Time recently summarized a reading comprehension entry from New York’s eighth grade standardized test that is beyond all comprehension.  It sounds more like one of those “a pineapple walks into a bar” jokes than a multiple-choice test entry: a talking pineapple challenges a hare to a race, and the other animals bet that the pineapple will win because he wouldn’t have challenged if he didn’t have some trick up his sleeve to win.  When the pineapple loses because (shocker) he didn’t move, the animals eat him.

The test writers then go on to ask these poor 13-year-olds crazy questions like “which animal made the wisest comments?” and, my personal favorite, “why did the animals eat the pineapple?”  And remember, this wasn’t an essay test; this was a multiple-choice, yes-Virginia-there-is-a-right-answer test.  Good luck with that!

Does this situation remind anyone of some of the questions you receive from business partners?  The questions we receive can range from the uber-specific (and un-important) color preferences for billing envelopes to the unanswerable, let me break out my crystal ball to identify the next fashion trend before it happens.

The good news is, unlike these stumped eighth graders, we can re-scope our business partners’ questions to make sure that answers will actually inform strategy.  We have a few ways to go:

• Identify true unknowns: conduct analysis to understand what your business lines know and what they really need to know in order to succeed.  Johnson & Johnson actually puts together an information inventory to before setting its research agenda.
• Make existing information usable: with all of the existing data at most companies many questions asked can be answered without new work.   You just have to make sure that this foundational knowledge is accessible.
• Just say “NO”: sometimes ad hoc requests of low value are not even worthy of re-scoping.  Have a very specific process for vetting project requests, and if the question doesn’t merit investment let your business partner know.

We would love to know: what is the craziest research request you’ve ever received?  Please share in the comments section below.

With all of the Oscars handed out we have made it to the end of another award-winning awards-show season.  But thanks to the folks at Brandchannel there is one more round of awards, and these might be the most interesting to you: the Brandcameo Product Placement Awards.

Congratulations to Apple for appearing in almost half of all #1 movies (according to US receipts) last year.  And a shout-out to Transformers: Dark of the Moon for squeezing 71 identifiable brands and products into its 91 minute running time—that’s almost 1 product every one-and-a-quarter minutes.  I’ve seen commercials struggle to get to that concentration of product featuring!

The Brandchannel article also provides a few takes on the return on these movie investments.  Do you have questions on measuring the success of product placement, sponsorship, or other types of advertising?  Learn from your peers by posting your questions to our Primary Research Forum.

Sales expert Tom Searcy recently outlined four tips to ensure recipients read and act upon your email on cbsnews.com:

1. Declare action requests up front
2. Use email for transactions: if you need to write out context and details draft a letter and attach it to the email
3. Write the email assuming your mom will read it at a press conference
4. Read every email twice before you hit send

I definitely follow the press conference test and the re-read imperative, but those of you who have received emails from me know that his steps 1 and 2 are not necessarily a strong-suit for me.  I just cannot imagine typing “Action Requests” after my salutation and listing to-do’s like Tom advises. 

Should I (and others) be treating emails as transactional correspondence, with an ultimate goal of getting the entire message into the subject line, as Tom recommends?  It seems so curt to me…but perhaps it helps folks see what needs to be seen, learn what needs to be learned, and take action in the right direction?

I’d love to hear what you think…should we be striving for such directness in our daily emails?  Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

MREB members, for perspective on effective communication, not limited to email guidelines, check out our Communication and Consultation resources and our brand new center on Driving Engagement with Knowledge.

With all the segments that we research, Nestlé may have just added another.  The company is currently running a television commercial in Austria that includes high-pitched sounds meant to be heard only by our K9 companions.  And as a loving pet owner I can say that if my furry friend consistently reacted to a specific food ad I’d probably be compelled to by a bag and see how it goes.

But this begs the question: with guidelines on how to conduct research with children and recommendations for how to best engage different ethnicities in research initiatives, how long will it take the industry to compose  a strategy for engaging animals in ad research?

Over the past few days Lucy Kellaway at the Financial Times has planted teddy bears in office meetings to test research from Harvard University that the presence of stuffed animals makes adults more likely to “engage in pro-social behaviours.”

Lucy was unable to replicate the civilizing effect of toys in her morning news conference, but this story makes me think of innovative methods that researchers use to engage business partners.  We have seen Amway create “trends forest” events to help business partners see the forest for the trends trees and Levi Strauss diagnose individual constituents’ learning styles to maximize recommendation adoption.

What are your secrets for improving business partner communication?  Share your tricks-of-the-trade hits and misses in the comments section below.

Related Resources:

• Amway’s Trends Forest Immersion Events
• Levi Strauss’ Learning Style Analysis
• Why Pithy and Prepared is Wrong
• Communication Strategies Driving Customer Understanding
• Win Over Your Audience
• 6 Ways to Be More Influential
• How to Make Friends and Influence People

By Anthony Bell

A new study ranks the top 20 companies with the most difficult job interviews, based on the user comments of companies’ interview practices. The toughest firms give job candidates difficult technical questions, brainteasers, and case study analyses, and their interviews last for several rounds. Meanwhile, one author recently listed 20 of the most bizarre interview questions that top companies ask candidates.

In today’s uncertain economic environment, where attracting and retaining top talent is essential for sustained growth, rigorous interview processes can help companies select the best candidates. Our friends in the Research & Technology Council advise all interviewees to focus on these five things: 1) being confident, 2) making the interviewer feel comfortable, 3) learning to argue why you are the right person for the job, 4) telling stories, and 5) asking questions. Here are some tips for a more successful interview.

So where do we help? Members can take a look at some of the questions research executives are using when screening for candidates.

Related Resources:

• Sample Market Research Job Descriptions
• Hiring Market Research Talent

Ever find yourself in an elevator with a senior executive? You seize the chance despite an accelerating heart beat. Luckily you prepared an “elevator pitch” ahead of time!

You shouldn’t have bothered.

Shawn Graham at Fast Company critiques the age-old business communications strategy in “The Problem With Elevator Pitches”

• Too Canned: Elevator pitches are too scripted, and leave us sounding like we are “reading from a teleprompter”
• Too One-Sided: Even with a focused, articulate presentation, 1-2 minutes is not enough time for a senior partner to ask clarifying questions, or engage in constructive dialogue

Here are three better approaches.

• Key Stakeholders, Not Friends and Family: The best ideas can be wasted if they are only communicated people who don’t have the power to make decisions. It is all too easy to talk with friendly business partners. Nokia Research was able to identify influential stakeholders by examining line partners’ informal relationship power structures to determine which key line stakeholders must be engaged in the decision-making process for insights to be adopted (Read more about how Nokia did it).

• Relationships, Not Chatter: Rather than resorting to desperate pleas between the 12th and 14th floor, market research should try to build relationships with key business partners, developing a rapport and trust that leads business partners to regularly seek out information, and research to present ideas as a trusted business partners. Coca-Cola involved senior leaders across the company to have a role in the research process (See how the Coca-Cola Company did it).

• Dialogue, Not Answers: Information and ideas should be presented, as Graham suggests, in a way that allows meaningful dialogue and full understanding. Alticor collected information and synthesized it around core business drivers, enabling it to be prepared to answer business partner queries quickly and efficiently. But rather than presenting their findings in 2 minute ad hoc conversations, Alticor compiled strategic reports on each driver and presented these to key business partners (Read more about Alticor’s strategy).

By Kate Camp

A recent FC Blog post recounts the author’s experience with two different audiences for his creative strategy workshop. The first, a group of insurance lawyers, he expected to offer few creative ideas due to their intense focus on minimizing risk. He anticipated that the second group, comprised of marketing executives for an innovative consumer products company, would overwhelm him with the sheer number of their imaginative suggestions. Yet the exact opposite occurred. The author’s anecdote only confirms what prior research has shown: creativity is not an innate personality trait; rather, it is a learnable skill.

The problem for those of us in market research, however, is that although creativity can be learned, it can also be stifled by the wrong environment. And when creativity plummets, so do the number of actionable insights provided to business partners.

For our  Boosting Insight Productivity study the MREB interviewed a broad cross-section of the membership and conducted a quantitative survey of research staff and their managers. We set out to discover which techniques were ultimately successful in improving the number of insights generated by individual researchers.  The overwhelming result? Researchers’ environment significantly impacts their ability to generate insight. And the good news is many companies have room to improve.

Here are the 4 Key Factors we discovered that drive insight productivity:

• Clarity of the Insight Mandate
• Level of Team Support for Creativity and Risk Taking
• Manager’s Fairness, Integrity, and Openness
• Satisfaction with Compensation

Visit our Insight Generation Methods topic center for more techniques proven to encourage insight generation.

By Anthony Bell

Consider all the screens you interact with on a daily basis: smart phone, tablet, desktop, laptop, in-store video, big-screen TV, screens at sports events, screens in automobiles/ airplanes, and many others.  Total adult daily viewing devoted to watching all of these screens: 8.5 hours (for those age 45-54, its 9.5 hours). That’s a lot of time spent peering at a screen and a great place for marketers to reach consumers. But what about all the marketing communication we receive on these screens every day? Do we absorb them all the same way? Do they stick with us equally, regardless of the format?

According to the neuroscientists at Neurofocus, the brain receives video stimuli in an identical fashion, no matter what the source, but the subconscious responds to video differently in different formats. The neuroscientists identify three primary measures of neurological effectiveness: Attention, Emotional Engagement, and Memory. They find that the second and third are extremely powerful predictors of purchase intent and marketplace success. To tap into these latent emotional drivers, Research should capitalize on innovative implicit research techniques. They also identify three screen categories: TV, Internet (desktop/ laptop viewing), and mobile (small portable screen based devices). Here are some of their findings from their testing of advertisements across the different screens:

• Attention: Attention is highest for most of the ads in the mobile platform. Voluntary attention is higher on the mobile platform because the smaller screen size requires more focus to understand the message.
• Emotional Engagement: The larger screen sizes of TV help the human elements (human faces) shown in commercials to have the highest emotional engagement. The mobile platform has lower emotion due to its smaller screen size, which does not clearly depict human faces and other emotional elements in commercials.
• Memory Retention: The mobile and internet environments give a significant boost in memory retention. This benefit derives from the intense need to focus voluntarily on the smaller screen.
• Purchase Intent: Both TV and mobile screens – where focus is on video without distracting elements – motivate viewers very well.
• Overall Effectiveness: Ads with high dynamism, fast paced action, and banner-like messaging treatments perform best in the internet setting

Our conversations with various neuroscience experts points to a regular theme: the brain will only afford your message a brief window of time to gain its notice. Therefore, it’s critical that messaging be well crafted to grab the attention of the subconscious. MREB Members, for more, here’s an overview of emotional, sensory, and natural observation techniques.

A recent HBR article outlines how the mayor of Lima designed a unique, modular hospital system to address high mortality rates and accommodate impoverished citizens.  Peruvians have learned how to innovate on a tight budget: using their understanding of customer behavior and needs to create appropriate products and services, the country has seen steady growth in the last few years.

Companies can learn a valuable lesson from the Lima hospital example. As the HBR article explains, one of the main reasons for Peruvians’ economic success is that they understand how perceptions of value differ across different market segments and geographical locations. And, as we know, business decisions like building a successful pricing structure work better when based on an understanding of real value to the customer.

With Market Research working to help decision makers understand customers’ behavior and latent needs, your company can generate long-term growth through “intelligent” innovation and investment decisions.  And for B2B companies, this means working with customers and users to source new ideas.  Recent observations we’ve had in the healthcare industry include:

• DietBet-New Website lets (weight) losers put their money where their mouth is
• Geriatric ER-The emergency room experience retools for elderly patients
• Banning Smokers as Hiring Policy-Employers reach into private lives with “no smokers” hiring bans
• Future Foretold by Your Gene Code-Analyze this: Gene reading is the new predictive science
• Indian Doctors Media-Communication without borders: Indian doctors take to the media
• Big Hospitals in Small Towns-Big hospital chains in India eye small town business