If you read the marketing tomes coming from the likes of Nielsen, IRI, Kantar, 84.51, Dunnhumby etc, you would imagine that historic sales patterns can answer pretty much any category or retail strategy requirement. There are many providers of sales analytics. An entire Industry. An Industry with a common dominant assumption, an assumption that
Benchmarking is much more than just comparing your own performance to your competitors. In market research it is used in a variety of creative ways, in different study types. We all know the classical situation. When you look at your Net Promoter Score of let’s say 58% – and you ask: should I be
I hear a lot of chat about how the current virus situation will change everything. Surely a worldwide life-changing phenomenon like this will see the world fundamentally altered, and retail will be at the leading edge of that? I doubt it. There is a real danger of disappearing down over-reaction rabbit holes. To balance the
There is endless discussion about the growth of online grocery shopping. The virus pandemic is going to give it a kick start as well, even after the short term motivations end. But simply persuading shoppers to do something unfamiliar that makes their life “easier” isn’t really the main challenge. The bigger problem to solve is
I watched a fascinating documentary the other day. It was all about why certain paintings were judged as being “masterpieces” while others painted at the same time over a very similar standard (by any objective measure) remained relatively unknown. Painting A became worth $50m, Painting B $200k at best. The conclusions of the 1-hour program
In market research, we are a dedicated bunch. Passionate about insights, hot on methodologies. Keen to make a real business impact. But we’re human too. We like to try cool new things. We want to be a hero to our organization. We want to do something different from those that went before… Put these things
Bear Grylls. The Island. Seen it? A bunch of ordinary people dropped onto a desert island with nothing but a day of water and a few machetes. Task 1: Start a fire. Without fire, they can't boil the water they find. So, they'll soon die of thirst. How to start a fire? No matches, nothing.
AI is going to change our lives – it’s going to remove so much of the mundane analysis. What’s more, it’s going to be able to predict things that previously we’d have had to figure out for ourselves. Wonderful stuff, machine learning. But don’t be fooled. There is one question AI will never answer. It
I am generally loath to dumb down anything into oversimplified bullet points, but I am going to make an exception today because I think this matter is so important but so ignored - it needs a little bit of extra focus! Most shopper insights are driven by suppliers seeking to "influence" retailers. We all know
It’s a fascinating and familiar conundrum. Despite there being literally thousands of products in a supermarket that we never buy and are never likely to buy, we somehow manage to get in and out, buy our regular shopping, and complete the task in a relatively short time. Undistracted by everything we don’t need. I know
