wants and needs?
5. To what extent would you be willing to buy this product if it were available in your regular store?
6. What would you IMPROVE/CHANGE about this packaging?

Key indicators that will allow you to identify to what extent your packaging is sufficiently relevant and different to arouse consumer interest and persuade them.

The package design testing is a solution to test your products packaging options with your audience. Access the Zinklar platform and get started today!

The following is a use case based on the actual facts of one of our clients, which will help you get an idea of the usefulness of our smart insights platform. Find out how to enter a new product category successfully with our real case study.

We place the utmost importance on our client’s privacy and confidentiality, therefore we won’t be disclosing their identity.

The challenge: enter the children’s cereal category

A premium formula milk brand in the child nutrition category, part of an international dairy product producer that leads the market with more than 70% of the market share decides to enter the children’s cereal category to offer its consumers a complete portfolio. 

It’s also considered one of the brands most present in consumers’ minds, with 80% of Top of Mind, and is in such a consolidated state of growth that its Directive Committee decides it’s the perfect time to enter a new category.

Objective

The brand’s objective is to go from simply being formula milk to being considered a global benchmark in child nutrition, with a range of products that cover all the child’s growth stages and needs. 

The leading brand in the children’s cereal category started out several decades ago and is part of a global company that finds itself very well positioned. If the brand wants to enter the category competitively and reach a relevant position, it must overcome the challenge of creating a different and unique value proposition.

The process

1. Market analysis

The brand’s target audience has always been mothers, therefore it carries out tracking of consumer habits inside the children’s cereal category over a 3-month period to understand:

• The value attributed by mothers to children cereals as part of their babies’ diets 
• How they include them in their diets 
• What are the preferred feeding times are 
• With what other foods complement them 
• Who advises them to introduce this food into their babies’ diets

Examples of consumer behavior questions included in the study

• Do you recognize these two products? 
• Do you consider both of them to be part of the same food category? 
• Taking into account the brand’s reputation, do you trust it launching a new product inside a new category?
• Would you be willing to buy it?
• Would you consider replacing your current cereal brand with this one?

Results

The results surprise and impact the brand: the category leader has been in it for so many years, hardly without any competition, that its brand name has gone on to name the whole category. 

95% of consumers don’t know that they are buying children’s cereals and think that the competitor’s brand is the actual name of the product. 

This entails an added difficulty for the brand to position itself, as it will have to compete against an absolute reference of the category it wants to enter.

 

2. Name and packaging tests

The brand tests several naming options for its new product, even including one with the name of the brand followed by that of the category leader.

Additionally, in order to get mothers to link the product to the category and choose the best name, another study is launched including packaging options with images of the baby accompanied by the cereals and other ingredients of the product.

Results

There’s a clear winner, 75% choose the name of the brand followed by the category

3. Measuring purchase intent

To find out whether mothers would be willing to purchase a product similar to that of the category leader, a study is launched that places the new product next to the leaders, to see if they see them as equal. 

Results

Results show that 80% are willing to buy it and 35% would consider changing brands. 

Consumers  trust the brand because in every category it’s positioned as a market leader, helping them trust it. They know that if it launches a new product it’s because it believes in its capacity to provide value to the category and add a differential element until now is non-existent. 

4. Communication plan

A communication plan focused on explaining the importance of cereals as the baby’s first food is created, as well as the long-term benefits, both physical and cognitive. 

The brand also collaborates with nutrition experts that validate their statements, thus increasing the trust that mothers place in the product from day one. 

Before launch, several pretests are carried out to find the most relevant content to include in the communication, regarding both copy and artwork, for all the ad pieces of the campaign. 

5. Brand awareness tracking

During the 6 months following the launch, the brand continues tracking Brand Awareness of the new product category. Results show that consumers are, day by day, more aware of how important cereals are in their babies’ diets during their first years of life. 

Overall results

The study’s results give the brand the green light to launch the product. 

Market Share

During the first semester of the product launch, it obtains a 30% of the market share is great thanks to the fantastic growth of the children’s cereal category, a direct consequence of the educational campaign launched by the brand.

Consumers have begun to learn about the category’s existence and its relevance to their everyday lives, which in turn increases the brand’s Brand Awareness levels as well.

Brand Awareness

Thanks to these efforts centered on informing consumers about the category as a whole, the brand manages to increase the category’s Brand Awareness from 23% to 55%.

Additionally, it gets 55% of Top of Mind’s, very high Brand Awareness figures considering it had entered a completely monopolized market by the category leader. The brand manages to enter a new category, diversifying its portfolio and turning into a global reference in children’s nutrition.

 

How about you? Have you ever faced a challenge like this? Have you got all the tools at your disposal to determine the best way to create or enter a new product category?

What is a usage and attitude study?

A usage and attitude study (U&A) is a type of descriptive market research known as a baseline study, which analyzes the uses and attitudes of the consumer in a market. It examines the consumer’s relationship with the category in detail, identifying what, how, where, when, and why they buy and consume your product and brand and those of your competitors. These valuable insights are essential for market expansion and, therefore, for new product development.

What can brands evaluate with a U&A research study?

In a U&A, researchers analyze consumer behavior quantitatively, sizing both purchase and consumption variables and the motivations that lead to that purchase and consumption. Therefore, a U&A study evaluates the category, brand, and consumer. Specifically: 

✓ Category analysis: products purchased, frequency of purchase and consumption patterns, purchase motivations and barriers, consumption occasions, formats, place of purchase, and for whom they buy. 

✓ Brand health: brand awareness (spontaneous and suggested), brands purchased (last x months and most frequently), and brand image.

✓ Consumer analysis: consumer and buyer profile and consumer segmentation.

How do you conduct a usage and attitude study?

When carrying out a study of uses and attitudes, it’s important to define:

a) Specific objectives: Starting from the consumer behavior analysis, it’s necessary to define the specific objectives according to the purpose of the research. For example, if you want to carry out a study to identify new opportunities on special dates such as Mother’s/ Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc., it would be necessary to analyze not only the linkage of the category to these dates but also to identify behaviors about the percentage of celebration of each of the dates, as well as what consumers look for and value when including chocolate in these celebrations.

b) The market: What are the current market players, both at the category and brand level, always taking into account both direct and indirect competition at the category level, so it’s necessary to keep in mind and consider including in the study the possible cannibalization of the category under investigation.

c) The target audience: Depending on the specific objective, such as new product launches, finding new market niches, etc., we propose a baseline study that includes both consumers and non-consumers. Including non-consumers allows us to know, on the one hand, the consumer motivations, i.e. what the consumer needs/ wants, and, on the other hand, the barriers to the category or brand, thus obtaining the consumer insights necessary to find new consumer levers. 

d) The sample: For the sample, it’s essential to have a minimum of n=400 cases to have a sufficient model for analysis. If a reading of results for a specific target (age, gender, area, consumer of brand x, etc.) is desired, it would be necessary to expand the sample, having a minimum of n=100 cases for the selected subgroup or sub-target. To ensure the desired sample of analysis by subgroups, it’s necessary to establish quotas to obtain the proposed model.

f) The questionnaire: Once the above points have been defined, the next step is the development of the questionnaire. It’s essential to be clear about the objectives so that, in the case of an initial baseline study, the development of the questionnaire would be carried out from scratch. Whereas, in the case of an updated study, i.e., repetition of a U&A to update the data, the questionnaire should be kept to make a comparison, thus having evolutionary data. 

In the case of an initial baseline study, it’s necessary to collect the information available from the brand to have a correct contextualization, both of the category and the brands to be included, as well as the image attributes, motivations, etc…, making sure to speak to the consumer in their language. In case of not enough information on the category, it would be necessary to carry out a previous exploratory study through qualitative research.

Examples of U&A studies

To learn how some of our clients have carried out U&A studies and the results obtained thanks to the strategies implemented based on consumer insights. Continue reading to gain a deeper understanding of usage and attitude research.

CASE 1. Brand image improvement

A leading brand in the FMCG market detected that consumers had lost connection with their brand. Faced with this situation, the company considered a change in the choice of brand ambassador, so they launched a Usage and Attitude study, Brand Health and Ad trackings, and several advertising Post-Tests. The data from the survey showed that one of the celebrities had a 90% affinity with the brand, but 75% of the audience was against the type of advertising used. Based on these results, a communication plan was drawn up to help bring the brand closer to consumers. This proximity resulted in a 20% increase in sales compared to the previous year.

CASE 2. New target repositioning

Faced with falling sales, a multinational dairy products company decided to reformulate its communication strategy and use an approach based on the support of its “healthy” brands to differentiate itself within the massified dairy products category. 

To this end, the company conducted several U&A studies, Exploratory Phase, Concept Test, and Product Test, in order to identify the consumption habits of its target audience, as well as their relationship with its brand. Insights that led the brand to redefine its target, as well as the design and launch of two new pilot products. A redefinition that ended up giving the brand an increase of 4 points of penetration in the global market.

 

Discover usage patterns, purchasing habits, and consumers’ attitudes toward products in your category with the U&A study. Conduct today a usage and attitudes study with our smart insights platform!

The following is a use case based on the actual facts of one of our clients, which will help you get an idea of the usefulness of our smart insights platform. Find out how to measure your rebranding ROI and how to define a strong marketing strategy for a successful rebranding. 

We place the utmost importance on our client’s privacy and confidentiality, therefore we won’t be disclosing their identity.

The challenge

A brand of deodorant for men, part of an FMCG multinational, realizes that its market penetration is falling, impacting market share figures directly. Consequently, it decided to rebrand. The company conducted a multicountry study including the main European countries it’s present in (UK, Germany, and France) to understand brand perception in consumers’ minds. 

Results show that consumers consider the brand to be traditional and old-fashioned. This could be a real risk and lead to a loss of consumers and to the brand being viewed as weak and outdated. The brand also finds out that consumers consider the modernity of the product essential, linking it with its capacity to innovate and adapt to their needs. 

The brand’s main goal is to find a brand image that attracts its current clients, is able to attract new consumers in every one of its markets, and transmits a more modern image. To do so, the packaging’s aesthetics and architecture are redesigned, the color palette swapped and all the visual elements, like the logo and font, changed.

The rebranding process

In order to achieve its goals, the brand comes up with 3 different brand identity proposals which it tests via another multicountry study. The first proposal is very similar to the current one, with a few small adjustments; the second proposal implies moderate changes, changing the color of the pack and the background image; and the third and final proposal is completely different, not leaving anything at all from the original brand identity.

KPI’s for the rebranding process

• Originality and innovation, to find out if it’s completely innovative and modern or if there is already something similar on the market.
• Purchase intent. Consumer willingness to buy the product and the ability to get them to try it for the first time.
• Customer satisfaction. Is the product everything consumers expected? Would they recommend it?
• Likeability. Do consumers love it and what exactly grabs their attention?
• Brand awareness. Consumer association of the visual elements, like the logo, typography, and packaging. By trying different options, consumers may not identify the brand correctly, so its reputation may be at risk if they associate it with a different brand.

Examples of packaging redesign questions included in the study

• Have you ever seen this product packaging before?
• Which of these two packaging options do you prefer?
• From 1 to 10, rate the typography of this packaging.
• Is it modern and innovative?
• Is this product unique?
• Would you buy it?
• Would you recommend it?

Results

The study concludes with different results in each country although, overall, the new proposals are not well received by consumers. The brand launches a third study to find out exactly what elements each consumer like and what doesn’t convince them.

Results show that each of the brand identity options presented in the previous studies has a high-ranking element, making the best course of action to combine them into a single proposal: a new mix of typography, logo, design, and color.

The brand needs to test the new proposal so it launches yet another study and, although the results are much better, in some countries consumers aren’t associating it with the brand, with implies a massive risk of losing market share.

Taking this into account, the brand creates an improved version, bringing back some of the elements of the previous identity, like the original color and the font, to get consumers to associate it with the brand.

Before launching it, and to guarantee its success, the current identity, the new one, and the brand’s main competitor’s strongest variant are tested, to get an idea of its true potential.

Results show that consumers from every market consider the new version to be innovative and unique, ranking higher than its competitors and the old brand identity. 

Rebranding ROI: A successful Brand Identity Renewal

• +8% rotation and sales in comparison to the previous product launch
• +3% global sales during the first year (excluding promotional periods and seasonal sales peaks)
• +15% market penetration

Six months after the launch the brand tests its brand perception once again, comparing it to the rest of the brands on the market, and the results confirm that all the actions are correctly executed and have a positive outcome.

Measure the ROI of your rebranding today

How about you? Have you ever faced a challenge like this? Have you got all the tools at your disposal to determine what the best brand identity for your company is and its true potential before launching it?

Here at Zinklar, we aim to help you bring consumers to the heart of all your decisions. With Zinklar you can measure the return on investment (ROI) of your rebranding or brand refresh of your product or service. Contact us today!

Given the overexposure to which consumers are exposed, an effective marketing and advertising strategy is key for them to connect with your brand. A connection for which claims and slogans play a crucial role, helping reinforce the brand image, the product, and your campaigns. Read on to discover how to identify the potential of a claim through claims testing! Utilize a test that can be the key to the success of your communication.

What is claims testing?

Claims testing is a research study that allows brands to identify the potential of a claim. 

A claim is a statement about a brand, product, or company that aims to show consumers its qualities or differential value. In general, its content is based on a benefit (characteristic/flavor, functional, emotional, social,…), a reason to believe in the “RTB” product (process, certification, denomination, composition, experience…), or on a target audience, as we find in the case of DOVE’s claim “#Show us more women who look like me”.

The claim in marketing and advertising aims to connect with the consumer and arouse their emotions to have a more significant presence in their mind. In this way, when the need or desire to purchase a product awakens in the consumer, the brand will be present in their repertoire and will be the first option that comes to mind.

The claim can be presented in any medium or channel. We can see the claim on the labeling of a product, on its packaging, as well as in promotions and advertising campaigns.

What differentiates an advertising claim from a slogan?

Both the claim and the slogan are tools that are part of the branding strategy, and both are defined as statements that show product attributes. Their main difference lies in the durability of their life cycle.  

While the slogan accompanies the name of a brand, often from the beginning and throughout the product’s life, the claim is a specific communication that reinforces a characteristic, a benefit, or a differential value. Communication that will last as long as, for example, the communication campaign lasts.

In terms of approach, both share the exact requirements to achieve the greatest success since they are clear and concise messages that speak to the consumer’s language and respond to the brand’s values.

It should be pointed out that a brand claim should be defined in the same tone and line as the slogan to resonate and connect with the consumer. A clear example would be Dove’s advertising spot with the slogan “Real Beauty,” and its claim “#Show us more women who look like me”, used to reinforce the brand’s message and values.

It should be pointed out that a brand claim should be defined in the same tone and line as the slogan, in order to resonate and connect with the consumer. A clear example would be Dove’s advertising spot with the slogan “Real Beauty” and its claim “#Show us more women who look like me”, used to reinforce the brand’s message and values.

 

What claims should I use in my product labeling?

The combination of claims to be used will depend on the marketing strategy, i.e. the specific objective to be pursued: 

1. Highlight the benefit of the product: usually used in new launches, and the objective is to show the development and control of the category.
2. Differentiation: it’s used to stand out from the competition.
3. A contextual statement: these are claims that are only used in specific situations and seek presence in that moment of the market boom, for example, in a sporting event such as the Super Bowl.

An effective claim causes a more significant impact and, therefore, achieves differentiation concerning the competition. Regardless of the target, the claim must be clear, concise, original, and in line with the brand identity. Other relevant aspects to consider are translations, legal aspects, and the harmony of the claim with the advertising slogan.

Claims testing examples

The trends in claims respond to what consumers value most in each of the categories, for example:

• FMCG: “100% made with natural ingredients”, “no added sugars”, “no palm oil”, “made in the UK”, “limited edition”, “no additives”, etc. The beverage category is one of the categories with the highest number of launches using sugar reduction claims, such as Tropicana, which uses the claim “100% pure squeezed orange juice“.
• Cosmetics: “not tested on animals”, cruelty-free certification, FREE/0% products, etc. A clear example of cosmetic products can be seen in the brand Lush and its claim “not tested on animals“.
• Cleaning products: “all in 1”, “100% efficiency”, “long-lasting fragrance”, “recyclable packaging”, “with biodegradable ingredients”, etc. For example, the KH7 ad with its rational claim “IT WORKS.”

In addition to these claims, there is the controversial trend of Greenwashing vs. Green Marketing related to the sustainability of brands. Frosch’s Green Marketing strategy stands out in its campaign “100% recyclable and 100% recycled bottles”, and “100% circular”; as opposed to Coca-Cola’s controversial sponsorship of the United Nations Climate Summit COP27 as a Greenwashing maneuver.

It’s also important to mention the widespread trend in the various categories of quality certificates from external organizations.

How could you test a claim?

Claims testing can be done through market research. There are different options and platforms, such as Zinklar, which allows you to obtain consumer insights on a claim (or several, through monadic testing) to ensure its quality and assess its impact on the target audience.

The main KPIs to be analyzed are:

• Valuation
• Relevance
• Differentiation
• Credibility
• Easy to understand
• It fits with the brand
• Purchase intent

All these variables will make it possible to identify the claim’s potential and its possible optimization.

A marketing research technique that allows you to identify the combination of attributes that would be most successful with consumers. A claims test can include other variables such as slogan, insight, price, or competition. However, the survey design would require the use of a multivariate analysis, the conjoint analysis. 

Ready to identify your new claim? Get started now! Through the Zinklar Smart Insights platform, you can formulate your claims test and perform any other phase of your product development, such as a packaging test.

The presentation of any product is key to impacting consumers and influencing their purchasing decision. To achieve this, a company’s brand manager must follow new trends to offer a product that meets the expectations of its target audience. Faced with the growing commitment of consumers to the environmental impact of the products they consume, brands must react to this demand, thus joining the new sustainable packaging trends and eco-design. But only some things work!

It’s essential to present to the consumer a sustainable, attractive, and functional packaging type while conveying values in coherence with the product and the brand image. To do this, it’s essential to have tools such as the packaging test to validate the new proposal. Find out all the details!

What is sustainable packaging?

Sustainable packaging is made from materials that seek to minimize its environmental impact, reducing the carbon footprint throughout the product’s life cycle, from production to disposal.

Specifically, for packaging to be considered environmentally friendly, it must have one or more of the following characteristics:

• Recyclable packaging
• Made from recycled material
• Biodegradable
• Compostable
• Reusable packaging

As we can see, there are many concepts related to sustainable packaging, so it’s important to know each of them to establish a correct brand strategy that achieves that added value, providing differentiation and relevance to our brand.

The most widespread concept of sustainable packaging is “made from recycled materials”, which is based on comprehensive recycling. In other words, 100% of the material is used and converted back into another package, thus promoting the circular economy. An economy that involves reducing, recycling, and reusing existing materials and products as often as possible, thus extending its life cycle. An example of this can be found in Nestlé, made with 100% food-grade recycled plastic that meets the FDA’s.

Sustainable packaging materials

In eco-friendly packaging, the most commonly used sustainable materials are:

Carton

One is considered the most sustainable and economical because of its easy reusability and low environmental impact. Although cardboard has a short life cycle, its ease of recycling makes it an excellent option. It should be noted that a cardboard box is more than 80% biodegradable.

Glass

A sustainable material since its recycling is integral, 100% of the material is used and converted back into another container. Therefore, its life cycle is infinite. It’s one of the most widely used in the consumer sector due to its properties for preserving food and cosmetics.

Bioplastic or vegetable plastics

A material that is gradually emerging as an alternative to traditional PET. It’s a sustainable material that comes from vegetables such as soybean, corn or potato starch. Its development is a consequence of the need to find a material with similar characteristics to plastic but from renewable sources and, therefore, less polluting. It’s a resistant, 100% biodegradable, and very versatile material. An example would be the biodegradable packaging Dulcesol, the brand of pastries, cakes and bread of the international food and distribution group Vicky Foods.

However, it must be taken into account that just because a material is recyclable, it doesn’t necessarily have to be sustainable, as it will depend on its carbon footprint, i.e. the difficulty and resources required for its recycling. Therefore, as part of the brands’ sustainability strategy and commitment, knowing whether the sustainable pack meets consumer expectations and is consistent with the product and brand values is essential.

Sustainable packaging trends examples

Packaging is becoming more sustainable, opting for eco-friendly packs made from sustainable materials. Not only are more and more brands committed to the green movement, but companies must also adapt to European regulations on single-use plastics that will come into force in 2024.

Some of the FMCG brands that have anticipated this regulation include Unilever, which has committed to reducing the use of virgin plastic in its packaging by more than 100,000 tons by 2025. As of today, Dove has changed its plastic packaging for 100% recycled plastic packaging, thus committing to sustainable packaging in personal care. Or Kellogg’s, which has set a target to be met by the end of 2025: that 100% of its packaging should be reusable, recyclable or compostable, thus committing to the circular economy.

Another example to highlight would be Bacardi, with the recent launch of its 100% biodegradable liquor bottle, thus replacing 80 million plastic bottles (3,000 tons of plastic) that Bacardi currently produces with all its brands every year.

But beyond the trends focused on “recyclable” and “biodegradable”, some brands have opted for more innovative packaging. This is the case of Coca-Cola with the presentation of its new revolutionary prototype in soft drinks, the first paper bottle. This first prototype has a thin 100% recycled plastic coating. A major advantage of this packaging is that it would be very light, saving transport costs and thus CO2 emissions. 

 

The U.S. brewery Saltwater Brewery has also developed a revolutionary biodegradable and edible packaging for bundling beer packs. In this way, it provides a direct response to an environmental problem: the rings on beer packs, which pose a significant threat to marine animals, are now food.

How to measure the impact of sustainable packaging on your brand image?

For both new product launches and product relaunches, it’s essential to measure the impact that your sustainable packaging will have on your brand image, thus ensuring that your sustainable packaging conveys the desired values. A measurable impact using a pack test, a quick and agile study that will allow you to know the consumer’s acceptance of your sustainable packaging, as well as his perception of what image attributes your new pack works with. A test where you can evaluate a single packaging proposal or different alternatives through a monadic test.

The key indicators to measure the impact of the pack are:

• Overall assessment
• Degree of relevance
• Degree of differentiation
• Value for money
• Purchase intention
• Brand image

In this way we’ll obtain consumer insights on the brand values that the new pack works with, whether these are in line with the desired image, and whether these values are important to the consumer. Results that will allow you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your sustainable packaging, as well as possible areas for optimization. Thus, responding to the expectations of your target audience and making your sustainable packaging products a success.

Through the Zinklar insights platform you can measure the impact of your packaging before launching it to evaluate the potential of your designs and predict your consumer’s purchase intent.

Creativity and innovation play a fundamental role in a context as saturated and competitive as advertising. Making a difference and doing it ingeniously is key to impacting the consumer and making your advertising memorable. If you want to know how to achieve this, find out how to do creative testing!

What is advertising creativity?

Advertising creativity is developing advertising to promote an idea, product, or service. It’s about generating ideas and combining them strategically to communicate a message most effectively and capture the potential customer’s attention.
The key to creative advertising is to create a powerful concept to connect with the consumer and arouse their interest, differentiating your brand from the rest of the competitors.

When developing the creative strategy of an advertising campaign, it’s essential to consider the needs and desires of the target audience. The creative message and language must be adapted to the public, focusing advertising on encouraging the desire to purchase your product or service in that segment.

Why is advertising creativity important?

Creative advertising is important because it affects consumers’ thoughts about a brand or its products or services. Creative ads generate greater engagement, making a product or service more desirable to consumers.

Working on an excellent creative advertising strategy is essential to make an impact on the audience. The more an ad is liked, the more memorable it will be. You can use humor, dramatization, testimonial content, exaggeration, intrigue, relevant data, well-known characters, news, etc.

Thus, a creative advertising campaign should seek more than just sales and promotion. It must also achieve engagement and increase the brand image, that is, connect the brand with the consumer and transmit the value proposition of the product or service.

How to create an attractive advertisement?

Creative marketing is a determining factor in a brand’s communication to be present in the consumer’s mind and achieve the desired advertising objectives.

Behind every creative advertising campaign, an innovative team has developed the entire creative process, from the idea to the message and ending with the campaign’s creative assets presented to the consumer.

An advertisement must awaken interest in the target audience and provoke emotion to be attractive. It’s essential to find a balance between an advertisement’s functional and emotional elements. To ensure that this happens, an advertising test can be used to analyze the response of the different aspects of an advertising campaign.

On the other hand, good creative advertising must be adapted to any media. To this end, the message strategy must be consistent throughout the communicative discourse and always be based on the same creative concept. Each channel has its characteristics, and the advertising format must be adapted.

How to do ad creative testing? Creative testing best practices

Creative advertising can be measured and evaluated using different advertising tests, and they usually consist of two phases: idea generation and creative evaluation.

• Pre-Test advertising allows for gathering consumer insights on ads before launching a new campaign to ensure its effectiveness.
• Post-Test advertising. This testing method allows for measuring the impact and ad performance of a campaign and the effectiveness of the advertising investment made. It can be carried out with the campaign already on air or completed.

Examples of top-performing advertisements

To stand out in such a saturated sector, original adverts must be created. Although it’s not an easy task, there are many examples that have been applauded by the public -and even by the competition-, such as:

• Nike and its Just Do It. Nike is one of the leading brands in sportswear. Nike’s ads are always surprising and are usually liked by the public. Moreover, many athletes are the brand’s image and this helps to make consumers want to wear it.
• Another brand of reference to mention original ad campaigns is Budweiser. The brand invests in effective campaigns and sporting events such as the World Cup or the Super Bowl. They have succeeded in creating memorable ads many times, such as this one.
• And if creating an original campaign is already arduous, making it often and meeting the public’s expectations is another level. This is more or less what happens to brands like Netflix, which create their campaigns as part of their brand image to transmit the values that characterize them. By doing this, the public identifies them in each of Netflix’s advertising actions.
• Speaking of branding, we cannot fail to mention Amazon, whose commercials have also appeared in huge showcases such as the Super Bowl. This brand is another example of investing in promoting its products by creating good advertisements that resonate with the public and generate an unlimited conversation.

 

Do you want to achieve creative and original advertising campaigns that are memorable for the consumer? Enter the Zinklar platform and check how your ad creatives perform. Start making data-driven decisions and launch a successful marketing strategy.

For many brands, the Christmas season is an important time of the year, with a substantial part of their annual turnover depending on the success of their ad campaign. This means making a significant investment in effort and resources to persuade consumers, but it also means that even a few minor details can make the difference between loss or ultimate success. For this reason, ad testing during Christmas is absolutely essential. And this is more imperative than ever now that the pandemic has changed consumer codes of conduct, making them more unpredictable than before.

1. Improve your advertising effectiveness with research

Consumers are exposed to a plethora of messages during the holiday season. In the face of so many stimuli, advertising effectiveness will determine which brands will be the ones that raise awareness, persuade consumers, and expand sales. Those companies that have previously validated their advertising strategy through ad tests will be closer to optimizing ROI and avoiding frustration later.

Some key questions to consider: Is the advertising message compelling to the target audience? Does it leave a lasting impression on the consumer? Does it generate a predisposition to purchase? There is no other possible way to answer these questions without Pre-Testing advertising. Relying on research from the beginning of the creative process will not only help to correct mistakes but can also help to prevent them. Further options to ensure advertising effectiveness are Ad-Tracking, monitoring active campaigns, and Post-Testing, which measures the results of an advertising action once it has been finalized.

2. Why you need to conduct Christmas ad testing

Market research has to be present from the beginning of the advertising campaign to support the whole creative process with data that facilitates decision-making. Through advertising Pre-Tests, we can evaluate several alternative messages to determine the degree of acceptance, understanding, and credibility they generate. Beyond assessing brand recall among consumers and gauging their likelihood of making a purchasing decision, ad Pre-Tests can also help identify which aspects of our communication can be improved in time to correct them in the final versions.

3. Keep Holiday Campaigns On-Target

The pandemic drove the most significant change in consumer behavior around the world in decades. Our routines changed. We don’t shop in the same way, we don’t work the same, we don’t travel the same, and we don’t interact with others in the way we did in Christmases past. We have become a constantly moving kaleidoscope, adapting to the ever-transforming evolution of our way of life.

Therefore, campaigns from previous years will almost certainly be obsolete this Christmas. Continuing to use those same campaigns without first subjecting them to an advertising Pre-Test is a high-risk sport. Brands have the difficult challenge of reconnecting with a consumer who is responding to a changing logic that is radically different from the parameters of just a year ago.

4. Stay Agile in a Changing Market

How can brands rediscover the customer and connect with these new sensibilities? One of the essential aspects of research platforms is their ability to interact with consumers in an agile way, obtaining insights in a matter of hours. Throughout the creative process, you can take the pulse of a representative sample of consumers to validate (or not) every detail of the holiday campaign.

The speed of launching an ad test like an advertising Pre-Test allows campaign managers to make decisions in real-time, correcting mistakes quickly and reducing the margin of error based on reliable data. With smaller but more frequent studies, the agility of research platforms becomes a key tool to reconnect with the consumer.

Even as we have changed, the need to optimize advertising ROI is still essential. Ad testing during Christmas is more important than ever, and there is no time to waste. Zinklar’s platform gives you the agility and speed of mobile research to test advertising in a few hours and make decisions in real-time; at any creative stage and by both brands and agencies. Today more than ever, ensuring the ROI of your Christmas campaign is in your hands. Start today, join Zinklar!

Advertising plays a fundamental role in a brand’s strategy, so it is crucial to measure the effectiveness of the actions carried out to ensure an effective marketing strategy and that the communication and advertising investments being made are the right ones to meet the objectives. This is especially important in large advertising campaigns such as Black Friday, the World Cup, and Christmas.

Given its importance, advertising budgets represent one of the most significant investments for many companies, so measuring ad effectiveness allows brands to evaluate the impact and know the acceptance or rejection level obtained in the target audience. This is valuable information for the optimization of current campaigns and future communication strategies.

Brands are aware of this, and proof of this is that the market research sector set a new growth record in 2021, reaching $119 billion (15% more than in the previous year), according to the latest ESOMAR report. And according to the study, the forecast for 2023 is $130 billion.

How to Measure Advertising Effectiveness

More and more brands are measuring the impact of their advertising campaigns in real time. For this purpose, market research offers different solutions such as, for example, the advertising Pre-Test and Post-Test (see survey templates). Through the latter study, brands can monitor their campaigns and obtain actionable insights to achieve more significant market share in a context of a lot of noise generated by countless competitors, events, and data.

What you will find in the Advertising Post-Test guide:

• How to ensure advertising effectiveness in large advertising campaigns such as Black Friday, the World Cup, and Christmas.
• The different types of Post-Tests and main KPIs that will lead to success
• How to sky-rocket your next ad campaign ROI
• FREE: 10 key questions for your Ad Post-Test survey

 

Launch a successful advertising campaign measuring its effectiveness correctly with our ultimate guide to Ad Post-Testing.

 

For several years now, macroeconomic and social factors have directly and profoundly impacted consumer habits. Just as some pre-pandemic habits were beginning to recover, new political and economic events have placed us in a context of inflation that seems to have no end.

Rapidly changing times are a chance for brands to thrive, not just survive, and real-time insights can help businesses succeed in a constantly evolving market.

Insights professionals have to deal with uncertainties worldwide, and consumption habits changing continuously due to inflation. It’s crucial to understand customers better constantly. But how can this be done successfully?

Current market research challenges

During the recent webinar with Quirk’s, insights professionals talked about the challenges they are facing in the market today and their advice on continually monitoring the voice of the customer. Luciana Procopio, Consumer Insights Manager at Panasonic Europe, Vanessa Bougla, Head of Insights at Avanti West Coast UK, and, Helen Dunnington, Voice of Customer Manager at Avanti West Coast UK, brought their expertise and advice on product innovation and brand growth based on agile market research.

During the session, Luciana explained that the pandemic affected them in their categories since people had more money to invest at home and they needed to find specific products. The market reacted entirely differently, and they had to adapt to it.

It was also challenging for Avanti West Coast UK, since customers were more nervous about traveling. Helen Dunnington explained that they needed to gather insights about how consumers were adapting to the pandemic and how they could be encouraged to come back to travel. And this is something all companies need to do during challenging times. There is always a huge demand to understand customer needs and how we must address them.

How to proactively measure brand health

Vanessa Bougla explained, at Avanti West Coast UK, they measure brand health through in-house and external tools, such as Zinklar’s insights platform. The most they value about the platform is its speed. It helps to make decisions quickly, for example, about investments and new product launches, and gives them confidence and strength in front of stakeholders because it provides them with data. Vanessa said that working with DIY solutions and external sources is the perfect way to gather answers quickly.

According to Helen Dunnington, companies always need more data. They must be more agile, respond quickly and gather actionable insights. Avanti West Coast UK uses a wide variety of tools, external and internal, to ask their consumers. They also use platforms like Zinklar, as Vanessa explained, to launch different types of projects related to travel patterns, booking processes, ticket offers, naming tests, and more diverse projects, Helen explained, to get real-time insights.

How to maximize the voice of the customer

During times of increasing inflation, as Vanessa Bougla said, it’s crucial to know how to offer solutions and products adapted to your customer’s needs. You also need to know if we can go back to pre-pandemic levels or what will come next.

For Luciana Procopio, it’s important to be curious and open-minded, and you need to know what market research solutions are available and find out which ones allow you to be more agile. Luciana explained that they also use external and internal tools, such as DIY platforms like Zinklar. They use the platform to launch projects related to marketing campaigns, product claims, or exploratory research. For the Consumer Insights Manager, Zinklar’s platform is straightforward to use and the support of insights experts is beneficial to build the correct questionnaire.

What companies expect from insights experts

Companies expect insights teams to find out what consumers prefer. “We need to be more agile, be right and actionable”, Luciana Procopio said. According to the Insights Manager, we live in high challenging times, and it’s important to understand what people are going through and their consumption preferences.

Therefore, it is essential to work with scenario planning, analyzing consumer behavior and economic factors to understand what can happen and evaluate different options. Thus, the strategy is built based on different scenarios to prepare the company for future adversities.

What’s next? 2023 opportunities and trends in research

For Vanessa, what brands need to do in 2023 is to stay ahead of opportunities and trends. It’s important to be as proactive as possible and try to discover how things can change unexpectedly. The insights expert said that in 2023 we will see an open collaboration with other companies to share knowledge and research to avoid duplicated efforts.

The future for insights professionals, Luciana explained, is very bright. The role of Insights departments is essential to provide knowledge and drive innovation. They can address challenges and be a clear guide for businesses. The key to staying ahead of the evolving world is gathering actionable answers and providing recommendations that can be implemented quickly, especially in uncertain times.

For Helen Dunnington, 2023 is an exciting opportunity, as the need for insights would increase. Therefore, insights professionals must stay close to consumers’ needs and provide them with a solution that could work for them.

An effective advertising plan allows brands to carry out a successful communication strategy. But how to achieve an effective advertising strategy and good management and optimization of the resources invested in it? With a measurable return beyond sales, that is, taking into account the voice of the consumer, hence the relevance of including market research in the advertising plan.

Calculating the return is an objective and operational measurement tool that allows us to analyze the results and determine the return on communication actions and, therefore, to know if they meet the objectives in the advertising plan. Find out in this article the importance of data in an advertising plan!

What is an advertising plan?

The advertising plan is the tool that allows you to design, analyze and select the actions and channels through which the desired information will be transmitted to the target audience. Thus, it is key for brands to make their advertising campaigns reach the consumer, achieving both sales and the different objectives established by the brand.

An effective advertising plan achieves the following:

• Brand awareness
• Work on the brand image and brand health
• Capture the attention of potential customers
• Build consumer loyalty
• Increase sales

Given that the advertising plan represents a high proportion of the advertising budget, it is necessary to manage and optimize the resources invested. Hence the importance of basing your advertising and marketing strategies on data.

Why base your advertising plan on data?

Having objective and operational data allows brands to optimize the effectiveness of their advertising plan and ensure the return on their actions. Advertising research enables data analysis beyond sales, providing access to information on campaign impact and performance. In this way, it can be determined whether the investment has achieved the objectives set out in the marketing plan.

Brands that make data-driven decisions reduce costs and increase profits. However, while 91% of companies say that data-driven decision-making is important to their brand growth, only 57% say they base their business decisions on data.

How does market research help brands understand their consumers?

Given the overexposure of consumers to brands and products or services, as well as the diversification of consumption, it is necessary to know the consumer to gain insights to communicate relevant and impactful ideas that generate sales.

To this end, market research allows the collection of information before and after the execution of the advertising plan. In this way, companies can have data that will enable them to design, analyze and select the actions and channels through which the desired information will be transmitted to the target audience.

Since the objective of any advertising action is to have an impact, communicate and persuade, it is essential to measure the effectiveness and performance of the campaign. This data can be gathered and analyzed through advertising research based on how the advertisement performs in relation to each of the key indicators: awareness, communication, evaluation of the advertisement, brand image, and persuasion.

Therefore, advertising research makes it possible to identify whether the communication strategies have worked on brand awareness and whether they have communicated or reinforced its image, generating a good opinion and predisposition to purchase the brand. However, it is surprising that there are brands that base their decision-making on intuition.

Types of research that can be made to develop an advertising plan

Research is key both for the preliminary step of designing the advertising plan and for the follow-up of the actions established in the plan. To this end, the following can be carried out:

1. Exploratory research

Makes it possible to identify and specify future actions, i.e. to determine the maximum information about the market and the consumer, thus enabling the understanding and optimization of the design of strategies, activities, and means of communication.

2. Advertising research

Uses advertising tests to measure the performance of a campaign, as well as its suitability for different media. Research that focuses on the before, during, and after the launch of the campaign, specifically:

• • Pre-Test: A study to identify the effectiveness and possible optimizations before the launch of a campaign (this can be done with the creativity already finalized or with an outline).
  • Post-Test: A study to measure the impact and performance of an advertising campaign on air or already completed, by collecting data on awareness, recall, persuasion, as well as evaluation of the advertisement).
  • Ad Tracking: continuous measurement study that monitors different communication actions, thus providing evolving data on the impact and effectiveness of the communication campaigns. Information can be collected on a one-off basis (Pulsed Tracking) or continuously (Continuous Tracking).

Do you want to base your advertising strategy on data? Try Zinklar and discover all the possibilities offered by the platform for your advertising plan.

Creating market research from scratch can be more accessible by leveraging professionally curated templates. Regardless of the level of experience or knowledge in the sector, solutions such as the Zinklar insights platform facilitate advertising testing, packaging testing, and more so that any company and professional can launch studies to make decisions focused on the consumer. Discover more about ad testing survey templates here:

Advertising pre-test questions

The advertising pre-test allows users to evaluate an advertising campaign’s impact before launching it to ensure its success. In this way, brands can optimize the ads of a product or service based on the preferences of their target audience.

To make it easier for brands to ask their audience the right questions, Zinklar offers a survey template fully customizable to the needs of each study. Examples of pre-test advertising questions are:

• What is the main message of this ad?
• What would you improve about this ad?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, to what extent do you think this ad differs from others?

With Zinklar’s pre-test advertising template, you can test image or text creatives and evaluate from one to 12 ads at a time (monadic test).

Post-test advertising questions

The purpose of the advertising post-test is to help obtain insights about the advertising effectiveness of a campaign. It is a very valuable tool to know if the actions carried out by the brand transmit the desired message and if it is going the right way to achieve the established objectives.

With the advertising post-test, brands obtain the necessary insights to improve future actions and ad campaigns. Therefore, it is essential to design an appropriate form to obtain the necessary results.

Examples of questions for an advertising post-test are:

• What do you like most about this ad?
• After seeing this ad, to what extent are you willing to buy [[YOUR BRAND]]?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy was it to understand what this ad is trying to communicate?

Ad tracking questions

Ad tracking is a type of market research that allows brands to monitor the effectiveness of their advertising actions to know their impact. In this way, they can evaluate campaigns in real-time and know if their communications are getting the desired results or if, on the contrary, they should adjust some elements to optimize their performance.

It is as important to make a follow-up on the impact of an advertising campaign as it is to ask the right advertising tracking questions to obtain the necessary insights. Some examples are:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like this ad?
• To what measure do you like each of the following elements of this ad?
• How does this ad influence your opinion of [[YOUR BRAND]]?

In addition to creating studies from a template, Zinklar offers its users’ guided solutions, through which they can create a project based on their objectives. By selecting what their research needs are, the platform automatically creates a questionnaire that can be edited to further adjust to the brand’s preferences.

 

Test adverts to maximize conversion rates. Use the ad testing survey template to launch studies quickly and efficiently!

Advertising campaigns are a significant investment for brands. Measuring their effectiveness through market research is critical to quantify the return on the campaign investments and determine if it meets the desired expectations.

Depending on the objective of the advertising research and the moment of the development of the ad campaign, one or another type of ad testing can be carried out:

• Pre-test advertising to measure the impact and quality of the advertisement before the campaign’s launch.
• Post-Test advertising measures the impact and quality of the advertisement after the campaign has ended.
• Or advertising tracking consists of taking continuous measures by monitoring or tracking the different communications over time. If you are interested in finding out how to track your advertising campaigns, read on!

What is Ad Tracking?

Advertising tracking, also known as Ad Tracking, is a tool for continuous monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of advertising. Ad tracking measures the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and their contribution to brand health. In this way, ad tracking allows understanding the evolution of crucial brand indicators, including product consumption and purchase or service usage and trial, as well as the attitudes of the target audience towards the brand and its competitors.

Did you know? Advertising tracking can happen continuously or in waves.

Types of ad tracking

Depending on the maturity of the category and product, as well as the start date of the campaign, its investment, and time on air, two types of ad tracking methods can be carried out:

1. Continuous tracking

Advertising tracking that measures the target audience weekly or monthly.

It is a continuous and detailed image that allows total control of the variables that may be affected by advertising activity: brand awareness, consumption, brand image, advertising impact, messages transmitted, attitudes towards the ad, the brand, and the product.

2. Pulsed tracking

A form of advertising tracking that consists of carrying out punctual measurements spaced out over time, i.e. surveys are carried out, for example, every three or six months.

As in Continuous Tracking, each wave measures the impact and effectiveness of advertising at both campaign level (recall, engagement, message, and attitudes) and brand level (awareness, consumption, and image).

The main difference between the two types of advertising tracking is that Continuous tracking collects and displays constant and continuous data on the correlation between the advertising investment and the effects achieved. In contrast, Pulsed Tracking collects and displays evolutionary data from images that are more distant in time.

What are the benefits of advertising tracking?

• Advertising tracking provides insights into the effects of advertising in the short, medium, and long term. It provides evolutionary data on advertising effectiveness (impact, linkage, message, campaign assessment, etc.) and how it affects brand health (awareness, consumption, purchase, image, etc.).
• It monitors competing brands that are active simultaneously with your campaign.
• It allows you to establish the relationship between the advertising actions and investments made based on the changes observed in the key variables using evolutionary graphs and with a greater possibility of identifying what each campaign and media used to contribute to the brand.

In short, advertising tracking offers insights into the correlation between the investments made and the objectives achieved. It is a very powerful tool that allows us to make a follow-up to optimize and adjust future investments.

Critical aspects in the monitoring of an advertising campaign

When measuring advertising effectiveness and efficiency, it is essential to analyze the campaign’s effect and impact on the brand. Including the main competitors at the time your investment is done.

For effective advertising tracking, it is advisable to take into account the following KPI’s:

• Impact: Do consumers remember the ad?
• Linkage: is the ad associated with the brand? Companies such as Coca-Cola and Unilever are increasing their marketing efforts to create a stronger brand feeling amid price increases. Collecting spontaneous recall (top of mind and total recall) and suggested recall is essential.
• Understanding: is the advertising message remembered? What does the consumer decode?
• Diagnosis: how is the ad perceived? Is it perceived as credible? And is it perceived as different?
• Brand image: are the brand attributes of the advert the desired ones?
• Consumption and purchase, as well as attitudes towards the brand: does the advert encourage investment, and does it influence consumer attitudes?
• Habits and lifestyles: What are the most consumed communication channels? Activity on social networks?

All these variables can be measured more or less continuously depending on your needs. Do not hesitate to contact our team of experts through the Zinklar platform; they will recommend the best solution to monitor your campaigns effectively.

Advertising and marketing are fundamental elements in a company’s strategy, which is why measuring the actions carried out are crucial to ensure that the communication is correct and suitable for achieving the desired objectives and results.

To this end, market research offers different solutions that allow us to analyze the advertising impact of campaigns and find out whether they are accepted or rejected by the consumer and the reasons that may have led to the campaign’s failure. One of these solutions is the advertising post-test. Do you know what it consists of? Read on!

What is post testing in advertising?

The advertising post-test is an advertising test that allows you to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign to ensure that all its elements, as well as the advertising investment made, have met the desired objectives.

Performance analysis provides the campaign’s effectiveness in terms of the level of recall, both of the brand and the product, the level of liking of the piece, and the level of understanding of the advertising message, as well as the impact on the brand image and the impact on the purchasing attitude.

What is the purpose of post testing?

Given that advertising budgets represent one of the most significant investments for many brands measuring their results allows you to evaluate and analyze the effectiveness of your advertising. This is valuable information both for the optimization of current campaigns and for the determination of future communication strategies.

Thus, the advertising post-test allows you to measure, for example, if the reaction in sales after the launch is not as expected, if the campaign’s impact has been affected by advertising actions of the competition, or if the creativity presents some wear and tear, etc.

Benefits of post testing in advertising

Measuring the advertising effectiveness and the different aspects that contribute to the success of an advertising campaign allows brands to:

• Determine the ROI of the campaign: from the analysis of the advertising objectives set (awareness, brand image, persuasion…).
• Optimize future communications: improve any aspect not providing the desired value. For example, introduce some modifications to the campaign, change advertising elements or, if the result is optimal, maintain the actions as they are being developed.

It is important to note that unlike the advertising pre-test, which is a test that is carried out outside a real environment, the post-test is carried out with the campaign already on air or already completed. Therefore, the analysis of the effectiveness provided by the post-test includes the influence of the rest of the competitor’s campaigns with which the advertisement shares a presence in the media.

What are the differences between pre-test and post-test?

Pre-test and post-test are advertising tests that evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising campaigns. The difference between the two market studies is the time at which they are carried out and the objective they pursue in each case.

While the advertising pre-test measures the impact and quality of an advertisement before the campaign is launched. In order to optimize it before it goes live, the advertising post-test is carried out once the campaign is on air or has already ended to determine the effectiveness of the advert.

Types of post-testing in advertising

Depending on the main objective, as well as the time at which the effectiveness of the campaign is measured, it can be carried out:

• Ad recall, which is usually carried out 24 hours after the start of the campaign and aims to evaluate the impact of the launch, as well as the recall capacity generated by the advertisement among the target audience.
• Recognition test, in which users are asked to identify the different elements of the campaign to measure its effectiveness, based on the percentage of consumers who remember it after exposure to the ad.
• The recall test is more demanding than the recognition test, as its objective is to measure advertising effectiveness based on spontaneous recall of the campaign, the brand, the product, or some of its elements.
• Ad Tracking is a continuous measurement study that allows you to analyze the evolution of the impact of the campaigns that are carried out, as well as their performance according to the time and environment in which they are exposed.
• Sales test, which is used to evaluate the sales results of different advertising campaigns or different advertising media. It should be noted that the effectiveness of a campaign is not only measured by the sales achieved; it should also be taken into account that the rest of the actions carried out over time also influence the result.

How to measure advertising effectiveness? Main KPI’s

• Advertising recall determines the campaign’s impact on the target audience.
• The impact on brand image, what brand attributes the campaign is working on and whether these are the desired ones. Brand awareness measures the link of the company, brand, product, or service to the campaign.
• The level of liking or disliking of the advertisement and its main elements.
• The level of understanding and reach of the messages, to know if what is desired is being conveyed.
• The level of persuasion determines whether the campaign has an impact on the behavior of the target and whether they present a positive buying attitude.

How to run an ad post-test

The advertising post-test is carried out once the campaign has been launched or at the end of the campaign.

Through the Zinklar platform, you can create an advertising post-test at any time quickly and easily, and get the results in a few hours. Don’t wait any longer, measure now the effectiveness of your advert!

The World Cup is the best showcase for brands. It is the most watched sporting event in the world, ahead of the Super Bowl. According to forecasts, the audience for this year’s competition will be around 5 billion people in more than 200 countries worldwide. But it is not just about broadcasting the matches; the World Cup also impacts the consumption of information published before, during, and after the event. So the World Cup ads are really important.

Companies need to be present at an event such as the World Cup, as 76% of fans are more likely to find out about a brand if it sponsors sporting events, and 69% of them choose its products if the price or quantity is similar to that of its competitors. According to Euronews the spending on advertising and marketing around the World Cup is set to hit a record high, giving Qatar 2022 the potential to provide a unique experience for brands.

Qatar World Cup 2022 sponsors

The Qatar 2022 World Cup has seven advertising partners with marketing and promotional rights to FIFA and its competitions, including the World Cup: Adidas, Coca-Cola, Qatar Airways, Hyundai Motors, VISA, Qatar energy, and Wanda Group.

Coca-Cola World Cup Ad

 

 

On the other hand, the World Cup has different official world cup sponsors that will be promoted during the competition, such as Budweiser, McDonald’s (that has unveiled its largest global campaign to date), Hisense, Vivo, Crypto.com, China Mengniu Dairy Company, and Byju’s.

Finally, the Qatar 2022 World Cup also has continental promoters, a group of up to 20 brands from different continents (4 per continent), which have contracted an advertising and marketing service partner with FIFA World Cup. Some of them are: Claro, Frito-Lay, UPL Ltd, The Look Company, and others who have already presented their advertising campaigns, such as Pepsi, Fox sports, Puma and Nike.

Nike World Cup Ad

 

What is different about the Qatar 2022 World Cup?

• It is the first time the World Cup will take place in autumn and winter. The main reason for this change is that summer temperatures in Qatar can reach 45-50 degrees Celsius. The difference in start dates from the summer means that professional football leagues will stop during the world cup.
• The first time that the FIFA World Cup will take place in West Asia.
• This edition will be the shortest (28 days), and the one played in the smallest country to host the tournament. (the country’s surface area does not exceed 12,000 km2).
• Qatar has had to build 8 stadiums for the FIFA World Cup 2022
• It is Qatar’s first appearance at a World Cup (the host country gets direct participation in the competition).

 

How to measure advertising effectiveness during the Qatar World Cup 2022

Measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of an advertising campaign is essential to ensure that the brand is making the right impact in the minds of consumers. This analysis is especially important for major events such as the World Cup in Qatar, where such a large advertising investment is at stake.

Advertising testing helps brands evaluate their advertising impact, recognition, persuasive power, and recall, among other indicators. Brands should carry out an advertising post-test to determine and assess success vs. objectives and to identify improvements for future advertising actions.

In addition to the advertising post-test, an ad-tracking study can be particularly relevant in events such as the Qatar World Cup. This type of research gathers consumer feedback on how different campaigns influence them. In this way, with brand tracking, brands can find out what impact the advertising actions carried out during the World Cup have and how long their effects last over time.

Finally, for brands in more than one country or planning to open up new markets, conducting an international market study is beneficial to analyze and compare consumer behavior, trends, competitor positioning within the market, etc., between markets.

Don’t think twice and measure your advertising effectiveness during the Qatar 2022 World Cup!

Are you thinking of launching a new campaign? Advertising Pre-testing or Ad Pre-testing is a market research method that allows brands to get consumer feedback and test advertisements before launching a new campaign to ensure its effectiveness. Read on to find out all the details!

What is ad pre-test?

Ad pre-testing is a type of advertising testing that allows brands to measure the impact of a new advertising campaign for a product or service before launching it to improve the ad performance and ensure its success. In this way, brands can know to what measure their creative idea will be accepted or rejected by their target audience and if any significant changes need to be made to optimize the launch, thus securing their advertising investment.

Taking into account that pre-test advertising aims to identify the future behavior of the consumer who the campaign will impact, the study can be carried out with unfinished executions, i.e. with an advertising storyboard or an animatic testing, and with the finished advert.

In addition to the previous analysis of the ad campaign, once it has been launched, it is essential to evaluate its performance through an advertising post-test to measure the advertising effectiveness. Alternatively, you can follow up on the different campaigns by continuously measuring them through Advertising Tracking.

What can be measured with an advertising pre-test?

The research carried out with an advertising pretest allows you to measure different aspects of a campaign:

• Brand awareness: What level of recall do we achieve among the target audience?
• Engagement: is the brand remembered, and is it associated with the campaign being evaluated?
• Comprehension: did we convey the desired message, does the consumer associate the message with the product or service, and is the language most appropriate for the target audience?
• Diagnosis: how does our target evaluate the campaign? Does he/she understand the value proposition? Does he/she perceive it as credible? Is it new and different?
• Brand positioning: what brand values does the campaign convey? Does it work on the desired attributes?
• Persuasive power: does the campaign arouse enough interest among the public? Would they be willing to buy the brand/product?

Importance of pre-testing in advertising

The pre-test’s importance lies in assessing whether the advertising efforts actually contribute to achieving the brand’s commercial objectives. In other words, it is a relevant study to measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaigns to be carried out.

In addition, the advertising pre-test helps to verify that the advertisements communicate the desired brand image and do not provoke adverse reactions among the target audience.

The production cost of a creative advertisement is a small part of the total investment of the advertising campaign, so modifying it before launching it can avoid launching a product or service that is not understood, or at least not in the way the brand expects. Therefore, testing the campaign before its launch utilizing an ad pretest makes it possible to get a return on the advertising investment.

The advertising pre-test is especially important for high-profile campaigns such as the Christmas campaign, and those in which a large scale advertising investment is made, for example, a Super Bowl ad, in which 6.5 million dollars can be paid for a 30-second spot.

Advantages of ad pre testing

• Provides effectiveness data before the launch of the campaign.
• It helps to improve the quality of the creative idea.
• It helps to identify and correct elements that generate rejection among the target audience.
• Allows the message to be adapted to the language of the consumer.
• Having a finished campaign is unnecessary, as the study allows you to test sketches (advertising storyboard and animatic testing).
• It is possible to test more than one campaign for comparison purposes, whether from the same brand or the competition.
• It allows copy testing and testing of advertising concepts.
• It can help to increase the ROI of a campaign, improving the conversion rate, as well as the brand positioning.

How to do ad pre testing?

When carrying out an advertising pre-test, it is important to take into account different aspects to ensure a representative result that is as close to reality as possible. To do so, it is essential to

• Use a representative sample of the target group.
• Present respondents with clear instructions on the dynamics of the study.
• Collect in the questionnaire the key questions that allow you to obtain the leading indicators (KPI’s) that help evaluate a campaign’s effectiveness. The Zinklar platform offers a pre-test template to create the most optimal questionnaire to achieve the desired objectives.
• When there are different creative ideas for the same product or service, we can use monadic, sequential monadic and comparative tests to evaluate them.
• Take advantage of solutions that allow you to create effective studies regardless of your experience. For example, Zinklar offers Guided Solutions so you can design intelligent and automated studies without any barriers.

Enter Zinklar and discover the potential of the advertising pretest template to test all your creatives quickly and easily!

Advertising plays an essential role in consumer decision-making, so measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising campaigns is key to ensuring that your brand and its benefits are present in the consumer’s mind. Hence the importance of ad testing.

But what does an effective and efficient campaign mean? It means talking to the consumer in the proper contexts and with the right messages, integrating traditional media with new technologies and trends.

Due to the context in which advertising moves nowadays, a large amount of media, the very high advertising saturation, the importance of social networks, etc., it’s not only about measuring advertising performance but, also, about understanding advertising research within a global communication context. In a context where to be effective and efficient, it’s vital to maximize the consumer’s knowledge of the product or service and, on the other hand, the different points of contact with the consumer (touchpoints).

Let’s take a closer look!

What is ad testing?

Advertising tests allow us to collect data that measure the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising. Specifically, advertising research accompanies the entire marketing process by helping optimize the strategy, the message, and the selection of the most cost-effective communication channels. These surveys are critical at times of high advertising spending such as at Christmas.

Thus, this type of market research responds to different fields of action:

• Research into advertising effectiveness and efficiency: measuring a campaign’s impact in terms of its ability to achieve marketing objectives.
• Message-related research: aims to measure the level of impact and the ability of different advertising pieces to convey a message.
• Media or communication channel research consists of identifying the best communication channels to deliver a message to the target audience.

Advertising tests are market studies that measure and analyze variables such as the level of acceptance, identification, ability to attract attention, the call to action (CTA), attrition, the meaning of the messages, etc., among others.

Therefore, advertising tests allow us to answer, for example, the following questions:

• Advertising impact: What is the advertising impact of the campaign? Does it meet expectations? Does it make it better or worse than past campaigns?
• Brand recognition: What brand is the advertising associated with, and are consumers able to recognize and remember it?
• Likes and dislikes: What are the most liked and disliked elements, and how can the campaign be improved?
• Attributes of the campaign: Is the advertising different, credible, and innovative?
• Understanding the message: What message(s) does it convey, and how do consumers understand them?
• Brand attributes: What campaign brand image attributes work? Which ones do consumers recognize and value when they see the campaign?
• Persuasive power: What are the campaign’s compelling forces and the predisposition to purchase or consume?
• Advertising recall and brand recall: How many people remember the campaign? How many people remember the brand that featured it?

Ad testing success story

Check out how TelevisaUnivision has made its advertising more effective through data. Read the full case study.

Ad testing methods

Depending on the advertising research objective and the campaign timing, you would conduct one or another advertising survey. For example, measure the effect and quality of ads before, during, and after a campaign launch.  

PRETEST advertising

The objective of the advertising Pretest is to measure the impact and quality of the advertisement before the campaign. It is crucial to identify the effectiveness of the communication and its possible optimizations before it’s aired. Through the Pretests of this study, advertisers select the best executions, optimize them and ensure that the campaign will obtain the best return before making significant investments in advertising

This advertising test allows for measuring different aspects of a campaign, such as its ad concepts, creative development, brand awareness, linkage, comprehension, diagnosis, brand positioning, and persuasive power. 

It’s important to carry out Pre-Test advertising, especially in campaigns of great relevance and advertising investment such as Christmas or the World Cup.

POST-TEST advertising

Unlike the Pre-Test, the objective of the advertising Post-Test is to measure the impact and quality of the advertisement after the campaign has ended. The results of the Post-Test of this study will determine whether the objectives of the communication effectiveness have been met, quantify the success of the campaign and identify lessons learned for future communications.  

The Post-Test is a very important study considering that advertising budgets represent one of the most significant investments for many brands, so being able to analyze advertising effectiveness is critical. There are different types of Post-Test advertising, and choosing one or another will depend on the study’s objective.

The main key metrics used to measure advertising effectiveness are: 

• advertising recall, 
• brand awareness, 
• the level of liking of the ad, 
• the level of understanding and reach of advertising messages, 
• the impact on brand image, 
• as well as the level of persuasion.

 

AD-TRACKING 

Advertising tracking consists of tracking the different communications made over time, making it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of all advertising campaigns issued and analyze how they contribute to the brand’s health. In this way, advertisers can see which campaigns have the most impact on an ongoing basis and can know when the brand is strong and when it’s not.

There are different types of advertising tracking, and performing one or the other will depend on the campaign’s characteristics and the maturity of the category and the product. For example continuous tracking (with weekly or monthly measurements) or pulsed tracking (with punctual measurements spaced over time). 

The importance of advertising tracking lies in the fact that campaigns have an impact at the moment they are broadcasted and over a long period. With this type of advertising test, you can obtain insights into the evolution of advertising effectiveness and its impact on brand health.

Ad testing benefits

Ad testing allows us to identify the performance and ability of campaigns to meet the objectives of the communication strategy. This is relevant considering that the forecast for advertising spending in the RMB by 2026 is 100 billion dollars in the US (according to data from the consultancy firm McKinsey) and that the forecast for digital advertising spending worldwide by 2026 will reach 876 billion US dollars, according to the statistics portal Statista.

The benefits of advertising research include:

• It allows us to measure the impact of the ad and brand recall.
• Determine which elements of the campaign work and which elements need to be optimized.
• Knowing whether the messages are reaching the target audience and whether they are being accepted or rejected.
• Identify the most profitable media or channels for the brand and product.
• As well as measuring the correlation between the investment and the objectives achieved.

How do you test ad effectiveness?

When carrying out an advertising test, different factors must be taken into account to ensure a representative result as close as possible to reality, especially in the case of the Pretest, which takes place before launching the campaign. In any case, different criteria must be followed: 

• Use a representative audience
• Provide a clear and dynamic survey
• Add key questions to the questionnaire 
• It’s useful to use monadic tests to ask about different advertising concepts.

In addition, solutions such as the insights platform Zinklar offer survey templates to launch studies quickly and efficiently. Discover our ad testing survey template and check how your ad performs.

When to do test ads

An advertising test’s objective is to ensure advertising’s effectiveness and measure its impact. Making it at one time or another will depend on the type of advertising test to be performed. 

In the case of an advertising Pretest, the study can be carried out both with unfinished actions (for example, in storyboard or animatic format) and with finished ads. The advertising Post-Test can be carried out with the campaign already on air or once it has been completed. The Post-Test allows you to analyze the influence of the campaigns of the competition with your ad shares presence.

Finally, advertising tracking is a tool for continuously monitoring and evaluating advertising effectiveness. This type of test can be carried out continuously or with punctual measurements.

 

Ready to base your advertising plan on consumer insights? Create ads that drive sales by testing their performance. Discover all the possibilities the Zinklar platform offers, sign up, and try it out!

Each product or service is the result of a combination of attributes. For this reason, before launching a new product or service and optimizing an existing one, it is essential to analyze its attributes and identify which combination can be better received by consumers. For this purpose, a market study known as a Conjoint Analysis can be carried out.

What is a Conjoint Analysis?

A Conjoint Analysis, analysis conjoint, or multi-attribute model, is a quantitative market research technique that allows you to identify the relative value of each of the product features and the combination of characteristics that would be most successful among consumers preferences. Conjoint Analysis allows you to analyze the process of consumer choice and preferences, identifying how consumers form priorities when purchasing a product and service.

The analysis’s objective is to evaluate new launches and established products. In the case of existing products, it identifies the importance given by consumers, both current and potential, to the product’s characteristics and what most influences them at the time of purchase. In the case of innovations, the model makes it possible to identify the characteristics most valued by consumers, minimizing risks and ensuring the product’s success.

We are all consumers, and when we buy, some features weigh more heavily on us than others when deciding on one product. Perhaps we are willing to pay more for a more airtight package, or we prefer to spend less, and the size of the product is smaller. The combination and importance of these factors and how they affect our purchasing decision is what Conjoint Analysis analyzes.

For example, for a dairy company preparing to launch a new yogurt, Conjoint Analysis allows it to identify the level of preference for each of the possible combinations of characteristics (type of packaging, flavors, price, size, etc.) and how these may affect the purchase decision. 

It is, therefore a multivariate analysis that allows us to answer, for example, the following questions: 

• Which attributes are most relevant to the consumer?
• Which characteristics or options determine the purchase decision?
• What is the level of preference for each of the combinations?
• Which combination of attributes presents the most significant sales potential?
• What is the optimal product price?
• Segmentation of potential customers

When is it useful to conduct a Conjoint Analysis?

Conjoint studies can be applied in different sectors and for any product and service type. A service, is especially relevant in the case of:

• Launching or redesigning a new product, aims to increase its probability of success.
• Predicting consumers’ buying behavior and knowing which characteristics they value most, as well as the weight of these in the purchase decision. For example, when buying a cell phone, an example of conjoint survey question would be what does the customer prioritize: camera, screen resolution, size, price, etc.?

Types of Conjoint Analysis

There are different forms of Conjoint Analysis but the most common, which differ mainly by the type of design, are:

1. Choice Based Conjoint Analysis (CBC)

Multi-attribute model that allows to understand the attributes and options that move the consumer to product choice. It is a widely used type of analysis since it is a purchase simulation where the consumer, from different predefined scenarios, chooses the combination they would buy after analyzing the characteristics of each of the proposals presented.

2. Adaptive Conjoint Analysis (ACA, also known as ACBC) 

A multi-attribute model that allows us to understand the differences and factors that move consumers to choose between different brands. The ACA is suitable for studies with many attributes and competing brands. In this case, we also work with a purchase simulation. The difference concerning CBC is that there are no predefined questions, but the survey is based on the answers given by the consumer.

How to make a conjoint analysis?

Before performing a conjoint analysis, it is necessary to determine the product’s attributes and main levels or options to generate an experimental model as efficiently as possible. The aspects to be taken into account are summarized in 7 points:

• Select the relevant attributes within the category. The greater the number of attributes, the more complex the study will be, so it is recommended not to choose more than six attributes.

Different qualitative research methods, can be used to select them, as well as consulting with the team that created the product or gathering information. For example, in the case of a yogurt launch, the relevant attributes could be the type of packaging, price, and size.

• Select the levels or options for each attribute. That is, select the possible options for each of the defined attributes. For example, packaging (glass, cardboard, plastic), size (100g, 110g, 120g), etc… For this, it is important to take into account:

– The characteristics presented by the competition (in the case of existing categories).

– Try to minimize the levels to simplify the consumers’ evaluation.

– Consider, as far as possible, working with the same number of levels or minor differences, thus ensuring the model’s effectiveness.

• Determine the combination of attributes and levels that we would like to evaluate. The process of selecting the combinations of features and levels is known as experimental design and requires extensive statistical and mathematical analysis.

To present an agile and dynamic consumer survey, thus ensuring the most efficient experimental model possible, a maximum of 25 attribute combinations is recommended, although ideally no more than 16.

• Prepare the questionnaire to show the consumer the products with their combinations to be tested. It is necessary to determine how we will show the stimuli and whether we will use images or descriptions (in the measure possible, it is advisable to display images).
• Design the survey data collection procedure. At this point, the products are presented in different scenarios to a representative market sample to be evaluated according to the Conjoint Analysis model chosen.
• Select the computational method to obtain the necessary insights. Using statistical analysis techniques, the analysis utility values or partial utility, i.e. the importance values of the attributes, are determined. 

Scores that measure how much each characteristic influences the consumer’s decision-making process. 

• Evaluating product options. Once the utility values have been obtained, we can conclude which product presents the most significant sales potential. And which combination of attributes and levels is the most attractive to the consumer, what market share the product would obtain, what its sales projection is, and which segment of the population we should target.

 

Like any market research technique, Conjoint Analysis presents its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of Conjoint Analysis

Conjoint analysis is a powerful tool that provides us with a wide range of consumer decision-making information. Its advantages include: 

• Choosing the most valuable attributes for consumers to position a brand. 
• Identify the influence of an attribute on the purchase decision. 
• Estimating the success of a product before its launch. 
• Calculate the potential market share of a new product. 
• Decide on the optimal price for a product. 
• Segment the market in relation to the attributes of a product.  
• Identify which product is likely to be most successful in the market. 

Disadvantages of Conjoint Analysis

The multi-attribute model is a valuable but complex tool to design and implement. Hence, it is necessary to have knowledge of the technique or rely on specialized advice to perform the analysis. 

As for its disadvantages as a research tool, I would point out that it can only be used if more than two attributes and two levels or options for each attribute are being considered. Also, the model presents limited options from which respondents are forced to choose.

In any case, if this type of analysis does not meet your objectives, there are alternatives that can help you get the insights you need quickly and efficiently. Through the Zinklar platform, for example, you can carry out different projects always accompanied by a team of experts. Would you like to discover all the possibilities offered by the platform? ¡Sign up and try it out!

The design of advanced controls to ensure data quality has become more important as insights platforms adoption grows. Automation has simplified market research and reduced the time and cost needed to create surveys. For the results to be reliable and useful to make decisions with confidence, it is very important to build in as much market research expertise in the platform as possible to guide experts and non-experts through the process.

How is data quality measured in a survey?

There are three elements that have a major impact on improving data quality in a survey:

Market Research proficiency

Research proficiency is the combination of knowledge of the research techniques and the ability to translate that understanding into technology and innovation. This combination is paramount to successfully managing online research platforms.

An advanced Customer Success team will provide advice and guidance to clients at any stage of the process. The market research expertise is equally or even more valuable when developing features in the platform that builds in this expertise in the internal processes. With Zinklar’s insights platform, anyone, whether or not they are experts in market research, can conduct advanced high-quality surveys.

Engaged respondents

Another factor that determines the level of data quality is the degree of engagement of the respondents. It is important to make participation as easy as possible by designing dynamic and short studies (the average duration of Zinklar studies is 9 minutes).

From the outset, Zinklar has opted for a mobile research approach for surveys, as it has several advantages: 

• Higher representativeness, as mobile phones have higher penetration than computers.
• Speed and real-time results
• Richer user experience
• 3 times higher conversion than traditional methodologies
• Higher engagement of respondents
• Higher quality insights

Respondent management and fraud detection

The source and characteristics of the sample also directly impact good data quality. Not all respondent sources are the same, and it is essential to have the expertise to detect and avoid bad practices such as fraud.

At Zinklar, we work with the world’s leading sample providers, continually auditing their strict quality programs and compliance with industry standards. We also apply advanced AI solutions to detect and remove any respondent presenting suspicious or inconsistent behavior. These respondents are removed before being added to the survey results. 

The consequences of not evaluating data quality through ongoing control systems can create an undesired impact on business results.

 

Zinklar has the highest and more strict quality controls in place to ensure the quality of your survey – find out more here!

Sara Green has worked in FMCG for 24 years, across sales, category, and insight. She has experienced firsthand the impact of solid consumer quality insight on product development and stakeholder engagement. She is currently the Global Head of Insight & Category Centre of Excellence for Bahlsen biscuits. Before joining Bahlsen, she was the Head of Insight & Innovation for a leading UK bakery brand, where she first discovered Zinklar platform.

What are the current challenges in market research?

Nowadays many companies experience challenges around:

• Budget
• Confidence in findings
• Opportunity/ability to commercialize findings
• Managing competing internal perspectives

And, in many ways, we have too much information, too much data, and too much to analyze. For internal teams, trying to keep the finger on the pulse can be challenging. And often, you have studies that answer many questions but don’t always tell you what you need to know.

Is it increasingly difficult to find quality insights?

It can be challenging to get quality insights without waste. It is very tempting to expand the scope of a study, continually add layer upon layer of questioning, but it extends timelines, adds cost and you need to know where to draw the line.

You must be very specific when entering any insights program. What is your objective? Is it an explorative study or a consolation one? It is important to know your objective and carefully plan what you need to explore.

It is also important not to waste opportunities to build insight. Every time you speak to a consumer, ask them a question; it will expand your thinking. If you’re in the food industry, for example, and running a sensory test, think about what killer questions you might add at the screening stage, are there any questions that you could add to the end of the study? Being resourceful can save you time and investment. Another example; if the sales team is going to speak with a customer, it’s really useful to get their perspective on the market; what do they think? What do they want to know? If you are constantly curious you will always find inspiration, and that leads to answers.

How often do you need to obtain insights to make decisions? 

Very often. Deadlines are becoming shorter because the industry is changing so quickly. Sometimes you don’t have the time to be as curious as you might like, and you have to balance the strategy of your business and the volume of quality insight. You need to be discerning. And that’s why having great systems and great agency partners, together with a high-quality internal insights team, can do wonderful things, because you have the experience, intuition, and knowledge of an industry or a product. 

The critical thing is you have to be comfortable that the decisions you are taking for your business are the right ones, to ensure that investment is being made in the right areas. 

In Insights, is recurrence or speed more important?

It depends on the brief. If you have a meeting on Friday and you need to present, speed is more important, but if you need to know how the perception of a brand is changing over time, you need to ask the question regularly.

 

“You have to be comfortable that the decisions you are taking

for your business are the right ones”

Prioritization is super important. How do you know where you need to focus?

A precise business, sales, and marketing strategy are essential because, without that framework, it is very easy for research to go off in many different directions and uncover a million interesting things. Sometimes without a clear perspective on how to use them.

The insights team must work closely alongside sales, marketing, manufacturing, etc., to understand all the elements of what is going on and what is possible, pull it all together and anticipate for future months and years.

How do you build a business case to show the need for market research to senior executives?

In every business, when you have ideas of what kind of initiatives may succeed, you can get a lot of information from a variety of sources: news headlines, consumer trends, feedback from retailers, market research reports… and build a picture about what is the right thing to do.

There are a few essential things you need:   

• Confidence that the initiative you are proposing will work. That is why you need consumer feedback.
• Evidence that the initiative will succeed for your business, in order to give reassurance internally  
• The ability to persuade and convince trade partners that you understand consumer’s thinking and motivations

How many teams are involved in that process? 

The impact of consumer quality insight can be felt across many departments of an organization, and all teams should be involved to one extent or another: 

• Senior leadership: they have the responsibility for the entire business. They are the ones who must decide where to prioritize investment to reach business objectives. 
• Sales: they need to have confidence in any proposals 
• Marketing: they need to know what will work for their brand in order to drive growth and market share
• Innovation: they need to know what will be the ‘next big thing to grow markets’, categories, and brands
• Category management: need to understand consumer and shopper behavior, then integrate the learnings with retailer strategies, in a way that benefits the whole category 
• Finance: need to understand the current and future impact of commercial initiatives and be satisfied they can be delivered profitably
• Operations & Supply Chain – need to know the ‘direction of travel’ to ensure that they can plan for and invest in an appropriate infrastructure

Can you explain the process of collecting insights related to a new product launch?

You start by being curious, exploring a number of areas: consumer behavior, trends, what people are looking for, and what’s missing. Then you start to build the picture of where you could go. Ultimately, you can then begin to test concepts with consumers to see which ones work. It is important to consider:

• What can you physically produce as a business right now? 
• What can you do in 3 years?
• What can you do in the next ten years?

From these answers, you can then test in more detail. 

How are you using quality insights to plan for large macro factors impacting the daily life of the consumer such as increasing inflation rates?

It’s tough to anticipate the duration of any macro changes within a market. You can think of what happened at a similar time. Related to the increase in the cost of living, you can think about consumer behavior in 2008. But we are in a different world, and various driving factors exist. For example, in 2008, we were not living with a pandemic. 

We can make assumptions about what can happen, but we don’t know. Also, there are limitations on how businesses can respond to the changes. It isn’t easy. Sometimes the insights you gather will be related to things that you know you can’t change. There is little point in finding out what will happen next week if you know you can’t change anything. It’s important to plan ahead wherever possible. 

 

“With Zinklar I discovered a way to enhance

our insight capability and improve it”

In these situations, how can a platform like Zinklar help?

Within the Zinklar platform one can create questionnaires easily and get the answers in a few hours, this is so useful. It’s also easy to design a study that goes across multiple markets within a short time frame. Zinklar can benefit insight teams by removing wastage from the process.

Examples where an insights platform can be really useful

People who have managed market research projects will know how much thought, time, and effort goes into the study design. They will also know that it cannot be all things to all people. 

I’ve often sat in a debrief where someone says, “Did you ask the consumer XYZ?” Often these questions arise after the initial study has unveiled a real nugget of insight. Invariably the answer to this question suddenly becomes the essential missing piece of the jigsaw on which your project relies. 

Then there are the times you need a few nuggets of consumer insight quickly, certainly not enough for a full brief, but you need the information soon. Maybe you’ve developed two flavors, salt caramel, and toffee chocolate, for example, and you need to know which one would be preferred and by whom.  

Another example is when you’ve attended an internal meeting, and now you need to know the answers to some critical questions before internal stakeholders can align on a particular course of action. 

 Why did you decide to use the Zinklar insights platform?

The benefit of using the platform was obvious from the outside, and the Zinklar Account Manager understood what I needed right from the outset. Often, it’s difficult to establish how some services or agencies can add value. This was not the case with the Zinklar platform. With Zinklar, I discovered a way to enhance our insight capability and improve it.

What are the benefits of using the Zinklar platform? 

The most valuable benefit of Zinklar is the ability to respond quickly to retailer requests. If a retailer asks a question relating to the category or the market, it’s possible to run a study the next day and be in a position to deliver a full debrief within a week to ten days. This means we can prioritize and take action incredibly quickly.

It is also helpful for scoping out the right product, targeting the right consumer, and helping us to understand where we have to delve into a particular area. 

We don’t get hours and hours to discuss opportunities with partners because everybody is short of time. We have to make sure that when we have 45 minutes to an hour with the stakeholders, we have to highlight the important elements of why the initiative we want to launch is the right one. Zinklar has been absolutely fantastic in helping to build robust selling stories, giving us confidence in that we are doing the right thing.

Even alongside more traditional studies, Zinklar adds value. You can go back to ask things you didn’t ask before and fill those gaps in your knowledge. Particularly useful when you don’t have the time or the resources to conduct another study. 

How easy is it to use the Zinklar platform?

Super easy. Despite not coming from an agency background, I found the platform incredibly intuitive and easy to use. The expertise of the Zinklar team genuinely adds a lot of value. It’s just an absolute pleasure to work with them.

What I like most about Zinklar is that you can get results in any sample you like, in any market you like. Other options I have tried have not been as flexible. Zinklar allows you to launch projects more efficiently, easily, and with less investment. The efficiency of Zinklar’s platform is absolutely fantastic.

It’s quite a big commitment to change the way that you do things, especially when you don’t have the time to make mistakes or re-do things. So I really enjoy working with Zinklar because it has slotted in alongside existing working practices and filled in a lot of gaps, without being disruptive. My observation is that it has genuinely made things easier for the teams that use it. 

What features are more useful for you?

The screen out questions because they allow you to invest just in the opinions you need to know. Avoiding wasting time and resources.   

What recommendation would you give to someone in the industry who is not using a platform like Zinklar?

The most significant benefit of working with Zinklar is that it genuinely does what it is designed to do.  The system is well-designed and intuitive to use and I have always had expert support on hand when needed. 

I tell everybody I work with in my industry to at least go and explore the Zinklar platform. It’s not designed to replace existing insight capability, but more to sit alongside it and enhance overall outputs. I would encourage anybody to discover what Zinklar can offer and then consider how it can add value to their business. 

 

Discover the potential of Zinklar’s quality insights platform Book now a demo

The concept test is one of the most common market studies and a fundamental tool to ensure innovation success. In this article, find out what it is and how to start creating product concept tests quickly.

Idea generation

Numerous market studies will allow us to identify unmet needs and opportunities for which we can design new products or services. Any exploratory phase studies, usage and attitude studies or brand positioning studies can help us identify ideas for new products and services. The best ideas will form part of an innovation project that will progressively gain detail by adapting to the preferences and requirements of the market, the context and the target audience. 

Precisely to select the best ideas and to obtain key information to help define the details of the product or service, it is important that in the initial stages, a concept test is carried out to help maximize the chances of success. Do you know what this type of market research consists of? Read on!

What is a concept test?

A concept test or proof of concept is a market study that is carried out to find out the degree of acceptance of an idea among the public. In other words, it consists of presenting a concept to the audience and asking them questions to find out what their impression of it is, whether it has a place in the market, whether they would buy it, and how it could be improved to make it even more successful. 

In a concept test, questions can be asked on any aspect related to the concept: name, price, format, etc. Doing so allows you to adapt the features of the product or service to the target market preferences and to know which aspects are welcomed and which are rejected.

The insights that can be gained from a concept test are very valuable to define a successful launch and minimize the risk of continuing to work on existing product ideas that are not very successful or even launching new products that fail, causing economic damage or even damaging the brand value.

Benefits of a concept test

A concept test provides you with key information that will allow you to make the best decisions to ensure the success of your launch. With a proper test, you will be able to:

• Evaluate multiple concepts. It is the first contact with the public, so collecting feedback on the proposed idea and its essential characteristics is essential.
• Optimize the product or service. Not only does it let you know if the details defined to date manage to convince your audience, but you can also improve acceptance with the feedback gathered in the study.
• Identify related consumer segments. Through a concept test, you can identify the most committed audience to your product that you can reach more easily and successfully.
• Estimate purchase intent and sales. Knowing how a product will be received helps to establish more precise and real sales targets.
• Plan communication. Obtaining feedback from the audience in relation to the main aspects of your product or service is essential to define the best communication strategy to have an impact on them.
• Eliminate ideas that are bound to fail. A concept with little potential can mean a bad reputation, so it is important to sift out concepts with little potential in the early stages.
• Minimize economic risks. Commercializing a product is costly, so it must be done with guarantees of success and viability. A small investment in a concept test will always be much less than the cost of investing in the development and launch of a product or service that fails.

Concept testing as part of innovation research

Concept testing is carried out in the early stages of the research process, between the generation of ideas and the later stages when all the details of the research are being defined. To ensure that all decisions made progressively go in the right direction, it is very important not only to do the concept test but also to evaluate specific aspects of the product or service during all phases of product development. For this, there are other market studies that Zinklar allows you to carry out in an agile way:

• Naming test: it is used to find out if the chosen name reflects the personality and values of the brand. This way it is easier for the consumer to connect with it.
• Logo test: logos are the identifying element of a brand and should reflect the brand’s values and personality. Not conveying the right message can be a big mistake, so it is important to define a logo that has the desired impact. It is important for this type of test to use images that can be used to create heat maps.
• Product test: allows different final product options to be evaluated in order to choose the one that best suits the tastes of consumers and users. 
• Packaging test. If the product is going to be marketed in packaging, you can always evaluate different materials and design alternatives to find the most attractive option.
• Price test: evaluating different price alternatives and promotions is an effective way to measure their impact on the intention to purchase the product or service. 
• Advertising test. Although advertising is a complete branch of market research, on many occasions innovation processes will be supported by campaigns that it is also important to evaluate to ensure that they are effective in publicizing and conveying the benefits of the new product or service. Nowadays it is possible to evaluate all types of advertising campaigns, at different stages of development, from storyboards to final executions and in all types of advertising media. 

When to carry out a concept test?

The right time to conduct a concept test is in the early stages, when several ideas have already been identified but no investment has yet been made in the development of prototypes. This saves time and resources, as ideas with less potential can be discarded and efforts can be concentrated on further developing the target audience’s favorite concepts.

It should be borne in mind that it is not necessary to have defined in full detail the characteristics of the product or service – specific aspects can be further evaluated as the process progresses – but it is important that the concept is sufficiently developed so that the target audience can fully understand the concept and its main features.

Concept testing methods

There are different methodologies for concept testing. Choosing the most appropriate one will depend on the research objectives to be covered. A monadic test will allow each concept to be assessed separately so that exposure to a first concept will not influence the perception of the others. If only one product or service is to be launched in the end, this type of concept test is much more similar to the situation faced by the consumer who will not be able to see the other products that may have been created. 

A monadic concept test survey will also allow for a more detailed understanding of how to continue to improve the concept in subsequent phases since by evaluating only one single concept, it is possible to spend more of the questionnaire time collecting this type of information. On other occasions, mainly when the number of concepts to be evaluated is large, it may be interesting to carry out a comparative concept test that will allow us to quickly and efficiently sift through the concepts with the greatest potential. Find out more about the different methodologies for concept testing in our article on monadic, comparative and sequential monadic tests.

How to do a concept test with a concept testing platform

To do it, you have to take into account different aspects: 

• Define the target audience. Depending on the type of product or service, it is necessary to define the desired characteristics of the sample in order to address our target audience as directly as possible. With Zinklar you can choose the sample based on demographic criteria, you can include filter questions to segment the population of your interest or you can even access directly more than 2,000 profiles already created that will help you to carry out the study on those people that really matter.
• Choose the best methodological alternative. Depending on the objective and needs of the study, you should choose to carry out a monadic, sequential monadic or comparative test. If you have doubts about which methodology to choose, you can always contact our team of research experts who will guide your steps according to your needs.
• Create the questionnaire. With Zinklar you can create your own questionnaire by choosing a concept test template designed by our team of experts or you can create your own study from scratch to suit your needs. If you choose the latter option, it is important to think carefully about the aspects to ask, what options to offer, and what type of question is best in each case. With the Zinklar platform, you have all kinds of questions at your fingertips, from simple dichotomous questions to heat maps that allow you to display visual descriptions. 

Now you know all the details about concept testing – discover all the possibilities and create your own study with Zinklar’s concept test template! Get actionable insights.

Imagine going into a forest for the first time at midnight in an unknown place. There are bound to be many surprises, some of them not pleasant at all. This is the same situation for a company that wants to enter a new market and does not know how to do it. This company needs a torch to illuminate its first steps and to know under what conditions it will make its way. And this light is called market research.

Knowing what your target group thinks is essential when considering entering an emerging market. Zinklar’s insights platform helps democratize market research, so all kinds of companies can create agile, fast, and high-quality surveys. This was explained by the Founder & CEO of Zinklar, Jordi Ferrer, during the webinar Democratising insights to help every brand grow held together with Santander UK as part of the launch of the Santander Navigator portal. Zinklar has been chosen as the only insights platform to help companies expand internationally through Santander’s portal. 

What is market research?

Market research is the collection and analysis of information to obtain consumer insights and make decisions based on consumer preferences. There are different market research techniques and platforms. Zinklar is an excellent market research tool since it allows companies to conduct surveys in a few minutes and get the results in a few hours.

In the webinar, Federico Danielsen, Head of UK Growth, explained that Zinklar’s main objective is to provide companies with actionable insights to tap into new opportunities successfully. Cultural differences, and local consumption habits, are recurring challenges when entering a new market. Therefore, it is essential for companies to conduct preliminary research to understand the market, identify unmet needs, detect new trends, analyze the competitive environment, and uncover consumer preferences.

There are many factors influencing a particular market and all of them must be taken into account. Also, it is important to anticipate the implications of any sudden change, such as Brexit, inflation, or conflicts, in order to adapt quickly to the new environment. Knowing in advance how your buyer will react to any situation is crucial to success. Thus, customer-centric organizations, those that put the consumer at the heart of their decision-making, use research to give them a voice and to track their needs and preferences to continue thriving during those uncertain times. Check out our 5 tips to become an insights expert.

Benefits of market research

Market research is a very powerful tool that allows you to:

• Identify real opportunities for growth
• Minimize risks
• Make better decisions
• Put the consumer at the heart of the organization
• Meet consumers’ real needs

In the case of an international expansion, you may need to consider whether or not to open your own distribution channel, how to differentiate yourself from local competition, where to position your brand, how the consumer behaves or whether there is a market niche to target. You must answer all the questions that may determine your success and avoid assuming that consumers behave in the same way in any context and geographic area.

What’s better than validating all your ideas with your target group before implementing them? Getting all the answers before launching a product or service in a new market is amazing! In the webinar attendees were asked how often they ask their audience for feedback, and most of them said between 1 and 5 times a year. Through the Zinklar platform, businesses can connect with their consumers way more often in a very affordable way, and find the answers they need to succeed every single time. Can you imagine being able to ask your buyers every time you need to make an important decision?

Traditional vs. Agile Research

During the presentation, Federico explained the differences between traditional market research and innovative methodologies enabling access to real-time consumer insights like Zinklar.

Historically market research has only been accessible to organizations with higher levels of resources and technical knowledge. Therefore, many small-scale businesses didn’t have access to these tools. What if any company, large or small, could access all the insights they need quickly and intuitively? That is now possible through our platform which democratizes market research.

Zinklar, the real-time insights platform

The webinar also featured Rhys Clements, Head of UK Research & Insights. He showed how the Zinklar insights platform works and how easy it is to launch market research projects in just a few simple steps to get the insights you need to make decisions on the same day.

As experts in market research, we know how important it is to conduct studies before entering a new market. For this reason, we offer a platform that allows you to get insights from any target audience and start operating with complete confidence. You can gather behavioral data, buyers’ needs, existing competition, and a complete picture of the market.

With Zinklar, anyone can create market studies without being an expert. Our platform is very intuitive and we provide you with expert market research advice every time you need it. Do you want to start launching your own surveys? Enter Zinklar’s platform and discover all the options you have!

 

Did you miss the webinar? Watch a recording of the session now.

When conducting a market research project or a survey, it is just as important to think carefully about the questions to be asked – focused on the insights you need to obtain – as it is to define the profiles you need and what criteria they should meet. A consumer panel can help you find the right sample very quickly.

In Zinklar, for example, you can access respondents selected by the most recognized ESOMAR-certified providers in the industry. Or if you prefer, you can use your own audience with all the advantages of our platform. 

What are consumer panels?

A consumer panel is a representative sample of the population that participates voluntarily and regularly in market research projects and surveys. The owner of the panel has all the sociodemographic data of the participants, and in many cases, additional information that the panel members have agreed to share about their attitudes, their consumption of products, and services, their media behavior, or the equipment in their home. This information allows choosing the optimal sample to participate in any survey quickly since instead of having to gather these details each time, it is possible to select the appropriate filters to segment the desired participants. Interviewing the chosen sample generates data that allows knowing and analyzing the consumer and obtaining the necessary insights for optimal decision-making.

Always, before conducting a market research project, it is essential to ensure the quality of the sample and check that it is optimal. Do you know how? Don’t miss these 4 tips to ensure the quality of the sample in your studies.

 

Types of consumer panels

Consumer panels can be segmented according to the objective of the study and the criteria that the target audience of the product or service should meet, so the survey design is adequate to obtain the desired insights. For example, if a burger chain wants to launch a product test on a new vegan burger, it would not make sense to select someone who does not have these food preferences. If the person is not part of the target, it would not help to get the right insights into potential buyers.

In this sense, depending on the objective of the study to be conducted, there are different types of consumer panels that can be used:

Generic panels

These are large panels made up of many thousands – or even millions of people – that are used to create the most appropriate samples for specific market research projects. The sample who will answer each survey is selected to match the target audience and asked to answer a different set of questions on a different topic each time. Filters for gender, age, geographic area, and many other demographic details can be used to select the most appropriate sample. Through the Zinklar platform, you can also choose predetermined profiles that share specific and hard-to-find consumption habits.

Specialized panels

Instead of being made up of large, highly representative samples, they focus on a very specific type of target audience that is often difficult to find. This could be the case for people with a certain profession – such as in the health field – people who are at a specific point in the life cycle – such as pregnant women – or people who have very specific characteristics, such as being trendsetters.

Ongoing consumer panels for syndicated studies

 Sometimes people agree to participate in ongoing studies that collect continuous information on specific markets. A very common case is the FMCG purchase panels that collect continuous information on what consumers buy in supermarkets and other stores. There are also usage panels, that focus on obtaining very detailed information on how consumers use the products they have previously purchased, for example, about food consumption habits. On many occasions, the data from these studies are to be sold among different brands in the monitored industry.

In the market, it is possible to find other types of panels and audiences depending on the objective of the research to be carried out.

Who are the panelists or participants?

People who participate in a marketing research project are called panelists or participants. They are usually people from all demographic groups and their role is to provide information that is gathered through market research projects. Depending on the objective of the study, they are filtered to match a specific target group that shares characteristics or consumer habits. As a general rule, panelists receive compensation for participating in the study, either direct compensation, points of a loyalty program, or through other mechanisms.

At Zinklar we work with the world’s leading sample providers, and we continuously verify their quality programs and compliance with industry standards, to meet the needs of our clients. Through the Zinklar platform, you can connect with a wide and representative audience, select from over 2,000 predefined profiles and receive 100% relevant responses. If you want to create your own segmentation, you can include screen-out questions)at the beginning of any market study Enter the Zinklar app now and discover all the advantages it offers you!

Uses of consumer panels

Market research has infinite applications and any company in any industry can benefit from it. It is useful to check the opinion of your target audience, but also to better understand their behavior, evaluate their experience, monitor purchase patterns, discover trends, build segmentations, etc.

With a platform like Zinklar you can choose the type of survey you want to conduct, whether it is a simple study, a monadic test, an international study, or tracking. All you have to do is define the audience you need to connect with, select the type of research to do, and reflect on the questions to ask. All this will take a few minutes and you will get the insights you need in just a few hours.

Pros and cons of consumer panels

Consumer audiences and panels help to understand consumer behavior and purchasing behavior in order to make decisions. Some of its main advantages are:

• It is an effective tool to obtain immediate responses as participants have been previously recruited and can be segmented quickly.
• The information collected is of higher quality. Engagement and loyalty programs help to keep consumers engaged by involving them in the process of defining new products.  
• They have a high response rate.
• They allow you to ask more questions to the same consumers again to understand if their attitudes or habits evolve over time.
• The budget can be optimized, as consumers who are difficult to reach can be accessed very directly.
• Can be used for consumer research in any industry. 

The major drawback of consumer panels is that sometimes the information needed to create very specific profiles may not be available. To overcome this, with the Zinklar platform you have different demographic filters (age, gender, geographic area, and more) and more than 2,000 predefined profiles so you can work with a very specific sample of your target. In addition, you can also discard participants from previous projects that have already responded. Finally, with Zinklar you can also use screen-out questions to ensure that you get an audience that is completely appropriate for your target.

Check out the possibilities offered by the Zinklar platform and get real-time insights. Create your account and find the sample of your interest for your next study. 

Consumer-centric brands need to know their target audience’s opinions, needs, and preferences. And for this, different market research tools allow users to obtain the necessary insights to make better decisions. One of these methods is the omnibus survey. 

What are omnibus surveys, and how do they work?

The word omnibus comes from Latin and means “for everyone,” that is, for collective use. In marketing, omnibus surveys are a quantitative research tool used to reduce the costs of setting-up small surveys. In an omnibus survey, different companies contract a limited number of questions that form one single questionnaire. When the survey fieldwork finishes, each client receives the results of their own questions. This way, research access is facilitated, speeding up the process and reducing costs. 

Characteristics of omnibus surveys

The omnibus survey is a flexible, fast, and cost-effective tool used to carry out a market research survey or an opinion poll to obtain information from the public on any topic. Market researchers use it to identify new trends or needs that have not been covered, to know the perception of the brand or a product or service, to segment users to find the buyer persona, and many more.

The most common data collection methodology is online interviews, although it is still possible to find omnibus surveys based on telephone or face-to-face interviews.  The survey will launch as a one-off or several times to compare evolution. 

Most omnibus surveys target national representative population samples – that way every company can include questions on it. The demographic data is the only part of the survey that is shared among the different clients of the omnibus survey.

Advantages and disadvantages of the omnibus survey

The omnibus survey is a market research technique that has different pros and cons, so the suitability of its implementation must be analyzed case by case.

Pros:

• Reduced cost, since it is shared among different companies
• Speed, since it is straightforward to include questions and the results are gathered in a short space of time

Cons:

• Sample cannot be customized
• They are not suitable for studies targeting hard-to-find populations
• Not recommended for long-term studies or when the topics are sensitive

Alternatives to omnibus surveys

Omnibus surveys have been a useful method for a long time for efficient small studies, however, today there are solutions that maintain their advantages without presenting the drawbacks of this methodology.

Through an insights automation platform like Zinklar, you can save time and resources by connecting to over 140 million consumers from 80 countries. Users can choose from a national representative or segment the audience from over 2000 predefined profiles. Anyone can easily create high-quality and intuitive surveys using pre-built guided templates, the questions library loaded with 24 carefully curated questions, or creating a survey from scratch with 12 questions, including video answers, heat maps, and more. The results from studies are available to view life, and most projects close within four hours. In addition, you have advice from research experts every step of the way.

Do you want to see for yourself? Create your account and launch your survey right now by accessing the Zinklar platform.

Barbara Schandl, Insights Lead SnackFutures Innovation from Mondelez

 

Day two is underway at Quirks Event London with a brilliant session from Barbara Schandl, Insights Lead SnackFutures Innovation from Mondelez. Barbara told the audience when you work in insights, you need to bring in your business understanding, the trends, and the forces by reading and staying curious about the market. 

Barbara opened the session by describing herself as a person who has a natural curiosity about people and the world. She began by referencing a 2016 report by the Boston Consulting Group that stated market research is the number one priority in most organizations. However, her curious side rightly added that a newer post-pandemic report would benefit the industry. 

(Image: Barbara Schandl presenting her session)

The primary approach from Mondelez is focused on being agile with a desire to learn what is needed at the moment. Furthermore, to gather insights that help the business learn and move forward. To maximize this process, she recommended inviting consumers to co-create on projects as valuable.

She finished the session by stating, ´When you work in insights, you need to bring in your business understanding, the trends, and the forces by reading and staying curious about the market.´

BV Pradeep – Global VP of consumer insights, Unilever & Jeannine – DS Smith

 

Next on the schedule was a discussion between BV Pradeep – Global VP of consumer insights, Unilever and Jeannine – DS Smith, Jeannine Ferguson Marketing and Innovation Director, North Europe. This session focused on understanding the future consumer, explicitly focusing on the next ten years. 

BV Pradeep started the session by encouraging the audience to learn about China´s rapid growth in e-commerce. He told an interesting anecdote about a consumer in Asia who was convinced that purchasing their fresh produce online was more convenient and ultimately, the food was much fresher than being store-bought. He stressed the importance for researchers to spend time speaking with consumers in their home environments.

In addition, he provided four key factors that insights professionals should direct their attention towards within the example of purchasing food. 

1. Convenience – how easy the product is to purchase

2. Time to delivery 

3. Freshness –  the consumer wants to know how the freshness of meat & veg

4. Shopping experience

Jeannine added that 80 to 90 % of people had an experience with online shopping, and previous barriers to entry are being jumped over. She agreed with her fellow panelists and stated Europeans should be looking at the activities in China to understand how to maximize technology for accelerating online sales for e-commerce brands. 

The discussion moved on to the importance of packaging; Jeannine stated a focus should be on making sure packaging decisions are put further forward on the strategic plan in the next five years. Too many times in the past, Jeannine comments that packaging was a late-stage decision and not given the same focus as other areas. 

The final takeaway from both panelists was to summarize their thoughts into three key takeaways:

1. Understand that touchpoints are changing for consumers

2. Focus on sustainability; people want to know brands are helping the planet

3. Omnichannel, omnichannel, and omnichannel – thinking about each area’s possible touchpoints and planning.

Daniel Siddle, Senior Consumer and Brands Insight Manager at Molson Coors

 

The final session covered today was by Daniel Siddle, Senior Consumer and Brands Insight Manager, Western Europe, Molson Coors. Daniel took us on a journey about launching a new beer amid a global pandemic. He stated how important it was to him and his team to deliver modern, fast, and agile research at the correct time.

(Image: Daniel Siddle presenting his session)

He began by stating the three objectives his team had at the beginning of the project:

• Drive belief
• Build out brand proposition
• Help the brand team execute 

One of the specific areas highlighted by Daniel at Quirks Event was around the Chulapo Challenge – a source of intrigue for UK potential customers. It was important for Molson Coors to ensure that this personality resonated well with the market and that they understood the symbolism. 

(Image: the chulapo challenge)

Daniel explained that they conducted concept testing using a monadic approach to understand packaging options better. The objective was to iterate quickly through different concepts and make accurate decisions.

The beer launch has been a significant success, with the product rapidly gaining fame and recognition. 

Three Takeaways from Daniel:

• Focus on what matters
• Expect to iterate 
• Build belief of the customer 

Conclusion

 

The Quirks London event has been a phenomenal success, and it has been fantastic to see the industry so well represented by professionals from across the world. Check out how was Day 1 at the Quirks London event.

The Zinklar always-on insights platform is available for insight professionals, marketers, product managers, and anybody who desires to engage quickly and easily with their target consumers. 

 

Quirks Event London, the insights event, is a two-day gathering of client-side researchers featuring simultaneous tracks of 30-minute sessions on all aspects of marketing research. Adjacent to the session rooms, a lively expo hall forms the center of the action. In this day one highlights overview, we take a look at some of the key discussion points that came from selecting the talk tracks. 

The first observation of the insights event is that people are back in force. The footfall is incredibly positive; the not-so-distant memories of the past two years seem to be in the rear mirrors. 

 

Keith Bailey, Senior Insights Advisor at Transport Focus

 

The first session of the day at Quirks Event in Room 4 was by Keith Bailey, Senior Insights Advisor at Transport Focus. The session title, how do you communicate with passengers about future railway engineering works when there are no passengers? An enticing title about a subject that felt very personal to many people in the room. 

Keith began by setting the scene and reminded the audience of the UK lockdown timeline from the announcement on 16th March to avoid non-essential contact and travel to the 23rd March when the UK was put into lockdown. Keith described how he had plans to work on a project for an upcoming development at Kings Cross Station (London). The research was to gather the feedback of passengers that the upcoming works could impact. As the situation in March worsened, a challenge faced by Keith and his team at Transport Works was a reluctance from interviewers to distribute surveys as they were concerned about being near other members of the general public. A unique challenge for an even more unique set of events. 

The impact of passenger travel on UK trans was immense with a reduction in passenger figures from 15% of people traveling by train to 2%. One of the main factors behind this reduction was the introduction of working from home, and therefore the general commuter was not using their services. 

 

Jenny Kasher from Kellogs

 

Next up on the Quirks Event agenda was Jenny Kasher from Kellogs, who spoke in room 4 about Navigating the crisis: Pricing sensitivity amid inflationary pressures. The emerging potential financial crisis was a precise topic of interest, and Jenny was clear that at Kellogs, they are trying to respond rather than being reactive. The insights team is going back to their data points from the last recession in 2008/2009 to try and best prepare for a future financial crisis. One learning they have identified is the need to try and help their big bet brands and focus on Innovation and reach behind these areas.

Regarding pricing research, Jenny stated that we don´t necessarily have to think differently about pricing. She said that Kellogs has a lengthy product innovation process that often takes two and three years from ideation to launch. Due to this timeline and the unpredictable nature of the world today, pricing is a discussion that is being pushed further toward the launch date. It makes more sense for Kellogs to test this with a clearer understanding of drivers impacting the market. 

About the types of research conducted by Kellogs, Jenny told the audience that always-on and agile consumer perception is essential. With a focus on ensuring that they stay true to the core values of Kellogs – a place at the table for everyone. The final takeaway from Jenny was that researchers should be bold and set their own course. 

Tom Cole, Senior Insight Manager at BT

 

The UK brand theme continued with a stand-out session from the excellent Tom Cole, Senior Insight Manager at BT, about implementing journey NPS into BT. At the insights event, Tom explained how BT uses the Learn, Buy, Get, Use, Pay and Support method for gathering feedback from customers. 

Tom set the scene for the presentation by sharing the NPS results from BT – and also stated that this was public information. 

He explained that the customer is front and center of BT´s corporate strategy and recognized that transformation is required as a business. In 10 years, the telco business will be in a different place than it is today. Offering a stand-out customer experience is a differentiator that can help BT stand out from competitors. Tom explained the difference between a Relationship NPS program used in BT as a top-down approach. This broad survey takes place across all of their brands, focusing on the overall relationship with the customer. The transactional NPS is a bottom-up approach that helps them to improve the technical experience. The challenge was understanding the end-to-end journey i.e., a customer paying their first bill or CX for an engineer attending an internet-related issue.

Tom explained that they needed to identify data experts to navigate complexity, ensure they fully understood existing processes, and work with organizational decision-makers to set the project for success. The team at BT split the project using the LBGUPS model, Learn, Buy, Get, Use, Pay and Support. The surveys were automated and created to engage with customers at the correct time.  

Since BT launched a new NPS program the big outcomes from the start of the project: 

• Journey NPS data is embedded within the BT board level. 
• CX improvement plans are built from insights.
• Aligning to the new organization design.

 

Sara Green from Bahlsen

 

After lunch, the first session at Quirks Event was a Zinklar-led presentation with Sara Green from Bahlsen titled staying ahead of change: How to lead the transition to real-time insights. Sara kicked the session off by reminding the audience how great it is to be in a face-to-face environment. The discussion moved on to the change over the past two years. Sara told the audience that the retail market’s transformation and the speed at which everything has to be delivered are a key priority, with every insight needing to find its way onto the P&L. 

 

Sara Green used the Zinklar platform during her time at Hovis and now uses the platform in her more recent role with Bahlsen. She explained that Zinklar is an excellent platform for providing fast answers to questions impacting core success metrics. Within a day of receiving a specific requirement, she can use the Zinklar Insights platform to put a study in the field and analyze the results by the evening.

Furthermore, by using the platform regularly, Sara could present insights to commercial teams regularly, starting an always-on conversation. As more groups became interested in the insights process, the Zinklar platform could help the team receive answers from a targeted audience faster than ever before.

The Zinklar platform has allowed Sara Green to access multiple consumer insights at speed from a high-quality and reliable audience. Sara said it best herself the Zinklar platform makes her life easier and we couldn´t put it better ourselves. 

 

Ellie Inman, Consumer Insights Lead at John Lewis

 

The final presentation of the day at Quirks Event in room 4, led by Ellie Inman, Consumer Insights Lead at John Lewis, presented how the John Lewis Partnership is bringing always-on customer closeness into the spotlight to drive better, more confident, and agile decision-making. 

Understanding the consumers, hearts, and minds is critical for John Lewis. 

Five fundamental principles of their research principles:

• Illuminating, not replicating
• Feeling not hearing 
• Building instinct more than insight
• Fueling decisions not just interesting
• Restless, not off-the-shelf approach

The John Lewis team focus on participating in high-energy research feedback and has three rules 

Three rules for engagement: 

• Use the topic pipeline in line with the business plan
• Secure as many dates as possible in advance – or run smaller sessions
• Establish core point people for a senior leadership session

 

Conclusion

 

Day one was a fantastic collection of presenters from across various sectors. We could only cover 10% of the speakers in this short snapshot, but we hope it gave you an overview of some of the most prominent themes from day 1. Check out how was Day 2 at the Quirks event London.

The Zinklar team is at the Quirks event London, booth 109! The team can present how to create high-quality and intuitive surveys in minutes, gather responses in hours and deliver actionable insights on the same day all from one platform. Speak to the team to learn how to multiply your consumer insights and accelerate your success.  

How to ensure sample quality when conducting a survey has always been a key topic for researchers and marketers alike. Doing so ensures that the results yielded from the survey are accurate and high-quality.

Zinklar’s Sampling and Panel Online Access Advisor Efrain Ribeiro has recently conducted an investigation with the Coalition for the Advancement of Sampling Excellence, or CASE4Quality – of which he sits as a founding member. CASE’s study concluded that with the proliferation of sample providers, so has the rise of undesired responses. This means that more vigilance is needed overall. 

There are real steps that can be taken to ensure the maximum quality of the sample. While speaking at a recent webinar, Ribeiro presented CASE’s findings as well as some recommendations that work well to help all teams who are looking to ensure the quality of their data. Ribeiro says: “Today, there are multiple detection services that can aid in the identification and prevention of undesired respondents at a study level.”

A Solution to Ensuring Sample Quality

Zinklar has recognized this need and continues to take steps to ensure that for every study launched, there is a layer of protection incorporated into each step of the study. The platform makes use of cutting-edge AI technology that continually monitors sample quality, as well as partnering with top-quality panel providers to build in new layers of security at every level to minimize any possible deviation from quality standards and, thus, avoid survey fraud.

This is done through four key areas:

1. Selection of providers

Partnering with sample providers that can assure a quality sample set is key. To do this, Zinklar makes sure that our providers are ESOMAR-compliant during the vetting process. We only work with suppliers that have a demonstrated record of quality over time. Further, Zinklar always requires that they provide a transparent look into their quality process, and ensure that there is visibility into how they recruit clean respondents. At any failure during the quality check process, those panelists are removed. This is something that is taken very seriously, and as evidenced in the CASE study, is one of the most important starting points.

2. Controls within the survey

Throughout the survey, more layers of protection are incorporated. The surveys on the Zinklar platform make use of mobile-exclusive technology. Mobile surveys provide multiple benefits: from a much more representative sample to lower dropout rates. The controls are much more strict, and the length of the surveys is much shorter, which decreases the incidence of undesired respondents. Finally, with shorter surveys, the incentives are much smaller, which ultimately proves less attractive to attempts at cutting corners to get the reward.

3. Onboarding the users

The Zinklar onboarding process provides support in integrating users onto the platform. This includes getting users of the platform fully incorporated into not just how the platform works, but also empowering users to be more aware of possible quality checks they can incorporate to help them be an additional line of defense. This means providing clear guidelines and support about how to implement questions that can validate the quality of the responses, including clarity and attention checks.

4. Monitoring the results

Once the survey is complete, the results themselves provide clues to the next steps to take in the analysis of the veracity of the responses. Zinklar’s panel experts consistently work to monitor the results of survey responses, as well as utilize the platform’s algorithm to detect nonsense responses. This is a multi-point process that detects and removes any activity that acts against high-accuracy results.  

With Ribeiro and an expert team on sample quality, Zinklar is continuing to equip its platform with the latest technologies that ensure the data accuracy that brands can rely on. 

Learn more about Zinklar’s data quality protection, and see it in action for yourself by getting in contact with a member of our team today.

Brand awareness is one of the most common metrics in market research surveys. Discover now what it is, why you should care, and find out which are the right brand awareness questions you need to use in your next survey. 

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is the level of familiarity consumers have with a particular brand, its products, or its services. Brand awareness is one of the most used metrics in marketing and, therefore in market research, so it is important to know how it works and how it can be measured through surveys.

Let’s imagine that you want to subscribe to a music streaming service. Possibly some brands in your mind offer this service, and you may want to check their websites and see the details of their offer. At this point, maybe you will make your buying decision. If you are not ready yet, you may search for additional players and find some brands that you actually know but didn’t recall spontaneously and some others that would be completely unknown to you. All the marketing literature shows that the more familiar you are with the brand, the higher the possibility of buying from that brand. All consumer brands – and many B2B brands as well – measure brand awareness among one of the most important KPIs and use this information to make the necessary decisions to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Brand awareness is often seen as the first step in a purchase process and this is why many reputed brand equity models use this metric as a foundational one. Since brand awareness correlates strongly with purchase intention, every marketer should work on making their brands recognizable and memorable.

Measuring brand awareness through a survey

Market research surveys help understand how brand awareness evolves. These projects provide insight into what actions have been more successful in moving the needle of the gauge of brand awareness in the right direction.

There are three main types of brand awareness:

1. Unaided brand awareness or brand recall

It measures what percentage of a target audience is able to include a particular brand within the mentions when asked about a category.

2. Top-of-mind awareness

It is a particular type of unaided brand awareness. It is the first brand that comes to mind to the audience when asked about a specific category. Being consistently mentioned in the number one position is an indicator of preference and leadership in the category.

3. Aided brand awareness or brand recognition

Instead of asking the audience to build the list from scratch, they are presented with a list of options where they need to confirm or discard the brands they can recognize as players in that category.

Aided vs unaided awareness. Which one is better?

Both metrics are useful and how they are used depends on the size of the brand surveyed. Big brands tend to use both since they will provide complementary and valuable information. However, if the brand is small, the recommendation is to skip unaided awareness, which could only provide a handful of spontaneous recalls.

Survey questions to measure brand awareness

Let’s go back to the example of music streaming services, and let’s see how the different questions to measure brand awareness can be drafted.

1. Top-of-mind awareness

• What is the first brand that comes to mind when thinking about streaming music services?

2. Unaided awareness or brand recall

• Can you think of any other brands of streaming music players? – if you have used the top-of-mind awareness question.
• What brands come to mind when thinking about streaming music services? – if you have not used the top-of-mind awareness question previously.

3. Aided awareness or brand recognition

• Which of the following streaming music services have you heard of?

Please note that if you need more examples of questionnaires and questions for specific purposes, Zinklar’s platform provides you with both questionnaire templates for the most usual types of research as well as with question libraries to pick and choose the ones you want to use for your next survey.

Brand Awareness Custom Research vs. Brand Tracking surveys

There are two approaches to brand awareness research. Some brands organize a brand awareness survey occasionally. These surveys are beneficial when creating marketing plans to understand what effort needs to be done in the following months. They are also useful before and/or after important advertising campaigns. Many other brands use a Brand Tracking survey to continuously evaluate how brand awareness and brand effectiveness evolve. These brands use the results to make short-term decisions to decide the right levels of advertising investment and to measure how the different campaigns work toward brand awareness and brand equity objectives.

If you need advice from our team of research experts to configure your desired research, please contact us and we will be delighted to guide your steps into Zinklar to ensure you get the right measures of your brand awareness.

Choosing the most appropriate market research methodology is essential to obtaining the insights needed for decision-making. One of the first questions to consider after determining the study objective is whether it is better to opt for quantitative vs. qualitative research. Depending on the objectives we want to cover in the study, it will be better to opt for a quantitative market study, a qualitative study, or even a combination of both methodologies. 

Quantitative Market Research: What is it?

Quantitative research focuses on data collection and analysis. After defining the research objective, hypotheses are formulated about the topic, and a methodology is developed to test those hypotheses. Typically, surveys are used and shared with a representative sample of the population under study, or behavioral data are collected. The information captured is measurable and results in statistical data that allow the quantification of behaviors and attitudes of target audiences.

The benefits of quantitative research

• Efficiency
• The ability to test hypotheses
• Generalize results to broader population groups
• Anticipate possible future trends

When to choose quantitative market research?

Quantitative research is an excellent method when you want to make decisions based on objective figures. An example of a quantitative study could be a concept test to select, among several options, which would be better accepted by the public. Using a quantitative methodology, the concepts could be ranked according to their expected success to help the brand identify the winner. Another example would be an advertising pre-test to find out if a certain ad will be effective in meeting the objectives of the campaign. In this case, the results could be compared with other similar studies conducted in the past. If the metrics are similar to other successful campaigns, the brand could launch the creative with a high degree of confidence.

There are many other applications of quantitative research. Some examples would be measuring customer satisfaction, quantifying market opportunities, or determining the size of potential segments, among many other applications. 

In opting for quantitative research, the main criterion to consider is whether we need numerical data to make an informed decision. If the answer is yes, it would be interesting to consider this option to meet the research objectives.

Qualitative Market Research: What is it?

Qualitative research collects non-numerical information. In a recent study published, the methodology is described as “Qualitative research at its core, ask open-ended questions whose answers are not easily put into numbers such as ‘how’ and ‘why’.”

In the field of market research, the most commonly used qualitative research techniques are in-depth interviews and focus groups, in which a group of people with specific characteristics are gathered to find out their opinion on certain products and services. On other occasions, ethnographic studies are used to facilitate the understanding of reality through direct observation of the object of study in its natural and everyday context. 

A fundamental characteristic of qualitative research is that the information collected is not in the form of data, and requires interpretation by experts who finally make an evaluation and reach conclusions.

When to choose a qualitative market methodology?

Qualitative research is an optimal methodology to understand reality in depth. In many cases, companies need a baseline knowledge of a market or the habits or motivations of a population group before starting to formulate hypotheses. Qualitative research allows the development of individual or group conversations in order to obtain this basic knowledge.

Examples of qualitative market research might be habit and attitude studies (U&A surveys) to understand in rich detail how consumers interact with a particular category of products and services and why. Other qualitative market research may focus on the analysis of brand perceptions to learn how consumers choose brands in a category, at what times, and why. Qualitative research is also a great option for uncovering emerging market trends.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research: Which is better?

Both market research methodologies are suitable for obtaining valuable information for decision-making. Quantitative research will describe a situation with verifiable figures, while qualitative research will explain the reasons behind that situation in great detail. The choice of one or the other — or even a combination of both — depends on the needs to be met at any given time.

Quantitative research is widely used in a majority of market research studies, as demonstrated in the sector studies published by ESOMAR. However, in many cases, qualitative research is combined with quantitative research to obtain even better results:

• Exploratory research: When some brands do not know a market well, they often conduct qualitative research to better understand it and formulate initial hypotheses. In the second phase, quantitative research provides the data needed to validate or reject these hypotheses. Read some success stories about this research method.
• Complementary or “deep dive” research: On other occasions, a brand has been able to identify behaviors or attitudes through a quantitative questionnaire that it does not fully understand and decides to conduct a qualitative study to learn more about them before making decisions.

How to collect qualitative information through a questionnaire?

In addition to all the power of quantitative surveys, the Zinklar platform allows you to collect qualitative information through questions specifically designed to provide an in-depth understanding of consumers.

• Open-ended questions: Consumers do not choose among several pre-defined options but type text freely to answer the question. Zinklar incorporates artificial intelligence mechanisms to create word clouds that allow you to quickly see which topics receive the most attention in consumer responses. Manual analysis can also be interesting to get an even deeper understanding.
• Video responses: Sometimes, it can be interesting to ask for video responses, in which consumers themselves explain their views or demonstrate how they use certain products in their own environment. Video responses have the advantage of gathering more contextual information to understand the consumer even better.
• Heat maps: The newest addition to the battery of questions available on the Zinklar platform allows you to understand which points in an image receive the most attention or interest from consumers. This is ideal for evaluating packs or graphic campaigns.

Explore all the options Zinklar offers you to collect quantitative and qualitative information with our survey platform.

“The challenges for traditional market research: new data, stakeholders and methods” by Jordi Ferrer, co-founder of Zinklar, was voted as the best article of 2016 in Research and Marketing, in AEDEMO’s Annual Gala, celebrated on 30/03/2017. We reproduce the article here in full.

The main challenge of companies in Market Research is, precisely, to understand and take note of the fact that the definition and environment of the market in which they operate have changed radically in the last few years – and will continue to do so at the same rate that technology and society advances.

“Traditional market research” competes within a new market in which different types of information, data, technologies, and business models collide and are pushed to progress by disruptors (new or outside companies), that make traditional companies fall short. To guarantee their success, they need to adapt and integrate new measures fast.

Key Aspects of the New Market

The 3 main aspects that are innovating markets can be summarized by the following key perspectives.

1. New technologies, data, and information

Massive adoption of new technologies has generated a trove of new data sources that represent the consumer in systematic ways. Not only is this data recording “passive” activities, but it allows for direct contact and communication. Understanding the consumers’ attitudes and habits has never been easier.

These technologies and platforms allow us to record new types of data points and include mobile tools, location-based data, cookies and measures of online behavior, social media, online communication, sensors, neuroscience, Machine Learning, AI, and a long, etc. A lot of this information can be included within the label of Big Data.

2. New Consumers

With the adoption of digital technologies, mobile and social, the consumer shares a large part of the information (more or less consciously accepting a trade-off between their privacy and access to free or relevant content).

On the other side, consumers also adapt their expectations, especially in terms of their interaction with brands and companies. The expectation that these interactions will be adapted to their daily habits is a new way in which marketing needs to satisfy its target audience. By using mobile systems based on gamification, apps that offer a specific value when sharing their opinions or behavior with different brands, the consumer sets higher benchmarks for their interaction with brands. All this should be considered and reflected on when adapting systems of data collection among companies carrying out “traditional research”.

Finally, market research companies can’t continue to analyze and segment the consumer solely according to their socio-demographic or shopping profile, in the way that’s been done for 50 years. We must incorporate the social and digital dimensions of a person into market research, not just in order to help brands define their digital strategies, but also in order to inform overarching marketing and communication plans.

3. New needs

In this changing and competitive environment, brands, like their customers, also adopt new strategies and information systems to take decisions.

They require, increasingly so, more and more information; made accessible faster. Continuous information, that is cheaply and easily accessible and interpretable, will be essential in creating in-market strategies that can quickly read results and readapt accordingly. Large, longitudinal studies that take weeks to identify the failures of a strategy are now obsolete.
Brands need to realize that technology makes the consumer the ultimate resource, that can quite literally take “a seat at the table”, even in everyday, tactical decisions.

In this context, the normal value chain is quickly expiring. Technology facilitates a radical shift, and consumers demand and will continue to require it. Traditional research models will slowly fade out to serve only specific, niche needs of the client.

We’re currently experiencing a radical change from a traditional market research system, with long, slow cycles and where the data gathering, analysis, and action stages are clearly defined within a timeline, to a new and accelerated run-through of these processes. The traditionally stiff system means research conclusions are handled by brands months or weeks after they were requested, at which point they repeat the cycle.

This burdened model is becoming reduced to practically simultaneous and quick-paced stages of data collection, analysis, action, and measurement. Essentially, the industry is doing and requiring real-time research.

Challenges

Traditional market research companies don’t need to take a step back and play a secondary role in a shifting industry by, for example, providing information to DPMs (Data Management Platforms). They must take a step forward to take a central role in this change of paradigm within information industries.

It’s not an easy challenge, as both culture and having the skills to compete in this environment pose different issues from those that market research companies are usually accustomed to. A strong, lean start-up, innovative culture, and a solid comprehension and vision of tech and advanced analytics are all essential to finding a place within a shifting market. But most importantly, we need to encourage the capacity to think outside the box and put into question existing models of success in our environments.

The good news is that market research companies have, despite everything, the advantage of having the expertise required to face such challenges. Having in-depth knowledge of consumers and their attitudes, culture, and experience of culture, as well as the understanding of how far this information can be represented within a dataset and encoded in a survey, will continue to be one of the most prized talents of market research.

This advantageous starting point, combined with the recognition and acceptance of new trends and markets, will give market research companies the skill and drive to successfully adopt and define this change of paradigm.

Exploratory research is a market research study type that allows you to explore your category and find your target to design subsequent studies. Once that is completed, you can conduct in-depth consumer research into more specific subjects.

Our Exploratory Research Success Stories

To learn how some of our clients have carried out Exploratory Research studies and the results obtained thanks to the strategies implemented based on consumer insights, continue reading:

Case One: Category consumption exploratory research

In the first one, a toothpaste brand needed to come up with new value propositions in order to hold its privileged position in the industry. To do so, the brand considered following incremental innovation strategies and relaunching or substituting existing products, and so conducted a multi-country test covering every one of its target markets to find trends and opportunities to act on. Afterward, they launched a Concept Screening test, 4 Monadic studies, and a few Packaging testing studies. Through that process, they found a tendency in their audience of adding natural remedies to their tooth care products to achieve better results.

Based on this, the brand decided to launch a new product, which ended up causing +10% in global annual sales. Learn all about the complete Success Story.

Case Two: New target repositioning

In the second one, a multinational dairy product producer saw its sales hit rock bottom because of the massification of its product category and the little differentiation within it. To combat this, they decided to rethink their communication strategy and use a strategy based on supporting its ‘healthy’ brands.

The company launched several U&A studies, Exploratory Research, Concept testing, and Product testing, to understand their target’s purchase intent and consumption habits, which led to the redefinition of the target and the design and launch of 2 pilot new products. This ended up giving the brand an increase of 4pp in global market penetration. Learn all about the complete Success Story.

To learn more about Zinklar’s market research Success Stories, visit our page and learn how we helped world-class brands reach the next level and place the consumer at the center of their organizations.

Conducting innovation research is a fundamental part of launching a new product or service. Often, it takes identifying an opportunity in the market where consumers had a need that had not yet been met. That involves an in-depth understanding of consumers and here is where insights play a first crucial role. Once the first ideas have been identified, surveys like concept testing, product testing, and tests for specific elements of the marketing mix help brands to stay on track and maximize the success of the launch.

This in-depth understanding of consumers, jointly with a strong determination to make their ideas come to life, helped five brands that were ahead of their time to find untapped needs and make the leap into their innovations successfully, even when the odds seemed stacked against them.

1. The Body Shop

In 1976, The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick faced a lot of criticism for coming up with the idea of a natural cosmetics company. Long before the flagship store opened in Brighton, UK, Roddick discovered that there was already a significant female market willing to seek natural alternatives in the cosmetics industry. After testing her concept with her target market, Roddick had the insights she needed to take the leap to produce planet-friendly cosmetic alternatives.

Today, The Body Shop remains committed to its ethos: to offer natural, paraben-free cosmetics that positively impact the environment and promote the empowerment of women.

2. Nespresso

Forty years ago, in an effort to prove that the Swiss were capable of brewing a delicious, rich coffee, Eric Favre, a former Nestlé employee, designed the now-famous Nespresso coffee capsules. Favre launched his idea with two main objectives: First, to use technology to offer the highest quality of coffee, and then second, to turn that product into a lifestyle.

After an unsuccessful launch of the Nespresso machine in the service industry, Favre tested his product in the luxury goods sector. In the new market, he was able to find a taste for his coffee capsules, offering a delicious, convenient coffee option to enjoy at home. Today, we enjoy Nespresso in a whole new way, centered around a total customer experience built around consumer taste for a more conventional luxury coffee experience.

3. Apple

When Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne founded Apple in Jobs’ family’s garage, they never imagined the impact their idea would have worldwide. The first wave of this revolution came in 1984 when they launched the original Macintosh computer, which introduced the idea to people bringing the technology into their homes. The latest game-changing wave came in 2007 with the launch of the first iPhone, which brought that same innovative technology straight into people’s pockets.

Since then, there’s been no going back from the mobile technology that makes up so many of our daily experiences. Innovation research continues to be fundamental for a company that never ceases to tune in to the needs of its millions of users.

4. Netflix

Like many other stories, Netflix’s trajectory begins by chance: when its founder, Reed Hastings, rented a movie and the video store fined him for delivering it a few days late. He recognized that many people, just like him, could benefit from a more flexible movie-rental solution. What started out as a subscription DVD-delivery service has since become a multi-billion dollar streaming service that delivers content tailored to user tastes. And to this day, that giant shows no signs of slowing. And as evidenced by the growing catalog of international movies, series, and original productions, the platform regularly taps into its international users’ tastes by conducting innovation research and analyzing data to keep innovating its service offering successfully.

5. Impossible Foods

When Patrick O. Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, announced his idea to produce plant-based meat products; he faced vocal opposition, from many sides. Why would anyone want to ‘feel’ like they were eating meat without actually consuming it? But Brown held a vision of a healthier planet and was committed to creating a meat alternative that was good for the environment. Since its launch in 2017, the trademark Impossible Burger has met and surpassed expectations. With its worldwide success, it’s clear that Brown didn’t only stay true to his vision, but created a product that met the needs of conscious consumers who are changing their habits to make more sustainable steps toward the future.

These stories show that innovation is a great driver for growth and it can create whole new categories. Still, a great idea alone is not enough to succeed. Behind any success story, there is always innovation research involved to discover untapped needs, validate new ideas, and ultimately adopt new products and services to what consumers really want.

Zinklar includes a wide range of innovation research templates, including different types of concept testing, product testing, pack testing, price testing, and many more. That way you can test your innovations easily and with confidence. Discover the platform and explore it for yourself, or get in touch with our team to find out more.

As brands look to roll out a new product or campaign, they are often eager to learn if the new design will make an impact on consumers. In an ideal scenario, that impact is positive. And if not, it’s extremely useful to know why. Conducting a survey with a heat map question integrated is an incredibly useful way to measure that impact. Zinklar now includes heat maps in the repertoire of questions available when creating a questionnaire. Here we take a closer look at how this tool is helping brands dive deeper into insights.

What is a Heat Map? 

A heat map is a visual tool that allows brands to determine what image is making the most impact on their consumers and then identify how to improve this impact. Heat maps are frequently used in static ad testing, package testing, and usability testing, among many other use cases. Thanks to heat maps, brands can determine the effectiveness of their visual strategy and executions, and better understand the motivation behind the consumers’ choices. 

This is achieved by looking into how many times consumers clicked on or interacted with the image. The more density of touchpoints—or “hotspots”—recorded on the screen, the hotter the image looks, thanks to the cool-to-warm color spectrum that shows which part of the image or screen received the most attention.

 

What Are the Benefits of Heat Map Analysis?

Getting insights derived from the results of heat map analysis allows for a deeper understanding of the consumer experience. 

1. Qualitative Data Supporting Quantitative Data: It can be a challenge to create quantitative data from subjective questions. Analyzing the insights provided by a heat map is a useful way to collect qualitative data that is measurable and justifiable with data.

2. Data That Drives Conversion: It is much easier to use insights to inform your campaigns or your products when you have a targeted understanding of what is important to consumers. Ultimately you want your efforts to reach your audience in the ways that they are most likely to engage. Using heat maps combined with other methods of data analysis is a great way to do that. 

3. Get Access to Deeper Insights: Heat maps allow for a more nuanced collection of data. Beyond simply viewing a survey response from a set list of choices, using a heat map question in your survey will allow you to visualize the thought process behind users’ selections to answer your survey question.   

Types of Heat Maps

Market research can use different types of heat map questions to determine a brand’s visual impact. Choosing the right one is important for creating an effective survey. 

• Click Maps: Track what areas of a page or screen users are clicking on. In the case of a heat map question in your survey, this is useful to get insights from users by asking about specific points in the image they are most likely to engage with.
  

• Scroll Maps: Track how far users are scrolling down a page. These heat maps are helpful for measuring engagement with page content and what kind of content is most interesting to users.
  

• Hover Maps: Track the movement of the mouse as it hovers over a specific part of a webpage. If the movement of the mouse is an indicator of where people are spending their attention, then the cursor’s position and movement give valuable insight into where users are focused.
  

Use Cases for Heat Maps

Example 1: Improve the effectiveness of static ads

When it comes to ad testing, brands must make strategic decisions about each ad element their audience engages with. Using a heat map survey question as part of your ad pre-test is an intelligent way for brands to determine if their ad campaign is having the intended effect on their audience. That way, brands can easily keep a visual track of where consumers are likely to pause their focus on the ad.

Example 2: Ensure the success of a new package design

When brands want to launch a new package or product, it’s essential to ensure that consumers will quickly see what is intended in a quick look when buying in the shop aisles. Again, heat map questions are really useful to understand what part of the packaging attracts consumers’ attention, ensuring that the desired aspects of the package are even more visible, resulting in packaging that is more appealing to consumers overall.

Example 3: Launch of a new brand identity

Using a heat map survey question allows curious brands to put their new brand identity design in front of potential users to gauge where their attention goes and why. For example, if brands are looking to highlight certain aspects of a logo, they could get a deeper insight into if the design is effective or not.

Conversely, suppose a brand is curious about why its logo doesn’t seem to be making an impact on its audience. In that case, they can use heat map analysis to gain more insight into its inability to attract or sustain attention.    

How Does Heat Map Analysis Help Brands?

Heat map analysis has the potential to unlock the mystery behind consumer impressions of an image by giving brands a visual representation of what users are engaging with. Whether brands are testing static ads, new packages or new user interfaces, heat maps will provide valuable insights at a glance that will help them improve their executions.

Zinklar now includes heat map questions in all plans. Log in to the platform and try them out today!

Today, around 7.26 billion people own mobile devices. It’s a multi-purpose device from which we shop, consult our bank accounts, make restaurant reservations, interact with other people or consume all kinds of multimedia content. This figure is expected to grow steadily, which makes sense considering that we’ve collectively come to depend on our mobile phones to meet a significant number of needs in our lives. 

The constant and widespread use of mobile phones makes for countless benefits for conducting a mobile survey. Mobile surveys guarantee, among other things, speed, reliability, and convenience. This makes them stand out from other platforms such as computers, which are not readily available to a large part of the population.

At Zinklar, we have created a mobile survey platform that has the unique benefit of providing high-quality data in real-time. Let’s take a look at some of the additional benefits that come from mobile surveys and why we believe the future of market research is mobile.

Benefits of Mobile Survey

Read below the top 5 benefits of using a mobile survey:

1. Greater Representation Within the Sample

One of the key advantages of conducting surveys via mobile devices is the ability to reach very diverse audiences. The phone allows access to representative samples of all ages, conditions, and socioeconomic levels, which enriches the quality of the data compared to other platforms. Access to computer use presents a legitimate barrier to getting in contact with all users. Firstly, not everyone has access to a computer and, if they do, they have to make the time to be in front of the computer to answer the questionnaire. With a mobile device, it is always easier to find that moment between activities in which to do so. 

2. Faster Result Time

These days, who takes even five minutes away from their phone? Beyond the day-to-day capabilities of smartphones that we rely on, actually, mobile phones are the primary source of the internet for many people. So if brands want to reach the consumer faster and generate faster insights, the key is reaching people in their pockets. With mobile surveys, users can answer the survey in total comfort at any time, without having to wait to be able to sit in front of a computer. Data can be collected earlier, which speeds up decision-making.

3. Up-to-the-Moment Precision 

Creating mobile-exclusive studies allows for fast results timed to precision with real-time activities. Interaction via mobile lets companies selects the specific moments when they want to send out surveys, making it likely that consumers are most engaged. For example, a survey on pizza consumption could be sent out late on a Friday afternoon, a study on cleaning product consumption could go out on a Sunday mid-morning, or multimedia consumption in the family could be a study that is launched on a Saturday evening.

4. Brevity Yields Better Results

Surveys designed for cell phones are shorter and more concise. Brevity helps to increase the sample’s willingness to complete the study and consequently allows for better-quality data collection. In fact, studies have shown that studies that clock in around seven minutes ultimately yield the best quality data. To this end, insights teams need to work to design questionnaires that consistently and accurately collect the most relevant information in the least amount of time.

5. Access to Additional Data

Mobile phones make it possible to combine stated findings with additional user data that is more easily accessible using technology. For example, users can scan a purchase receipt with the phone camera to report the last purchase details or tag their location when leaving a review. Users can opt into those sharing this information at the moment that is most relevant and convenient for them. 

Conclusion

These mobile survey benefits make it possible to achieve two vital goals for market research: sample quality and data quality. With these variables at the forefront of market research efforts, mobile technology is the best solution for brands looking to optimize their research processes. Putting convenience at the center of the user experience and combining it with process agility is the way forward, and mobile surveys are the key to getting there.

Luis Mateu, Customer Market Insights Manager at Upfield Iberia talks about how having access to consumer insights in real-time has been a game-changer for the company during the pandemic and beyond. 

 

As insights leader at Upfield, what is the importance of data in your brand?

 

We rely on data to understand our environment. Market analysis requires fact-based information, and it is essential to know how to read, interpret and understand it. This allows us to maneuver our brand actions in a strategic way. 

As you work with data, its importance in decision-making increases. At Upfield we work with data, insights, and learnings on a daily basis, which we incorporate into any decision we make.

How has the new pandemic context influenced your brand?

 

The confinement caused us all to eat at home. The increase in domestic consumption was relevant, and with it came the emergence of new habits. Now the challenge is to understand this new normality and to understand what parts of what happened in the confinement have come to stay. To understand these new forms of consumption, it is essential to work with data-driven information.

How does data help you understand the new consumer?

 

Who hasn’t baked during the lockdown? How many have taken up baking? Some of these people will continue this practice, but we need to know what percentage. Data allows us to understand these new habits, discover their weight in the market and detect new trends in consumption. 

The data provided by a platform like Zinklar also allows us to better understand if new consumption habits have emerged, and to discover the new targets that are now consuming products in our category.

Can you give examples of this phenomenon in your sector?

 

At Tulipán, for example, we have launched a new product for baking that uses the tablet format for the first time. It’s a product aimed at these new moments of consumption that we have detected. And both the retailer and the consumer have welcomed it.

Are consumers demanding a greater commitment from brands to sustainability?

 

They certainly are. Sustainability is no longer a question of the future, but of the present. At Upfield, we are a company committed to the planet. In fact, our purpose is to make people healthier and happier with nutritious, delicious, natural, and plant-based foods that are good for people and our planet.

The fact that all our products are plant-based gives us a good understanding of this consumer who is sensitive to the future of the planet.

What did the implementation of a platform like Zinklar mean for you?

 

Working with a platform like Zinklar’s means a new approach, a different perspective. The key to working with data is to know what each of the sources gives you and to be able to combine them.

Zinklar’s platform gives you the versatility to be able to ask the consumer and know what they think. You can target a specific profile, segment it in a precise way, and get answers in a few hours. This gives you a very wide margin of action.

Let me give you an example. At Upfield we have a meeting first thing in the morning and an important topic comes up. At that very moment, we can launch a Zinklar questionnaire and get results that same afternoon. This room for maneuverability changes your perspective on the job.

In Insights, is Recurrence or Speed more important?

 

The more data and the faster, the better. But the important thing about having a lot of information is knowing how to interpret it. Sometimes, the margin for action is small and 4 pieces of information say more than 40. 

The key is to always be connected to what is happening in your market. In a changing environment, it doesn’t make sense now to analyze data every six months, as results are constantly evolving.

Have you tested advertising campaigns through the Zinklar platform?

 

Brand strategy is fundamental for Upfield and we constantly carry out studies on advertising campaigns to connect with the consumer. Thanks to this data, for example, we discovered that many consumers remembered an old Tulipán ad that featured a helicopter. This year we recreated that ad in a new campaign.

In which departments are Zinklar used?

 

It is a process that involves all departments, but for Marketing, it has become a key part of their entire strategy. It is a determining factor in decision-making. In Trade Marketing it is also important to implement these decisions and, in the Sales Department, to build the whole story around a product.

What goals did you set when implementing a platform like Zinklar? Have you achieved them?

 

We have certainly achieved them! The initial objective was to analyze the market and detect trends, but as you get to know the possibilities of the platform you expand its functions to get the most out of it. We measure the consumer’s perception of a product or category, test the changes we want to implement, and ask the consumer about the price they are willing to pay, among many other questions. 

The great advantage of a platform like Zinklar’s is that you get results and insights in a matter of hours. This agility is key for decision-making.

What is the biggest benefit of Zinklar for a company like Upfield?

 

The Zinklar platform is a conversation with the consumer. You can ask them anything you want, ask them to rate or comment on a product, evaluate a campaign or assess any changes you want to introduce as a brand. This conversation with the consumer is done through a questionnaire, using a large enough sample to be meaningful.

Consumers often confirm what you already suspected, but in other cases, they give you new clues about the evolution of the market.

How easy is it to use a platform like Zinklar?

 

In my first week at Upfield, I launched my first study. It’s an intuitive process. Within the Marketing department itself, for example, they are already launching their own projects directly. 

The Zinklar team also offers constant support to help you launch more complex questionnaires. They are always there to help you.

It seems like every day, we are faced with a new twist in the ongoing saga of the Covid pandemic. So many things we have come to rely on are changing constantly, and we as consumers are pivoting in nearly all aspects of our lives — from what we buy to how we interact with the world around us. In this volatile environment, brands are keeping a watchful eye on consumer behavior. This is why a real-time consumer insights platform like Zinklar has become more and more popular among insights professionals and marketing teams. But how can brands that are still not using an insights platform adopt it successfully? How can brands make the most of the benefits they can provide? We will tell you all the details.

Adopting a real-time consumer insights platform

Two-thirds of the most successful brands globally have embraced agile market research and consumer insights platforms. The result? Better business decisions are supported by up-to-the-minute insights. And in this climate, that’s a wise move. 

But for brands who have not used a consumer insight platform previously, it can be tricky to know where to start. This is why we’ve created this whitepaper to get you started in the world of real-time insights with confidence. 

We’ve included our key findings on the best practices for how brands can get the most from a smarts insights platform like Zinklar:

• Why a real-time consumer insights platform?
• Where to start? 
• Common myths about real-time consumer insights platforms
• Tips to get started

Download our whitepaper, and get set up for success in the New Normal. And if you are ready to join the forefront of brands looking to be a part of something bigger, get in touch and we can help you navigate the way forward. 

As we begin to navigate the New Normal, consumer behavior is evolving at an accelerated pace. Are brands in a position to keep up? The key to keeping the pulse of the market is real-time insights platforms.

If the events of recent times have shown us anything, it’s that everything we know can change in a matter of days. Moreover, those seismic shifts can challenge many things that we’ve previously taken for granted–from the way we live our day-to-day lives, to the ways we decide to structure our futures.

Living through the pandemic has brought us into a new age—where convenience is key, and the ability to adapt is crucial. And more than ever, consumers are making decisions that are based around adapting to those changes, and ensuring that the futures they are building are adapting with them.

A New Reality With New Needs

For consumers, the changes that have been created as a result of the pandemic have touched their lives at all levels. From the way they interact and communicate with friends, to using new and ingenious ways of simplifying tasks that we had never before imagined doing from a distance. These global shifts have also led consumers to interact with commerce in a whole new way.

As consumers’ behavior and attitudes are changing, brands are now being challenged with new ways to keep up with those changes as well. And while the need for those insights keeps accelerating, budgets are not increasing at the same rate.

 

Meeting Consumer Needs in a Changing Marketplace

Market research now requires new levels of ingenuity. Where businesses were once able to rely solely on annual studies to understand trends and consumer behavior, they now need an approach that is much more agile. In short, those insights need to become more frequent, accessible, and real-time.

Fortunately, real-time insights platforms are becoming a widely recognized tool to assist companies in courting these changes, while giving them deeper insight into how to best adapt to consumer needs. ESOMAR in its latest annual report has shown that the demand for these platforms has seen an increase of 30% in a single year.

So what does that mean for brands? There is more of a need than ever to start adopting these platforms, and businesses are sitting at the precipice of a great opportunity to meet consumer needs as they need them.

Advantages of Real-Time Market Insights

With survey platforms that offer real-time consumer insights, some distinct advantages allow businesses to incorporate customer voices at a deeper level of the organization’s decision-making process.

• Increased efficiency: Using a survey platform gives businesses more freedom to focus on the studies themselves, rather than time spent on administrative concerns. Mitigating the need for an administrative intermediary to handle fees, processes, and more, businesses have much more flexibility and control over how they manage their research projects. This gives them the distinct advantage of launching more surveys at the moment they need to.
• Rapid results: Survey platforms make it possible for research teams to get responses from consumers in real-time. There is no need to wait for days or weeks to make a decision. With insights coming back in a matter of hours, brands can get answers when they need them most, putting them in a prime position for up-to-the-minute decision-making.
• Optimized agility: Survey platforms create the added advantage of increasing the cadence of research. This is huge for research teams who are working through sprints. Instead of testing everything at the end, when there is little room to make changes, different components can be tested at every step, so brands can ensure that every step is being made in the right direction.

Stay Ahead by Staying Connected

As we continue to navigate the market in the “new normal”, companies are increasingly being called upon to adapt their decision-making processes and stay connected to the accelerating flow of insights in the market. Now, more than at any time in history, it is essential for businesses to gather information, and better understand customer attitudes and behaviors.

Our smart, Zinklar insights platform is designed to bring businesses right into the palm of consumers’ hands, and keep them ahead of the game.

Mobile market research: Instant access and real-time responses

Mobile phones allow us as consumers to be connected at all times. Currently, in terms of the number of smartphones, surveys show over 1 mobile phone in use per inhabitant in Brazil, totaling up to 234 million smartphones in the country. Adding laptops and tablets sums up to 342 million portable devices as of June 2020, that is 1.6 portable devices per inhabitant (FGVcia 2020). Practically all people of all Socioeconomic Levels have one (more than 85% of the population have a mobile device, TIC Domicílios 2019).

In terms of mobile market research and mobile panels, consumers which are members of these panels will respond more quickly: In 99.2% of households with internet access, the mobile phone is the main device used to access the internet. The use of the mobile phone is already close to all households as the main means of internet access.

At Zinklar, in addition to integrating with mobile panels, we have also spent time creating a better experience that is both enjoyable and non-intrusive for the consumer. Panelists associate us with positive experiences because our studies last no longer than 10 minutes allowing us to capture the attention of consumers which is key for results to be obtained and visualized in real-time. On the other hand, mobile panels help us find the right sample, access more diverse profiles, and launch studies that will have a greater number of completed surveys. 

Additionally, the tools and channels through which data is collected have also undergone many changes over the last few years. Previously the norm was to have face-to-face interviews and phone calls, while today consumers no longer have the time or interest to do so. Moreover, since a market research interview usually lasts 20 minutes (in Zinklar, we recommend not going over the 10-minute mark), very few consumers are willing to give that time to a company.

Better data quality

There is a constant struggle to have studied with sufficient responses (completed surveys) which has become a frequent issue for traditional research companies. Today’s consumers are less willing to participate, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find people willing to respond.

Traditional agencies are forced to send dozens of invitations to respondents, increasing the investment to only get poor performance and results.

All of these factors not only increase research costs but also decrease the quality of the results. The mobile phone, on the other hand, gives you direct access to the niche needed, from gin consumers to car owners, all while limiting costs and collecting data faster. We’ve also noticed that it’s a better way to bridge the digital divide, which brings us to our next point.

Mobile Panels: representative panels

The purpose of quantitative market research is to have insights that can be trusted and acted upon. To do this, panels have to be statistically significant with national representative samples. This means that the data does not distort reality and is not limited to that particular sample.

In the past, mobile market research had been viewed with some skepticism in the industry because researchers could not trust that the data they collected came from the right person, or if the person was lying to access the reward associated with taking a survey, among other types of survey frauds. Today, panel providers take many steps to ensure those survey participants are honest. For example, they examine their behavior throughout the survey and the consistency of their responses, as well as operating by-invitation-only to make sure just those that the panel provider invites can sign up.

Discovering consumption habits as they are happening

We are not exaggerating when we say real-time. Precisely because we spend so much time on our mobile phones, you can reach your customers whenever you want, regardless of what else they are doing.

Research is changing, especially when it comes to conducting day-to-day studies, particularly the way we study the moment of consumption or any study that requires connecting with the consumer at the very moment the action is occurring. For example, we can now launch studies on Sunday afternoon and ask consumers what they are doing, with whom, where, and why.

It is revolutionary in terms of designing new methodologies and being able to offer more and better data and answers. We are not the first to notice, Niall Smith has commented that to do mobile research properly researchers now talk to consumers using the present tense rather than the past tense, asking about context and opinions in real-time. This is key to quality research so that interviewees do not rely on memory, as it has been shown to often be a misperception, exaggerated, or outright false. Niall Smith has commented that to do mobile research properly researchers now talk to consumers using the present tense rather than the past tense, asking about context and opinions in real-time. This is key to quality research so that interviewees do not rely on memory, as it has been shown to often be a misperception, exaggerated, or outright false.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, market research is changing, and the role of mobile market research is an important factor in this change. In the future, we would not be surprised to find that mobile technology sensors allow us to explore insights like never before, without relying on interviews or questions. These are the reasons why we decided to be 100% mobile – are you ready to embrace it?  

A few weeks ago, Zinklar’s Sampling and Panel Advisor, Efrain Ribeiro, was interviewed in a Market Research podcast regarding data security and survey fraud in the Market Research industry today. Ribeiro is a respected professional with a long track of experience in the field and has been working with Zinklar for years.

Regarding survey fraud, the discussion centered on the role fraud has been playing over the past years in the Market Research industry, and the sophistication it has achieved in the era of online panelists. According to Ribeiro, it has been a part of the ecosystem for the last 25 years, can make up to 20% of the total panelists, and has evolved to become a chronic problem. 

3 Main Types of Survey Fraud

There are 3 types of survey fraud that are more easily perceivable, even though Ribeiro made the point that there probably existed many more and that the industry should invest more in understanding and preventing less common ones. The main three were described as:

• A person simulating being two or more people.
• A group of people basically operating the same way but on a much larger scale.
• An entity that goes directly to the incentive pool, although in this case the research itself is not compromised as it is bypassed and not completed.

In the first 2 cases, there is also the probability of encountering bots, or automated programs that fulfill the same actions a human would but at a larger and much quicker rate.

In all of these cases, the fraudsters’ aim is to access the incentives given to those involved in the research. This is why fraud is a much larger concern in more high-profile research projects where compensations tend to be much more attractive, as mentioned by Ribeiro in a Zinklar online webinar a few months ago. 

Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, there have been recent advancements over the last years, and several companies with more sophisticated digital solutions have already started offering solutions for both panel companies and clients aiming to do the research themselves. 

Conclusion

Unfortunately, survey fraud is a problem that has and will continue to evolve, keeping one step ahead regarding security. This is why it is vital to have an experienced team of Market Research experts who can detect these problems on time to avoid making any vital decisions. Adding to that, the New Normality we are currently facing on a global scale makes it vital to have and use trustworthy digital solutions, and mobile-only technology is the surest way of interacting with consumers every step of the way during any purchase cycle.  

All of these solutions happen to be offered by Zinklar: mobile-only technology, along with a selection of high-quality, secure online panels and a team made up of Market Research experts. 

Penetration Testing Pricing is a market research type of study that allows brands to check the price before launching a product. Price is a key factor when deciding whether or not to purchase a product. This makes understanding which price points are too high or too low an extremely important piece of information.

A Pricing test Success Story: Product Relaunch

To learn how some of our clients have carried out Pricing Test studies and the results obtained thanks to the strategies implemented based on consumer insights, continue reading:

A multinational fashion and perfume company wanted to take advantage of the success attained by one of its top-selling perfumes, creating a more premium version of it but leaving the older one in stores to mitigate any negative impact the launch may have.

The brand launched a Penetration Testing Pricing to understand how consumers would respond to the launch and if they were willing to pay a 25% price increase for it. Respondents declared that they were happy to pay the price as long as the new product replaced the old one and became a new and empowered version of the original fragrance.

The results lead to a relaunch of the product with its original name and identity, but communicating the new formula, packaging, and design as an evolution of the current fragrance and not as a more premium proposal. It was a total success, especially taking into account such a significant price rise (+25%). Consumers loved it and this was confirmed by an additional study launched by the brand 15 days after the relaunch. By year’s end, product sales had increased by 15% in comparison to the year before. Learn all about the complete Success Story.

To learn more about Zinklar’s market research Success Stories, visit our page and learn how we helped world-class brands reach the next level and place the consumer at the center of their organizations.

Do you work in the cosmetics industry? Are you already present online or thinking of taking the leap? Either way, we’re going to take a deep dive into how European women’s eCommerce beauty industry trends in 2019.

Hold on to your seats because it’s going to be a mind-blowing journey!

We partnered with Photoslurp (a marketing and visual eCommerce platform) to get essential insights into the cosmetics eCommerce industry.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

Zinklar and Photoslurp conducted a joint study and created a Trend Report to fill this knowledge gap, asking 1,500 women aged 18 years and older from 5 different European countries (UK, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy). The research was conducted through the Zinklar SaaS platform on a 5-minute mobile-only questionnaire asking consumers about their cosmetics usage, preference, and purchasing habits when shopping online.

One of the biggest hurdles for cosmetics brands to tackle is selling their products online without giving consumers a chance to try them first. Even more so taking into account that a single cosmetic product won’t do for just anyone: skin and hair type, skin sensitivity, health, and so many more variables are part of the equation.

Thus, the challenge for cosmetic brands is finding the best way to sell their products on the internet, without the ability to get customers’ hands on them before purchase (like they would in a shop).

Digital presentations, customer reviews, influencer demonstrations… these are all new ways to close the gap with consumers that have sprung up over the past years but brands still aren’t completely sure as to what the best tools are to inspire online shoppers on the hunt for cosmetics.

That’s where Zinklar and Agile Market Research make their appearance! Research helps us understand what motivates, inspires, and encourages consumers to purchase cosmetics online and answers the question: ‘how can cosmetic brands optimize their online shopping journey to fit the needs of their customers?’

eCommerce Beauty Industry Challenges

 

• Convincing consumers to keep coming back to their brand, as cosmetics products are generally purchased on a rolling basis and not daily or weekly.
• Competing within a congested market, where consumers can quickly swap between products and brands.
• Showing consumers how well their products work without being able to test them for themselves.
• Teaching consumers how to use their products to demonstrate their effectiveness and get them to come back.
• Inspiring consumers enough to make the brand a part of their lives.

So… do you want to know how to overcome these challenges? Let’s get right to it.

Beauty Industry Purchase Habits by Age and Country

 

The beauty industry trends regarding purchase habits by age and country are the following:

• 74% of respondents have purchased cosmetics online over the past 12 months
• Women between 16 and 24 years old from France and the UK are the top online cosmetics consumers (94% and 92% respectively)
• The usual purchase frequency of online cosmetics is once or twice a year, followed by every few months. Top purchasers are once again France, the UK, and Italy
• Approximately 33% of UK women shop online for cosmetics mostly every few months
• What we can take away from this information is that consumers are constantly looking to expand their cosmetics collection on a rolling basis but with less frequency than everyday products. Also, younger consumers are more likely to buy very often but the products they buy are less expensive.

Where do consumers purchase cosmetics online?

 

• Women tend to buy more from big retailing websites with various cosmetics options compared to individual brand websites
• Amazon is the most popular online space to shop for cosmetics products online (42% of consumers in Italy and 26% in Spain)
• Sephora is another top 3 choice for consumers, placing second on the podium in France (26% of consumers prefer it)
• Each country has specific stores that consumers go to, mostly retailers exclusive to the country’s market, like Maquillalia in Spain or Yves Rocher in France.

Now we know how often consumers purchase cosmetics online and where but… what exactly do they buy?

What kind of cosmetics do consumers purchase?

 

The most sold online cosmetics products are lipsticks (59% of respondents) and face masks (57% of respondents) and product features that greatly influence consumers’ decision to buy them are ‘aptness for sensitive skin’ and ‘cruelty-free’ (no animal testing).

The time has come to see what exactly inspires consumers when purchasing cosmetics online.

Purchase incentives for online cosmetics

 

Consumers in all countries tend to place more importance on the purchasing conditions rather than the website features when it comes to having a good experience.

• The top features valued by respondents are free delivery/shipping and discount & promotions.
• The highest scoring website features in all countries are User Generated Content (UGC) & Star Ratings.

Everybody loves a discount! That’s why we see discounts & promotions as the top purchasing condition to have in the shopping journey, followed closely by free delivery. UGC and star ratings increase consumers’ trust in the product and website, making them a sure bet to include.

UGC is a tool for eCommerce brands that helps overcome the challenges that come up when selling cosmetics online by making purchase decisions easier and breaking down barriers for consumers.

Customer photos and photos of the product being used in real-life situations are the most valued, with 68% of consumers searching for them on social media before making a purchase.

With this in mind, eCommerce brands should focus on creating UGC, collecting it, and using it in their online stores as visual reviews and product inspiration. This will show consumers how well products work, teach them how to use them, and inspire them to come back to the brand.

Customer reviews are a great example of essential content that every online cosmetics brand should have on its website in order to build trust with consumers. Most respondents confirm that they read them before making a purchase, with only 17% answering that they don’t consider reviews important.

And what about customer service and contact functions? How much do consumers value customer support when shopping online? The answer is a lot. Especially ‘instant’ responses, which are becoming more prevalent through the use of online/live chat (52% of respondents).

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

Recommendations based on the beauty industry trends insights obtained

 

There are the recommendations that we suggest to you based on the insights obtained regarding the beauty industry trends:

• Develop your online strategy around the cosmetics sales cycle. Consumers tend to buy beauty products monthly rather than daily or weekly, so make sure you establish a series of touchpoints to hold their attention until the next month comes around.
• The retailer potential. Like them or not, they are stealing the eCommerce spotlight so make sure your products are available through online retailers.
• Turn to your consumers to sell your products (customer reviews and User Generated Content). People trust people, not companies. Make sure to include reviews of real customers that have purchased your products, and any additional UGC like photos or product unboxings, otherwise, your brand may be seen as untrustworthy.
• Share your brand’s ethics policy with customers. If you are proud of your brand’s philosophy and create cruelty-free, recyclable products, make sure consumers know about it. Our society is more concerned about issues related to the environment and their own personal impact than ever before.
• Adopt instant online communication. Incorporate a chat feature into your eCommerce shop to show customers that you care about them and want to solve their problems as soon as possible.

Now it’s up to you to apply these strategies and insights to your business and make a change for the better. What are you waiting for?

Completing fieldwork market research in three hours is not just about working faster. It fundamentally changes how and when you can use research. Some advantages are obvious, but we’ve noticed that market research has changed radically because of it. Here’s how:

1. You’re getting your insights, fast

The first advantage is the most obvious. Completing market research fieldwork in three hours is much quicker than standard quantitative research, and it means you’ll be able to act on your results faster too. Write a survey Monday morning, conduct fieldwork over lunch, and have data to analyze that afternoon. That’s fast and efficient.

2. Real-time opinions on hot topics

A platform that collects consumers’ answers to your questions and displays them in real-time connects you to the consumer’s present. Real-time and three hours of fieldwork help you get a pulse for how consumers see current events, and you’ll be able to carry out sentiment analysis that bypasses some of the issues we experience in social listening research. For example, Twitter only lets you analyze 1% of its contents and gives no guarantee of whether participants are real people and not bots/fake users. By using an Agile Market Research platform like Zinklar, you’ll have methodological guarantees and results without delay.

3. Go from insight to action in record time

You can collect data and define strategic actions on the same day. Traditional market research can add hours or even days to a timeline before generating confident and actionable insights. Reducing the length of fieldwork and empowering you to carry out research, while counting on the backup of research experts, means you collect insights you can act on, much quicker.

4. Fewer humans, more efficiency

We love humans. In fact, as researchers, we study them compulsively. However, the more people are involved in a project, the more potential for error and the lengthier the timeline to completion. That’s why, at Zinklar, we cut out the middle man: you must register, and can start using a well-rounded research tool. Our researchers are at your disposal, only if and when you need them. No complicated contracts, no back and forth to design your study. Just log in, launch, and get results, live. The data you need, when you need it.

5. Your gut feelings are confirmed by the data

A platform that collects results in real-time and completes market research fieldwork in three hours helps you be more flexible when it comes to carrying out research. Knowing you’ve got the support of research experts will also reduce stress. If a new challenge arises and you need data to inform your actions or support your decisions, you can get it. It means we don’t have to rely on gut feeling and we can validate our opinions with data. If you have a tight deadline, where you’d previously you’d have no time for research, now it becomes a possibility.

6. Impress with your adaptability

Incorporating research into timelines ahead of schedule becomes more realistic as it’s now more streamlined and less time-consuming. If you forget something, or you have an important meeting and feel like you need more data to support you: there’s no need to worry. This flexibility will help teams work collaboratively when resolving problems or contrasting opinions, and you’ll be able to spot and fix unexpected issues in your campaigns, without having to start from the beginning.

7. Tracks Real success

Being able to see results come in as they happen means your fieldwork market research and performance are more transparent. You’ll be able to track campaigns such as TV ads or sponsorships, by launching research at very precise times (e.g. right as a football match or program is being shown on TV). Visualized data also means you’ve got a head start on analysis, and you can prioritize strategies that really work.

8. New Market Research methodologies

Real-time market research fieldwork means you can quickly gather complex insights and carry out previously cumbersome studies. The mobile, real-time nature of the platform means you can capture leisure activities or consumption habits as they’re happening. Giving you immediate access to consumers means you can predict the type of activity they’ll be carrying out, and you’ll be able to explore what once were time-consuming methodologies.

We shouldn’t forget that one of the critical reasons market research with Zinklar is real-time and completed market research fieldwork in just three hours, is that we count on fully mobile panels. We take a more in-depth look into how, exactly, these panels make such a big difference in our blog post. We’re already convinced. You can also discover Zinklar now, and get the insight you need today.

Avoiding survey errors is in everybody’s minds when creating a new survey, yet everybody gets things wrong from time to time. So we took a look at the common survey error types people make when carrying out research and interpreting our results. As for avoiding these mistakes, we’ve written a useful little guide to writing better surveys, the first step to making sure your insights are accurate and precise.

1. Survey Error Types: It all starts with a survey

Just because it’s quantitative research, doesn’t mean it’s easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. In real life, hardly anything is black and white. Collecting actionable insights starts with writing surveys that don’t skew your data. It’s an art in itself: you need to consider the comfort of your respondents, so they won’t abandon your survey while making sure you don’t encode mistakes into the datasets you collect.

The most notorious example of this in action, malicious or not is up to you to judge, can be seen in the Trump administration’s Official Presidential Job Performance Poll, released in late 2017. Their survey broke the basic rule of scale questions, by not giving equal options for positive and negative answers. This meant that their final dataset wouldn’t record criticisms of the administration. The controversy even spawned a populated Twitter hashtag, boasting contributions up to one year after the first reports.

Even assuming your survey is perfect (after reading our 10 Tips for pointed survey writing of course), how we interpret results and the weight we give to certain data can also lead us down the wrong path.

2. Bias: ours, yours, theirs. It’s everywhere

We all want to consider ourselves unbiased and objective judges. We hold ourselves to the humanistic standard and assume we’re, above all, objective. We staunchly believe in our capacity to make fair judgments, consider all the evidence, and use our rational minds to reach rational conclusions.

Unfortunately, human brains are just not built like that. There’s a very well-populated body of research into all the cognitive processes that make us biased in our view of the world. What’s more, the World Bank’s 2015 World Development Report looked to test its own researchers and figure out how far cognitive bias affected their work. Turns out, our post-enlightenment view of ourselves might need some updating.

They tested workers by presenting them with identical datasets on two different issues: gun control and skin cream. They found that depending on their opinion on the subject, they would interpret the data differently, despite being the exact same datasets. They controlled for data literacy skills, which didn’t seem to quench this tendency to find confirmation to one’s previously held beliefs.

Researchers themselves tend to highlight conclusions they agree with, which means that cognitive bias plays a major role in how we judge and evaluate “hard” data. Be careful not to make that mistake when reading through your market research report. In fact, the World Banks’ recommendation is to get a special team of people who are uninvolved in a project to read through research designs, surveys, and their conclusions. We take that into account too, and it’s the reason our research team is on hand at any stage of the research. With the help of an independent perspective, you can be sure you’re not seeing a new consumer market that’s not actually there.

3. Embrace diversity

One of the key skills of survey writing, which we expand on in our guide, is putting yourself in the shoes of who is answering and trying to see the world as you would. Not doing this has a real effect on the insights you can gather. For example, in some survey error types by not understanding the local vocabulary you’ll create a blind spot in your data, as researchers found when trying to figure out how many people used the internet in Indonesia. Turns out, that nobody uses the internet, but a lot of people use Facebook. Another example is how you’ll evaluate a scale: a score of 7/10 for the quality of a product in Germany is actually a really good result, whereas in the UK you’d be left wondering what went wrong.

Being aware of cultural habits, and remaining sensitive to culture and individuals is essential to creating marketing campaigns that jive with the consumer target. What’s more, this knowledge is incredibly important in designing research and surveys that don’t misrepresent your target consumer. As always, diversity within your research team itself is an important way to get diverse voices and perspectives into your projects.

It’s important to do Market Research right because it can help you get an overview of society as a whole, and take your company, campaigns, and product to another level.

Agile market research companies import successful agile methodologies from the technology world to improve the way insights are created and used within organizations. In a world where everything is quantified and measured, and business decisions are based on data, you can’t risk trying to guess what your stakeholders want. It can be expensive and damaging to make a mistake because you relied on your team’s intuition.

So how do you get the information you need without wasting time or money? Technology has revolutionized the relationship between brands and their stakeholders by creating new communication channels and opportunities to better understand consumers. Younger generations are eager to interact with brands and are open to communicating with them. The stakes are high for all teams working in marketing and beyond, as brand-to-consumer relationships have become more fulfilling but also carry higher expectations. The consumer has a better understanding of brands in terms of their transparency, their content, and the quality of their offer and product, and won’t accept information that feels misleading or dishonest.

Understanding how and why you’ve been specifically chosen to provide a service, satisfy a desire or create the greatest product is the key to bringing out the best in your company and creating strategies that communicate effectively with your consumer.

Rather than considering the consumer as an anonymous figure to be researched and analyzed, we want you to start putting the consumer’s voice where it belongs: at the center of your decisions. We realize that this all sounds good and well, but what exactly does it mean?

We’ve gathered seven examples of agile market research companies through Zinklar that solved very specific issues they were facing.

1. Which new product should we launch?

A large food and beverage company didn’t have time to consider which product idea among five different ones would be worth developing into a successful product. They asked 300 consumers in real-time to evaluate each idea and answer questions such as: “What do you like about this product? What makes you want to purchase it? What would you change if given the opportunity? Finally, they were asked to choose the option they liked the most out of the five, which gave the company the insights they needed to start developing a new product.

2. Is our packaging communicating what we want it to?

A chocolate and sweets company needed to change its packaging for legal reasons and took this as an opportunity to rethink its entire brand image. They wondered whether they were getting the right message across and if consumers were perceiving their packaging and brand image the way they wanted them to.

They asked their target consumer what kind of things they associated with the packaging of their products. The feedback received turned out to be nearly entirely positive (as they had hoped) but they also discovered that consumers didn’t consider the brand to be a reference when it came to quality. This information led them to reconsider how they were packaging their products and develop a new image that would more accurately reflect the ideals of the company.

3. What’s the competition’s heavily-guarded secret?

A national retailer wanted to understand what made their competition so successful. They were in the same industry, offered similar products, and had high-quality service, just like them. Zinklar’s advanced demographics filters allowed them to choose specific targets, identify the people who were more interested in their competitor, and more importantly, ask them why.

They asked what they valued most about them and why they chose them over the rest. The study shed some light on what the competition was doing right and why; leading the team to identify what they were lacking and how they could improve it.

4. Is this innovation affordable?

An IT company wanted to develop new software for their clients. It would need to be developed externally and would require a significant investment which would set them back for the following quarter. They used Zinklar, the agile market research company, to figure out whether they’d get their money’s worth and if the product truly fit their clients’ needs. The decision had to be made fast as the company that was going to develop it was pushing to close the deal.

They launched a study to find out the usage frequency of similar services offered by other companies in their sector. The results were enlightening: these services were expensive to develop, time-consuming, and seemingly not very useful. Taking into account that the costs were very high and that the potential benefits were limited, they decided to step out of the agreement and reconsider, saving themselves some valuable time and money.

5. Why does our merchandising sell so little?

A television production company had spent a long time trying to understand why one of their programs’ merchandising was lagging behind the rest. Every new idea, even those that had been successful among test groups, were resulting in lower sales than expected. They decided to use Zinklar to try to understand where they were failing.

Thanks to a study directed at their target consumers they discovered that the problem wasn’t the merchandising itself, but the program. Despite having a good audience, it was neither appealing nor interesting enough to convince its spectators that the merchandising products were worth buying. They re-evaluated their strategy and reoriented their budget.

6. Will this new line of products be successful?

A cosmetics company wanted to confirm its target market’s interest in a new line of products that was about to be released. They carried out a market research study with their target consumers in order to study their usage habits of similar products released by the competition, how often they bought them, the qualities they valued the most, what they would improve, etc.

As part of the final study, they also revealed part of the concept and packaging of their new product line. The results were in! The brand confirmed that consumers were not only extremely interested in these types of products but even more so in their new product range. They had all the information they needed to go ahead and conduct an anticipated launch, surprising all their consumers in the best way possible!

7. Is our new ad working for us?

A car manufacturer wanted reliable data reflecting the success of their new television ad that was to be aired on prime-time television. For this purpose and just 30 minutes after the ad went live for the first time, they launched a study through Zinklar that used nationally representative samples to understand the impact it had on the company’s brand image. They were able to find out if spectators remembered the spot accurately or not as well as spontaneously or only when asked. They also took the opportunity to inquire about the preferred advertisement modality and channel, and so gathered enough information to rate their present campaign and develop strategies to optimize their future ones.

Make business decisions safely by listening to your biggest stakeholder – Your consumer

These seven examples, based on real-life uses of our platform, show just how important it is to harness the power of Agile Market Research and use it as an integral part of your business model. You can support all areas of your work by relying on it: from market and segmentation to product, innovation, and branding. Consumers will be brought to the center of all your business decisions leading to a fail-proof approach to new product launches, concept ideas, etc!

The biggest advance in human technology by far is that it can now gather, process, and interpret massive amounts of quantitative data. But is that enough to assume we’re more knowledgeable or informed?

We’ve said it before and will say it again, traditional market research methodologies are lagging behind and keeping to old-fashioned principles: soon they simply won’t work. Here’s how we think you should be using innovative market research, and implementing it more frequently in your everyday.

First things first, Agile Market Research simply means you incorporate research ad-hoc, using it to validate or discard a hypothesis with your team on an “as-you-go” basis. How does it work? You keep in touch with your consumer: either through surveys or polls or frequent reviews of user experiences and opinions. You use a platform or service that allows you to send out frequent surveys to your desired target (that’s us!) and make sure to look at your Stats and set KPIs to guide your analysis.

1. Innovative Market Research, more frequently and shorter

 

• What? Make short surveys to checking up with your consumer and screen concepts, creative processes, brainstorming, naming and branding ideas, etc.
• How? Introduce checkpoints in your work where you tap into the target consumer and ask them: are we going in the correct direction? Would you enjoy this? You could do this weekly or monthly, depending on your team and your desire to communicate with your consumer.
• Why? You’ll be able to ensure you stay connected throughout the product design, marketing plan, and launch of a new product, minimizing the errors you make and ensuring you understand the motivations of your customer. You’ll be reinforcing the choices you make and minimizing the risk in making them.

2. Innovative Market Research Workshops

 

• What? Use surveys and questionnaires to understand your audience and get inspired. You can ask about creative associations, likes and dislikes, habits, beliefs, or desires, and eventually, re-test and compare once you’ve started the creation process.
• How? When it comes to finding creative solutions to a problem, sometimes the best way is to let the creativity flow and do an entire workshop of iterations between the consumer and your creative team.
• Why? You’ll be co-creating with people, inviting creativity and randomness into a process that is usually exclusive to teams. Not only can you stay connected to your target and understand them more fully, but you can also validate your ideas and ensure that your creative intuitions aren’t leading you astray.

3. Live Campaign Tests

 

Your media strategy is ready to go, you’ve bought the airtime and ad space, and think you’ve identified your target audience, and your campaign is minutely planned out, why shouldn’t your impact assessment be just as precise?

• What? Audit your GRP impact, live. You can gather data within a representative sample of what percentage of people are seeing your ads, who is responding to them positively, understanding them with the nuance you wanted, and on that basis evaluate the returns of your campaign.
• How? By timing your survey release with your marketing launch, and asking questions that will narrow the sample to people who have viewed your ad, you’ll be able to send out brand trackers and NPS-like questions the results of which can be accurately associated with the specific moments in time, and isolated from wider brand events.
• Why? Brand trackers, as they are, are a blunt tool that won’t be able to give you the fine detail and granularity you need. Doing real-time agile market research means you’ll be able to get an immediate impact assessment that isn’t diluted and scrambled by other events and gives you direct answers.

4. By extension, On-Air Campaign Optimisation

 

• What? You’ve released an ad campaign for which you have indicators and analytics that tell you how it’s going. But was your audience really watching, really remembering, did they get your message, and were they receptive to it?
• How? Don’t sidestep the people you’re actually interested in, whose opinion is actually important to you. By releasing research as your campaigns are life you can get a sense of your audiences’ responses and associations: and optimize as you go. It means your budget doesn’t need to be entirely spent on a strategy that didn’t go as expected, and that you’ll be able to redirect and adapt.
• Why? Sometimes indirect data can and will obfuscate your conclusions. A good example is how Facebook counts views: they notoriously count 3 seconds of video (without sound on) as a view. That doesn’t mean your target will have understood what you want, but it will have inflated your indicators, despite not necessarily reflecting a reality.

5. Spit-fire questions to unlock any standstill

 

• What? You’re wondering something, disagreeing with your colleague about it, or do you genuinely need an answer to a question before confidently moving forward? You should be using (in some cases!) the voice of your stakeholders to understand whether they have information that’s relevant to you, rather than going in blind or making a decision that you’re not 100% behind.
• How? We’ve already written an article about 7 different types of studies you could be doing in real time, which can help you start out.
• Why? What does this mean more specifically? You can just structure your doubt into three questions, for example, create a small graph, use it to generate more content, inspire your team, or literally inform whether you should be selling your product in certain spaces, and what implications that has for your brand. It’s simple and fast, but it can make a world of difference.

Why is it important to change how we use and schedule market research?

 

We think innovative market research data not only has the potential to give us deeper insights into the world but also improve it: making companies more efficient and consumer-focused. Consumers today are educated and self-aware, pushing for cleaner industries and ethical practices and demanding higher ethical standards for companies. Staying in touch with them is essential to be able to foster mutually beneficial collaborations, a utopian ideal that might as of yet seem far-fetched, but which we have no reason not to aim for.

We’re hopeful these steps could be making a small change in bringing the consumer to the heart of your decision-making and raising your ethical and competitive advantage.

A few weeks ago, we spent a couple of days with a client collaborating on innovation workshops for their teams. As the days went by, workshop participants tested different ideas in real-time; we helped them to propose new products that would be launched in the following year, and refine and test creative paths for a new advertising campaign. All this is iteratively and in real-time. By the time the workshops were finished, they could go into the next planning phases straight away with the confidence that their action points had been validated by their consumers, a process that usually takes several weeks (if not months) was dramatically shortened to just days with Agile Market Research.

Why agile market research anyway?

This type of agile approach is borrowed from the software development industry and is now extending into many other disciplines. Its multiple iterations of concept and validation help us focus on the customers’ needs and desires every step we take. It’s adapted to new market conditions, which demand flexibility and efficiency to catch and keep consumers’ interest. The digital economy has redefined the shape of many of our “traditional” clients and companies’ ever-increasing need for a well-developed online presence to engage with people on a public platform is an essential marker for their success, among others.

As Goldhaber predicted, the web has changed the nature of our economy to an attention-based one, and in light of consumers’ “information glut” the development of high-quality products (and their respective marketing strategies) has reached new heights of competition. Understanding the people you want to communicate with, in all their complexity, has never been more important than now.

Express market research

Working with clients and considering all this made me wonder, are clients making the most of these new technologies? Could we be ignoring some setbacks and downfalls of the newfound potential of agile research? For some time now, clients have been pushing Market Research suppliers for faster and faster turnaround times. It’s a never-ending race against the clock, but why?

In this context, the concept of FAST research, express or overnight methodologies, started being thrown around as an attempt to deliver results at the pace the new era requires. At Zinklar, we’ve observed how research teams struggle to keep up with the pace required by the market, and seen the compromises needed when rushing through old processes to obtain faster results: forgetting about representativity in samples, not questioning the ‘truthfulness’ of their respondents, not taking the time to develop well-crafted and insightful surveys, or observing causation where we can only establish correlation… We’re rushing through the steps to deliver results faster, but not better. Overall, we don’t have the appropriate tools to keep up with the market.

My feeling is that not too many companies have stopped and taken a hard look at themselves, to ensure they are agile, but not fast or accelerated. Can they bring the customer’s voice to new areas of the business? Can they interact with them at different stages of brainstorming, creating, planning, and executing? Can they co-create to ensure quality and relevancy? We’ve already written out a series of ways and potential uses of agile research, should you need to see specific cases.

What to do when fast is not agile

So how do you ensure agility, without forcing accelerated timelines that bowl over essentials? Agile Market Research gives you results, fast, but most of all it encompasses a series of tools that can be used to accelerate the processes at hand. In responding to this conundrum, Zinklar is aiming to target two aspects of current market demands: obtaining in-depth, high-quality research at more modest expenses so that you can recurrently use research throughout your work. The Zinklar platform lets you design research independently, allowing you to use it on a case-by-case basis that will respond to the specific problems you’re facing. Should you not have any research experience, our research team is on hand to offer support, and help you plan and execute the research you need.

There are multiple technologies to help execute this agile workflow (and Zinklar is one of the best), but different clients have expressed that this change doesn’t seem to be happening. It is not too clear to them how to integrate these technologies into current structures or decision flows within their teams, what is clear is that they need results fast.

Ultimately, the teams and companies that can successfully integrate these new technologies and adjust their decision-making processes to be AGILE rather than FAST, will be the ones leading innovation and redefining success.