In this post I reflect on the value of qualitative insight. I propose that marketing managers step way from questions such as ‘how many’, ‘how much’ or ‘how quickly’ and focus, instead, on ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’. The obsession with metrics has taken over social media. Firms monitor fervently the number of comments on blog … Continue reading Not everything that counts can be counted

Now and again, an organisation will engage in a marketing communications campaign that you can’t help noticing but… which leaves you wondering ‘What’s the point?’ Some marketing communications initiatives have great entertainment value. They are beautiful or technically elaborate. Who doesn’t remember the Sony Bravia adverts featuring 250,000 brightly coloured balls bouncing down a San … Continue reading Big impression, poor results

How a simple button is changing sign-in attitudes and behaviours Last Thursday I realised, quite by chance, that I had posted 1,002 tweets. The 1,000th one had been posted earlier that day and was a moan about not being able to attend Wimbledon because of work commitments *sigh* It seems a long way since my … Continue reading The era of the webtarts

In this post, news about a research project that I am developing at the moment. But before that, apologies for the delay in posting... Contrary to common perception, an academic’s work does not stop (or, indeed, slow down) when there is no teaching. There are assignments to mark, module reports to prepare and dissertations to … Continue reading New Research Project: Social Media in Segmentation

Recently, I called my mobile phone operator to activate a service. The following day, I received a text message inviting me to complete a customer satisfaction survey. The survey consisted of 3 questions: That has to be good, right? Not really. For customer satisfaction surveys to be useful they need to ask the right questions. … Continue reading Asking the right questions

Organisations invest considerable resources in getting customers to acquire their goods and services. They will promote their products in a variety of media, hand out samples or engage a sales team, for instance. In addition, some organisations will map out the steps that their customers go through when using the product. That allows firms to … Continue reading Value at the end of the line

I wrote earlier about the challenges of assessing the quality of online information (by the way, I am still keen on getting your comments about this topic). This post looks at issues of quantity and how we deal with the vast amounts of information available online. The futurologist Alvin Toffler predicted in his book Future … Continue reading Keeping up with information online

In the playground game ‘Chinese Whispers’, one player whispers a message to the next one, who then whispers what s/he has heard to the following player. The game continues until the message reaches the final player who reveals what s/he has heard. The final version of the message usually differs from the original one, a … Continue reading Chinese Whispers Online

I remember that, when I finished my first degree and was looking for a job, every other advert was from an organisation describing itself as ‘the leading player in their market’. However, when you were called for an interview, you would often find an organisation that you would not necessarily label as ‘leader’. Clearly, becoming … Continue reading If Apple made kitchen utensils…