More specifically, the ��������� (formerly Honomichl) Top 50 and Top 25 Reports have long been the industry standards for annually documenting patterns in the global business of marketing research, and the major players driving its growth. This will continue. But just as the market is transforming, so too are these reports. We continue to track and publish annual changes in the traditional survey research market, but beginning last year we began to also explore the evolving marketing intelligence space in which we reside, and the expanding field of players in the emerging sub-segments defining this morphing space.

The concern for a greater understanding of research in transformation is a sentiment receiving support from all corners of our industry. For example, Lenny Murphy, GreenBook executive editor suggests that the need for defining and documenting this transformation can be a rallying point to support the argument that the research industry continues to be a foundational discipline within the world of marketing. In a  he wrote, “We need a consistent definition of the industry and a consistent means of evaluating the companies in it that not only is comprehensive but also can support the argument that the research industry is the core of all marketing insights-related categories, and the companies that participate in it deserve serious attention as growth opportunities.

Relatively little data to explore this expanding space exists today, so in coordination with the Insights Association and Michigan State University, ��������� continues to take a comprehensive look at the evolution of this space within which we contribute and compete.

The Broad School of Business at Michigan State University is one of several U.S. universities committed to developing the next generation of marketing leadership through internship-based Master of Marketing Research Programs. In 2015 Michigan State University created the Research Transformed Collaborative as an academic and industry partnership to begin vetting and quantifying related points of view.

��������� now begins to incorporate these findings, plus the perspectives of other industry sources, into the gradually expanding depiction of the market. Look for several articles in the following months examining the industry transformation.

-Michael Brereton

Over the past three years, we have introduced an important objective in our presentation of the ��������� Gold Top 50 and Global Top 25 Reports: analysis and presentation of an objective view of the changes our industry is experiencing.

CASRO, now the , has worked with key associations in the industry, especially our partners the ���������, Michigan State University and the Global Research Business Network (GRBN), but also ESOMAR, Greenbook and thought leaders such as Simon Chadwick, board chair of the Insights Association and managing partner of Cambiar.

This research and assessment of the sub-segments that comprise and define the industry’s transformation and expansion has been an important initiative of Michigan State University’s Research Transformed Collaborative under the leadership of Michael Brereton. The MSU team will provide a series of articles that feature specific transformative developments in the industry. It is important to emphasize that many of these sub-segments are already being adopted by the 25 companies listed in the report, which lead the way by virtue of their size and by their foresight in industry and business innovation and transformation.

The expansion and transformation of the marketing research industry continued in 2016, particularly among the companies included in this year’s ��������� Gold Global Top 25 Report. Total 2016 revenue for this year’s top 25 is $22.549 billion versus $21.566 billion in 2015, a growth rate of 4.6% (3.3% when adjusted for inflation).

The 2016 growth rate for the 25 research companies included in this year’s report represents significant change from the flat growth rate recorded in last year’s report. There are two major factors that contributed to this turnaround: changes in the composition of this year’s global top 25 list and currency exchange rate fluctuations in 2016 and 2015. 

The portion of global revenue generated outside the home countries of these companies is about 70% of total revenue. In addition, the top 25 companies have, on average, an office or a subsidiary in 27 countries. These numbers include more outreach to and establishment of offices in emerging research markets in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South America and Central America.

Global Growth Rate

Currency Exchange Rate Fluctuations

The currency exchange rate fluctuation between 2015 and 2016 had a mixed effect on the growth rate in 2016. The top 25 companies submit their annual revenue in their home country’s currency. These figures are converted to U.S. dollars based on the average annual currency exchange rates provided by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. In 2016, the currency exchange rate against the U.S. dollar had an especially negative impact on the British pound and the euro. However, the Japanese yen increased its value against the U.S. dollar.

Year-Over-Year Increases and Decreases in Revenue

In this year’s top 25 report, there was an increase in the number of companies that had double-digit increases in their revenue (eight companies in 2016 versus four companies in 2015) and a decrease in the number of companies that reported flat revenue or decreased revenue (eight companies in 2016 versus twelve companies in 2015).

Composition of the Global Top 25

Countries and Currencies

There are five countries and four currencies represented in this year’s report.

The British pound is the currency for seven of the top 25 companies and more than 50% of the total 2016 global revenue. The U.K. contingent includes four of the top 10 companies, beginning with Nos. 1 and 2 on the list—Nielsen and Kantar—and Nos. 8 and 10, dunnhumby and Wood MacKenzie. The other British companies are Nos. 18, Mintel; 21, YouGov; and 25, Cello Health.

The U.S. dollar is the currency for the 11 U.S. companies, representing 27.8% of the total 2016 global revenue. Three U.S. companies are included in the top 10: No. 3, QuintilesIMS; No. 6, IRI (Information Resources, Inc.); and No. 7, Westat. The other U.S. companies are: No. 11, The NPD Group; No. 13, ICF; No. 15, DRG (Decision Resources Group); No. 17, MaritzCX; No. 19, Abt Associates; No. 20, Lieberman Research Worldwide (LRW); No. 22, ORC International; and No. 23, NRC Health.

More than 17% of the total 2016 global revenue was generated in euros, 10% of which was earned by French companies, including No. 4, Ipsos; No. 16, BVA; and No. 24, Médiamétrie. Germany’s 7.4% of the global revenue is represented by one company, GfK, No. 5 on the list.

More than 4% of the 2016 global revenue is represented in Japanese yen and includes contributions from three top 25 companies, No. 9, INTAGE Holdings; No. 12, Macromill; and No. 14, Video Research.

How Global?

Many of the top 25 focus their business within their home country. This is true even for some of the largest companies on the list. Nearly two-thirds of the top 25 companies (including four out of the top 10) derive more than 60% of their annual revenue from their home country. Even so, the revenue generated by the top 25 outside their home countries is more than twice the revenue they generate in their home countries and represents almost 70% of the total global revenue.

New Additions to this Year’s Global Top 25

There are three new companies on this year’s list.

• At No. 16 with $171.6 million in global annual revenue is BVA. Headquartered in Balma, France, with offices in eight other countries, BVA specializes in customer experience research in Europe, and in packaging and shopper research globally.
• At No. 18 with global revenue of $150 million, Mintel is a global marketing intelligence company headquartered in London. Mintel covers 33,000 product launches per month and tracks consumer spending across 34 countries.
• At No. 23 with $109.4 million in global revenue is U.S.-based, NRC Health, which offers performance measurement and improvement services to hospitals, health care systems, physicians, health plans and other health care organizations.

Absent from this Year’s List

This year’s list does not include comScore, which could not participate because its 2016 financial statements were not publicly available. Nor does the report include Rentrak, which merged with comScore in February 2016. Finally, the list does not include J.D. Power, which was acquired by XIO Group in 2016 and chose not to disclose financial information. These companies represent more than $750 million in annual revenue. 

Moving Up and Down

• ICF, which provides research and technical training to government and multinational organizations, moved up two spaces from No. 15 to No. 13 on the list.
• Video Research, a media and marketing research firm serving the Japanese media, TV and radio market, moved from No. 16 to No. 14.
• Decision Resources Group (DRG), a health care research and consulting company, moved from No. 17 to No. 15.
• Lieberman Research Worldwide (LRW), a research, consulting and global analytics company, moved from No. 22 to No. 20.
• The NPD Group, a data-driven global information and business solutions company, moved from No. 12 to No. 11.
• Macromill, a global online and consumer insights and analytics company, moved from No. 13 to No. 12.
• MaritzCX, a customer experience software and research company, moved from No. 18 to No. 17.
• YouGov, providing proprietary data products and syndicated research, moved from No. 20 to No. 21.
• ORC International, a global business intelligence company, moved from No. 21 to No. 22.

Maintaining Their Positions

• At No. 19, Abt Associates (formerly Abt SRBI), which specializes in health care, social and international research.
• At No. 24, Médiamétrie, a television and media research and audience measurement company.
• At No. 25, Cello Health, a health care research and consumer strategic marketing company.

The Top 10

The top 10 companies account for $19.948 billion (88.5%) of the total 2016 revenue of the top 25. These 10 companies generated $15.068 billion (95.8%) of the revenue earned by the 25 companies outside their home countries and $4.880 billion (71.6%) of the total revenue earned within in their home countries. These 10 companies have 143,477 employees total, constituting 91.5% of all employees of the top 25 companies.

There have been some adjustments to the top 10 list with the absence of comScore, which held the No. 10 spot on last year’s list.

• No. 10, dunnhumby, a London-based retail, manufacturer and grocery customer science measurement company, moved from No. 7 on last year’s list.
• No. 8, Wood MacKenzie, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based research and commercial intelligence firm specializing in energy, metals and mining industries, moved up from No. 11 on last year’s report.
• No. 7, Westat, a U.S.-based company that provides statistical, survey and evaluation studies of programs and policies for government and international organizations, moved up from No. 8 on last year’s list.

The remaining companies in the top 10 have maintained their position this year.

• No. 9, INTAGE Holdings, is a Tokyo-based company specializing in standardized syndicated data and customized research services.
• No. 6, IRI, headquartered in Chicago, delivers market, consumer and media exposure information; prescriptive analytics; and technology platforms through offices in 15 other countries.   
• No. 5, GfK, headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany, is a consumer experience company that integrates online and offline data for business solutions and opportunities.
• No. 4, Ipsos, headquartered in Paris, has five research specializations operating in 88 countries: Ipsos Marketing, Ipsos Connect, Ipsos Loyalty, Ipsos Public Affairs and Ipsos Observer.
• No. 3, QuintilesIMS, headquartered in the U.S., is an integrated information and technology-enabled health care service provider. The new company formed via the 2016 merger of health care data and tech solutions company, IMS Health, with Quintiles, a contract research organization for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries.
• No. 2, Kantar, the London-based data investment management division of WPP plc, includes 12 specialist operating brands that provide research, data, analytic, strategic and consultative services.
• No. 1, Nielsen, headquartered in London, is a global media and consumer measurement and data company with offices in more than 100 countries. Nielsen’s 2016 revenue of $6.309 billion represents 28% of the total global revenue of the top 25. Nielsen’s $6.111 billion generated outside the U.K. represents 38.8% of the total revenue generated outside the home countries of the top 25.

Portfolio of Services

The top 25 continue to be dominated by companies that provide syndicated, tracking and measurement services. Thirteen companies on the list specialize in measurement and tracking services: Nielsen, QuintilesIMS, IRI, Wood MacKenzie, INTAGE, dunnhumby, The NPD Group, Video Research, Decision Resources Group, Mintel, YouGov, NRC Health and Mediametrie. These 13 companies represent 58.4% of the total 2016 revenue for the top 25. Most of the other top 25 companies also include measurement and tracking in their portfolio of services.

The profiles of the top 25 companies confirm that their services are expanding and changing. Most companies are vested in online research, panel research, social media measurement, data analytics and customer experience. The Gold Global Top 25 companies are increasing their focus on and investment in social media, predictive analytics, data visualization and enterprise feedback management, among other emerging sub disciplines. The transformation of the research industry is well underway.

– Diane Bowers

Methodology

With the help of the Global Research Business Network (GRBN), which includes the national research associations in more than 40 countries around the world, invitations are sent out to marketing research firms with estimated revenue greater than $25 million. We ask for revenue information for the prior calendar year and for the year preceding that to assess the growth rate. Other company data are also requested, including a description of the company’s management, services, specializations, etc. The rate of growth from year to year has been adjusted to account for revenue gains or losses from acquisitions or divestitures. Verification of revenue is required of each private firm for ranking by a third party—generally an outside accounting firm. For further information, contact Diane Bowers at diane.bowers@insightsassociation.org.

The Top 25 Company Profiles 

 1. 

​CEO:   Dwight M. Barns, B.S., Miami University

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Sometime between five minutes and five years from now, advertising as we know it will die. Go and buy the black suit now, writes

The End of Advertising isn’t a eulogy, writes Essex, who is currently the . Instead, the book is a reminder of the industry’s mortality, a momento mori—which translates to “remember you must die” from Latin. It’s a hopeful reminder that the advertising we know may perish, but its heir apparent has potential to be prodigious. After all, people will always need to buy, sell and know what’s new. Essex says advertisers should learn from past mistakes rather than repeat them ad infinitum into the industry’s next incarnation.

Customers, en masse, are choosing to essentially never see ads again by downloading ad blocking software. Between December 2015 and December 2016, . Soon, many browsers will come stocked with ad blockers—Samsung’s Android browser and the Asus browsers already do, .

I asked Essex to check the pulse of the patient: Is advertising already dead? He let out a noise somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle and asked if I was serious; “I guess the book didn’t work.” There’s still hope. Of course advertising isn’t dead yet, he says, but bad advertising is careening toward extinction.

Essex spoke on advertising’s annoying qualities, how to fix the industry and why ad blockers are actually the best thing to ever happen to the ad industry.

Q: Can you explain the difference between bad advertising and good advertising? 

A: I think [good advertising is] anything that adds value—and by value I mean entertains—provides a service or offers some utility. That’s a welcome form of content. Anything that annoys is actively unwelcome and thus ineffective.

The last 50 or so years, the industry has subscribed to a model called command and control, which is based on the premise that you have to pay to generate attention, that you have to buy awareness. Then suddenly, we found ourselves in a new world sodden with content—new platforms, new toys, 497 scripted TV shows. The idea of interrupting, of forcing yourself on someone, has become increasingly unattractive. In a world in which there is too much TV for any individual to consume, advertising that doesn’t add value to people’s lives, that isn’t qualitatively welcomed, is perceived as [annoying] like never before. This was always something that was understood, but there weren’t enough channels to worry about it—you could interrupt effectively. Now, I believe you cannot interrupt effectively and, in fact, the interruption is a very bad strategy. 

Q: How many advertisers are providing value versus annoying their audience?

A: A minority. The minority get it and have made very effective, very welcome marketing. But the bulk still follow the old, outdated playbook. 

Q: I like that quote by advertising pioneer that you use at the beginning of the book: “Advertising’s worth to civilization depends on how it is being used.” What do you think advertising’s potential worth to society is? 

A: It’s unlimited. Advertising can be one of the great forces for good. The key is that brands sit on a tremendous amount of liquidity, and as they find themselves grappling with shifting consumer behavior, they can spend their money in more purposeful ways, ways that try to add value to people’s lives. That might be underwriting the arts, it might be fixing infrastructure for that matter. Our nation’s bridges are collapsing; our nation’s brands should underwrite our nation’s bridges. There are huge ways that brands can make the world a better place rather than adding pollution to the equation. It just requires imagination and good leadership. 

Q: You wrote in the book that ad blocking is “the greatest thing that has ever happened to the advertising industry.” Do you think that’s the result of a lack of creativity in advertising, or was it the “infobesity,” as you termed it, of so much advertising and entertainment to consume? 

A: I don’t think it’s so much a lack of creativity. It’s the repercussions of 50 years of forcing something down people’s throats that they didn’t ask to see. There are consequences and this is the comeuppance. The consumers now have a way to say “no” to something they didn’t ask to see. 

Q: As an ad executive at Droga5, you used ad blockers. I’ve seen other marketers use ad blocking software. ? People are clearly using ad blockers to avoid what they don’t want to see but don’t seem to make the connection that consumers don’t want to see it either.

A: Because there’s so much to be said for status quo. And it’s hard to change. There are a lot of livelihoods on the line here, but those that don’t pay attention will find themselves on the wrong side of history. 

Q: Does your average advertiser realize they’re adding to what you call the “toomuchness,” the overloading of the average consumer? 

A: The quick answer is apparently not. Any company that’s making the worst kind of egregious noise and contributing pollution is probably not benefiting from principled leadership or innovative marketing by any stretch of imagination. It becomes a question of, whom do we want to be the scapegoat here? You have to be more specific, but there are too many [ad executives] not thinking about this or not listening to their children or waking up to the fact that consumer behavior has evolved dramatically and marketing has to follow. 

Q: You wrote about the small group of advertisers at the dawn of the web who decided banner and interruptive ads were a good idea. Both are now clearly bad ideas yet are still in use. Is that just a standard human bias to keep using what once seemed like it might work?

A: Exactly right. You know, there are many people that would probably prefer us to still be in horse-drawn carriages. It’s just a case of recognizing that innovation is painful, disruption is awkward and sometimes people lose their leadership or their market share as a result. There are many who are hanging onto old models by their fingertips, and they’re about to fall off the cliff. 

Q: New ways of justifying this hanging on are data and insights. One of the key points in your book was that advertisers have forgotten that consumers are human. How did this happen over the years, and can the data revolution address that?

A: Of course. Data is just a tool, so it’s all about how you deploy the tool. All impressions are not created equal. When you commodify an audience, you forget that they live lives of great complexity in a context that’s rapidly shifting. I think that data needs to be managed by people who are more thoughtful, intuitive and accept that there are consequences to algorithmic marketing. Part of that is that you drive a wedge between human beings and the message you’re trying to send. 

Q: What’s the downside of that wedge, the downside of strictly relying on data and insights? 

A: Annoying people so much that they block the canvas on which you’re trying to communicate, and you lose them forever. What are we to ascertain by the fact that one in 10 Americans don’t want to see commercial messages? It is time to pay more attention to the tea leaves. 

Q: You wrote about presenting advertising to consumers in the way one might give a housewarming gift. How can advertisers and marketers give that kind of value?

A: By putting yourself in the position of the consumer and understanding the context in which they live. Don’t think about your message in a myopic fashion; it exists within a continuum, within a feed, within a firehose of astonishing amounts of content. And you had better think about where you exist in that continuum. If you think that you’re the only thing they’re paying attention to, you’re kidding yourself. [You have to think,] what do you, as a consumer, want to see, and when do you want to see it?

Q: Coming down from the ivory tower, I suppose.

A: It’s not even an ivory tower. I suggest hovering and have some perspective. Just keep your thinking more critical.

Q: You gave examples in the book of the next generation of advertising: New York City and Citibank’s American Girl’s. One thing I kept wondering is how small and midsize marketers fit into this. Have you seen any examples that have worked for those with a smaller budget? 

A: When you have a small budget, the first thing you have to do is make sure that your product is authentic and distinctive. Look at—it was acquired by Unilever recently. You begin by making a superior product. You start with a purpose, and then you convey that purpose in the form of a compelling message that scales through word of mouth and through social. You can make all kinds of clever marketing cheaper than ever before; it doesn’t require a big budget. I would argue you can no longer buy relevance, so even the biggest budget is not sufficient if you are pushing something on people that is inauthentic and fraudulent. You have to begin with product and purpose and then some perspective. 

Q: That makes sense. I liked your thoughts on returning to underwritten entertainment, such as commercial-free TV shows and movies sponsored by brands. But is there proof that this hands-off approach to sponsorship without message works?

A: Empirical data has always been elusive in advertising. Is there proof that direct response works? The standard metric is .001% in terms of people who click on banner ads. That’s proof to me that it doesn’t work, except when you have a billion people. The response can be meaningful, but it really doesn’t work in the sense that there’s no profound engagement. 

If you ask a kid who saw “The LEGO Movie” if they liked LEGO more or not [after seeing the film], they’re probably going to say, “Yes.” And they’re going to go to the store and probably want one of those products. That’s enough proof for me. I know that liking the brand makes me more inclined to buy its product than disliking it. That’s all the proof I need. 

My simple assumption is make something that people like, rather than something people don’t like, and you’ll do better. It’s not brain surgery. It doesn’t require empirical justification, and it is irrefutably true. If you want to bang someone over the head with something over and over again, that’s your prerogative, but I think it’s extremely unwise given the context in which we live. 

Q: Is this the fatal flaw of focusing on things like impressions and shares, these numbers that show a certain result but don’t seem to matter much in the end?

A: That’s right. Engagement is the only metric that matters. And all the other subcategories of engagement: length of stay, completion, brand love.

Q: I thought the idea of private companies partnering with public infrastructure projects was interesting. You talked about brands funding trains or roads.

A: Yes. I recently had the misfortune of having to take Amtrak from New York to [Washington,] D.C., and it’s astonishing what a completely inferior experience it is. Nevertheless, you’ve got a bunch of people and a captive audience. Why the entire experience isn’t underwritten by a brand is beyond me. There’s everything from the signage to the bathrooms to the audio to the Wi-Fi to the food—all third-rate. 

It’s a great opportunity for brands to put up their money in the way that would make people feel more inclined to use their product. It’s a canvas, but we don’t necessarily think that way. And that needs to change. I believe infrastructure is the ultimate white space, and that’s the future of marketing if we can get the right people in leadership roles. 

It’s not dissimilar from Facebook’s pivot to mobile. You have what is said to be a third-rate mobile experience, and then through a real focus on engineering, you have a dominant mobile experience and all the revenue follows. We should create new inventory for our infrastructure and sell it like a 21st century media company.

Q: I imagine it has to be the right message as well because I can see there being dissent. Some members of the public will not be happy with brands playing such a big role in infrastructure.

A: Right, I always push back on advocacy groups and say, “What’s the alternative? Are you satisfied with the way it is?” There are already tons of commercial messages in our airports and many of our roadsides. It’s just not good. It’s not effective, and it’s not holistic. 

Q: How would this concept of public-private infrastructure partnership work online? 

A: It’s already happening. If you look at Axios, the very popular newsletter from the people who started Politico, it’s brought to you by a brand, and there’s usually one commercial spot in the middle, but it’s not hugely interrupted. It’s underwritten. There are many sites, many media companies that have their message underwritten by brands in a non-disruptive way. 

Q: I saw you posting on Twitter about . What other unique ideas have you heard that haven’t gotten much love yet?

A: You’ve heard it’s the “summer of hell” in the New York City subway system. We’re looking at decades of disinvestment and the consequences thereof. This is a case where you still have paper ads in the subway … a series of spots and dots that haven’t changed since the 1930s. It’s shocking in its laziness. My thesis is that if we think about the subway as a media company, we’ve got lots and lots of eyeballs and lots and lots of receptivity and thus lots and lots of impressions. It has to be basically repackaged as an engaged audience. Brands should be in there providing services, utility, surprise and delight. And that’s a scalable idea that extends to every city and every urban municipal transportation agency, but it requires leadership and creative thinking. 

There are tons of ideas out there. It’s just the question of who can execute on them, what’s in the way and how status quo and entropy are powerful forces that require counterforces pushing up against them. The Plus Pool is a great example—something that can let people swim in a dirty river. There’s an example of a brand seeing the upside for its market share rather than advertising an interruption. They are literally putting their money where their mouth is and they will sell more beer as a result. I applaud that.

Q: Do these projects have to match up with the brand’s focus? 

A: Of course, 100%. It has to be authentic and has to be aligned with their purpose. Johnson & Johnson supports nurses, Procter & Gamble supports moms, many brands support water purity or water scarcity issues. It’s not difficult to find an idea that aligns with your purpose. And your purpose should not be to annoy and interrupt people.

Q: Relating to that, you said in your book that sometimes it’s OK for advertisers to simply do or say nothing. That has to scare the hell out of your average advertiser.

A: Well, let’s put it this way: You’re not spending the money, so you are perhaps not wasting the money. There was an airline that went through a little bit of difficulty fairly recently and they went dark in their communications for some time. There are many brands that turn off the media when something happens that they’re embarrassed by; a certain sugary drink experienced that as well fairly recently. 

Your argument is spend the money and sell more product. What if you spend the money and you sell less product? Another argument should be invest in the product, … not spend the money on bad advertising. It really just becomes a cost-benefit analysis. You have $100 allocated to marketing; how can you turn that into $200? Make something that offsets the investment by creating real [intellectual property]. Put it toward research and development, give it away to charity and get a positive benefit. There are always options. But you had sure as shit better produce something great if you’re going to spend it on marketing.

Q: Sometimes it seems it would be easier to do something as simple as sponsor a free day at a museum, a phone-charging station or something online versus a mass message.

A: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And there are ways to track the ROI of that like never before. It’s simply [telling the customer to] opt-in for some messages from a brand for that free day at a museum. Then there’s a relationship. 

Q: That’s much different from the way brands interact with me on a day-to-day basis, which I see as more of a data grab.

A: Right, and how’s that going for them? 

Q: Not so well, from my view. Any advice for your average advertiser or marketer who wants to engage consumers on a human level or be more creative? 

A: I would be fluent in some of the data out there that demonstrates the behavior’s validity. We don’t have to explain to most people that mobile is the primary point of contact. Be fluent in the number of people who have downloaded ad blocking software solutions. Be fluent in the number of channels and platforms out there. Ask the client, ask your partner if there’s something that people want to see rather than forcing people to see something they don’t want. It’s a simple existential question: Why not make something that people like? It’s a unified theory of product. 

Be prepared to stand up for what you believe in. The industry could use a bit more courage across the board.

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Goal

While a rose, as Shakespeare wrote in “Romeo and Juliet,” would smell just as sweet when called by any other name, brands often run into a different conundrum: Their name, a proverbial rose, may smell fantastic but go almost entirely un-sniffed.   

Executives from Spaulding for Children, a Houston, Texas, adoption and foster care services nonprofit, were proud of the work they had done. In its 40-year history, the organization has placed more than 2,100 children into permanent adoptive homes. However, Spaulding’s brand name was lost in a fog of confusion. Chicago-based Spalding, with a homophonic name, rang more familiar to the ears of many potential Spaulding for Children clients. 

Spalding, a sporting goods company, has worldwide name recognition—the company’s logo emblazons each NBA game ball, allowing it to be seen by more than 20 million people during the NBA Finals alone. As much good work as Spaulding for Children has done in the Houston community, its recognition doesn’t match that of the basketball maker. 

Vikki Finley, , hired Houston-based brand experience firm BrandExtract in 2016 to launch a marketing campaign. She hoped a well-placed campaign could clear the fog of brand name confusion. “For many of our staff here, our entire careers are focused around the Spaulding for Children brand,” Finley says. “The deeper we got into it, we realized that I spent the majority of my time explaining who we weren’t and certainly trying to explain the disconnect between us and sporting goods.”

Jonathan Fisher, chairman of BrandExtract and the lead on the Spaulding for Children account, says when a brand name is too similar to that of a well-known company, the goodwill of the lesser-known brand transfers to the popular organization. “It hurts you,” he says of the smaller brands. 

Spaulding for Children’s new marketing campaign quickly turned into something more complex than Finley and company imagined: a complete rebrand. Spaulding was considering changing its name. 

Action

BrandExtract’s goal of rebranding a company with a four-decade history was no small task. For most companies, BrandExtract uses a three- to seven-month rebranding process, Fisher says. This process is four steps: a qualitative phase where the client’s employees and families are interviewed, a quantitative phase where a list of new brand names are chosen, a qualitative testing phase of alternative brand concepts and a finalization of the rebranding process.

“With any brand project, you want to get a holistic view from the top-down,” Fisher says. “You want to have an internal view, an external view and a comparative analysis. Think of it as a three-legged stool: If you leave off a leg—part of your research and homework—then you’re going to have a bit of a wobbly stool.”

BrandExtract wanted to ensure Spaulding had the right name, the right image and made the right promises to potential families. “When you go through the assessment stages, it’s very eye-opening,” Fisher says. “It’s very revealing for [the employees] in ways that they never expected.”

In the testing phase, . Another 6% were neither familiar nor unfamiliar. In another question, 50% of people responded that Spaulding’s brand name evoked “supportive” and a mere 28% said the name evoked “personal touch.” Other names, created from whole cloth for the purpose of the survey, earned scores in the 80th percentile on both attributes. 

Finley says she was “not shocked at all” at this lack of awareness. Spaulding had very few marketing initiatives over the years, save for word of mouth, and it did not have a descriptive brand name. Spaulding didn’t let potential clients know the organization’s purpose—did it donate basketballs to children, perhaps? 

After the stool was constructed and the legwork balanced, a change was made: Spaulding for Children became Arms Wide Adoption Services.  

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Arms Wide Adoption Services, one of the names created from whole cloth, already rang more familiar than Spaulding for Children, per BrandExtract’s survey—10% were “very familiar” with Arms Wide Adoption Services versus 6% who said the same for Spaulding for Children. The word “adoption” in the brand name should allow the organization’s purpose to be instantly recognizable. 

Additionally, the new brand name had better attributes than Spaulding for Children, per BrandExtract’s survey: 

• 88% say the new brand name rings as “supportive” (50% for the old brand name).
• 85% say the new brand name evokes “personal touch” (28% for the old brand name).
• 86% say the new brand name is “credible” (30% for the old brand name). 

While Arms Wide Adoption Services is still trying to fit into its new identity—Finley says she still often answers the phone with “Spaulding” on the tip of her tongue—the early online results have been reassuring. Prior to the rebrand, Google Analytics for the organization’s website in April showed 338 unique sessions lasting about 90 seconds each. After the rebrand, the unique sessions on Arms Wide Adoption Services’ website in June nearly tripled to 985 at 150 seconds each. 

“For us, that is probably the most immediate indicator that we are attracting more attention to our name,” Finley says. “We definitely feel like our name positions us to grow because it makes it so much easier for people to find us on the internet and understand what we do.”

The main question remains: Will the rebrand help the organization place more children in adoptive homes? Finley says it’s too early to tell. The adoption system is highly regulated and moves slowly. It takes time, she says, and they’ll need a bit longer than a few months to truly know the impact of the rebrand.

Although the adoption and fostering results may not be visible yet, Finley has confidence the name will bring the attention needed rather than transferring that attention to a sporting goods company. Arms Wide Adoption Services is still composed of the same people who had so much success as Spaulding for Children. Now, they have a new marketing plan and are wielding a more powerful brand name. 

Fisher says the ultimate goal is beyond repositioning in the market place, beyond renaming the brand and beyond recalibrating the marketing approach. The marketing minutia is all he can truly control as the rebrand manager, but he says his ultimate goal is to see more children placed in a new family, forever.

“That’s certainly the true measure of success,” Fisher says. “It’s not about winning awards or having a better website, it’s can I get more kids in permanent families and get more kids adopted. That’s the ultimate goal for us.”

By any other name, that is one sweet goal for Arms Wide Adoption Services.​

The post How A Name Change Propelled an Adoption Agency to Brand Recognition appeared first on ���������.

Pop-up stores are retail prestidigitation.

They’re here one second and gone the next, and they can make otherwise-ugly, naked storefronts beautiful. Customers swarm and social media mentions spike in the blink of an eye. The entire experience can feel as though it was brought to life by the tap of a magic wand.

Wizardry aside, pop-up shops serve some very basic marketing needs. The fleeting shops can introduce a consumer to a brand or provide a format for direct interaction with consumers. They pull in consumer data and provide an unique opportunity for fans to step into a brand encounter.

“Those high-touch experiences have always been part of any brand’s journey to go directly to a customer,” says Arati Sharma, director of marketing at Shopify. “It’s not a new phenomenon, but because retail is changing so much, pop-up shops are that new high-touch way of getting in front of your customer, client or consumer.”

What may be most magical about these ephemeral experiences is that they exist in the physical space between online and offline retail. They’re more fleeting than traditional bricks-and-mortar stores, but more tangible than online shopping. As Sharma puts it, today’s retailer needs to be omnipresent.

The pop-up shop industry was valued at $50 billion in 2016, according to statistics from , a retail marketing database. These short-term shops are also softening the blow of a changing landscape;  that landlords are becoming receptive to short-term leases as traditional retail stores create vacancies across the country. One managing director of an upscale shopping center told the newspaper that “Pop-ups are a responsible way to grow.”

Not only are pop-ups a smart call on the business side of the equation, but the consumer experience they provide can be exciting. Sharma cites the sense of urgency as one of the key appealing factors for shoppers: It’s exclusive, and that makes customers feel special.

The intersection between responsible and exciting may be where the magic lies for pop-up shops. Marketing News explored a few different rhymes and reasons why brands engage in these physical, fleeting institutions.

Bringing Web-only to In-person

Food52, a community-focused food website, launched its online store in 2013, and it has since brought its products offline in pop-up shops.

“Food52 is a brand that really comes to life in offline experiences and brand activation,” says Emily Butler, the company’s vice president of marketing. “The initial pop-up was about extending the experience to showcase our products in real life.”

The brand’s community expects a very specific look from the company, and Food52 knew its pop-ups would need to mirror that design. Butler says the team starts with a larger theme, then the art director and stylist work together with the merchandising team, along with the shop and buying teams, to find what products make the most sense to be featured. In addition to physical commerce, the company also leverages experiences such as knife classes or on-site demonstrations from its product-makers.

One of the most recent Food52 pop-up shops revolved around the website’s . The effort focused on refreshing rooms for spring, a theme that Butler says allowed the team to create smaller experiences within the event that illustrated how to clean up and organize the home for springtime.

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“We have quite a knack for making something like a wall of cleaning products look very beautiful,” Butler says. “We have great-looking products that also work really well. That’s the experience that we try to create at these various markets.”

During the pop-up events, the company collects customer information, learning how they heard of the brand or if they are first-time shoppers. Food52 also captures visitors’ e-mail addresses to send a follow-up and thank you, including a wrap-up of the content produced at the market. The company tracks new and returning customers and notes if the shoppers were acquired at the market and made their purchases online at a later date.

Some of the key data that Food52 gathers at its pop-up shops is far more qualitative than quantitative: The brand wants to see how its customers interact with its staff and its products.

“Talking to people in real life about our commerce is—as a truly digital brand—not an experience that we have every day,” Butler says. “Gaining those testimonials is really helpful for content production and for additional ideas to re-merchandise a product and show a different way you can use it.”

Drawing Attention to a Product or Service

Farm cooperative Organic Valley’s original plan was to produce a video campaign with an in-store experience to promote its half-and-half product; however, the company’s agency, Humanaut, decided to take it a step further and actually open a pop-up shop.

Thus was (briefly) born the  in New York City, a quaint little boutique with a very unique spin. Rather than ordering and paying for cups of coffee and allowing customers to add the creamer separately, the pop-up sold shots of creamer and let customers add the coffee.

“We’re going to go through the same amount of production and ceremony to pour the half-and-half and ring you up and set it out delicately for you,” says Humanaut Chief Creative Director David Littlejohn, comparing the pop-up to traditional coffee shop experiences. The Organic Valley coffee shop offered half-and-half in quantities of “a little bit,” “a double” and “a lotta,” a subtle nod to coffee shops with unusual product size names. “Once you have this half-and-half in your cup, you realize the coffee is actually off to the side in a metal carafe.”

Littlejohn says the reverse experience offered at the Organic Valley coffee shop—where the coffee was the afterthought—wasn’t just enjoyable for the customers, but it also got them thinking primarily about the creamer. He says the quirky concept shows Organic Valley doesn’t take itself too seriously, as the pop-up shop helped juxtapose the complexity of coffee culture with the simple nature of Organic Valley’s farmers.

“It was a hard thing to pull off, to get the tone right,” Littlejohn says. “We don’t want to make fun of customers, we don’t want to make fun of people who love coffee, and we don’t want to make fun of people who make great coffee. But there was something really funny in the preposterousness of a farmer trying to talk about his craft in the same way. There was also something that was surprisingly natural about it: discussing the origin of the grass that the cows are eating, the texture, the aromas, all these things do actually apply to your cream and your half-and-half.”

Organic Valley’s pop-up sparked an open dialogue with its customers. Organic Valley’s products exist primarily on grocery store shelves, but the brand-focused shop ignited a direct conversation between consumer and company.

“In many ways, making the brand … bigger than it normally is allows people to talk about it, express their feelings about it, in a new context,” Littlejohn says. “You’re not going to stop in a grocery aisle and have a conversation about how much you love Organic Valley; but in the context of being surrounded by your favorite restaurants and your favorite coffee shop down the road, suddenly you’re able to talk about Organic Valley in that same context. It helped us realize that these enhanced customer experiences are a great way to enhance the brand in people’s minds.”

Testing the Waters, Closing the Data Gap

A pop-up doesn’t always require a bricks-and-mortar space to exist. One such example is by REVEAL, a company that deploys small-format, 6-by-6-foot mobile boutiques that can appear anywhere from sidewalks to hotel lobbies, corporate lobbies, event spaces and more.

Founder and CEO Megan Berry says one of the reasons brands approach her company is for its geographic flexibility, something both brands and consumers have gotten used to in the digital era. It’s also ideal for those lacking in financial and human capital, as Berry’s firm can handle logistics, signage, salespeople and more.

“A brand may say, ‘We want to open up a new flagship, we’re looking at Southern California and Texas, but we don’t really know where to go,’ ” Berry says. “They’ll share with us their demographics, we’ll do a location analysis, recommend locations based on their goals—be it customer acquisition, marketing brand awareness or figuring out a location for a new store.”

In the simplest terms, by REVEAL helps brands become more nimble and responsive to hyper-local trends.

“[We’re living in] much more of an instantaneous economy and it’s always changing,” she says. “For retail to stay relevant, you need to stay a part of that change. Our solution as a retail channel helps brands, designers and artists be a part of that instantaneous economy.”

The data collection piece of Berry’s company is crucial. By REVEAL deploys its shops and collects data to test a fine-tuned thesis. For example, one brand that worked with by REVEAL had a top-selling handbag online, but learned its lowest seller online was actually a top seller in-person. The brand learned that to grow its physical presence, it needed to promote and stock more of one line than the other—a metric that proved important when the brand expanded into wholesale because it provided details not found in online and B-to-C data.

“Brands need to be more diligent now in understanding what, why or how a certain product or a certain collection is [performing],” Berry says. “We have a lot of young brands come to us with, ‘I’ve been in Vogue and my collection was really well-received, but now I’m having a difficult time with sales—why is that?’ ”

Berry says her company helps brands determine their target consumer, both at the customer acquisition phase and among the loyal customers who will keep coming back season after season.

Capitalizing on a Season

Holidays and seasons come but once a year, so many brands take advantage of these peak consumer events. Halloween stores spring up every fall selling contemporary masks, vendors hawk flowers around Valentine’s Day and mini holiday villages appear each November and December.

Gail Travis, owner and designer of women’s ready-to-wear brand New Form Perspective, has participated in both the Columbus Circle Holiday Market and the Grand Central Holiday Fair in New York City. The brand also has three bricks-and-mortar shops, but Travis still invests in pop-ups and likes the way they entice customers to participate in the time-sensitive shopping experience. There’s the obvious benefit of having more people interested in shopping during the holiday season, but she’s also learned it’s a way to gain an unusual type of repeat customer.

“I deal with a lot of tourists and a lot of those tourists come back at the same time every year,” Travis says. “Even though it’s a pop-up situation, I have a lot of repeat customers who live in Denmark or Italy. With the consistency of doing the pop-ups, customers get to know you and the venues every year. It’s a sense of loyalty, even if it’s only temporary.”

A post shared by (@nfpstudio) on Dec 24, 2016 at 7:07am PST

 found 61% of shoppers list seasonal products as the main reason to shop at a pop-up store. The poll also found consumers are drawn to pop-ups because they offer unique services/products (39%), localized assortments (36%), convenience (33%) and a fun experience (30%). Each of these reasons reflect Travis’ own experience with holiday markets.

“People really like going to crafts fairs and supporting local artists,” she says. “As much as I’m still a small business, people who don’t know me look at [the physical stores] as a bigger company. In reality, it’s still a tiny business. I think that most of the clients just like knowing they’re supporting an emerging artist. When you’re in that bricks-and-mortar space, sometimes people may not look at it with as much respect. Even from a vendor standpoint, it’s more fun to see all these amazing artists around you doing well and being supported.”

A Little Something Extra for the Fans

One of the newer trends in pop-up marketing is celebrity-led. Participants include “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” star Kylie Jenner, who sells her makeup and clothing lines at her pop-ups, and hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar, whose pop-ups sell merchandise from his tour.

The music festival Lollapalooza has taken a similar approach, placing pop-up shops outside its venue gates for anyone in the area to browse.

“We like giving fans as many options as possible to get their hands on the official merchandise,” says Stacey Rodrigues, marketplace director for C3 Presents, a concert promotion, event production and artist management company. “Even though [Lollapalooza] is four days long, fans may still have a hard time taking a break from the music to shop. There are always items that sell out on site, and the pop-up store gives folks a chance to grab those early. Chicago locals can save themselves the cost of shipping by shopping at the pop-up store, and we typically don’t offer the full line of goods online.”

Because the shop sits outside of the festival gates, anyone in town can pick up merchandise without attending the event. Rodrigues says the pop-up shops see a fair number of parents and grandparents purchasing merchandise for their kids who are attending the concerts. It also provides an opportunity for specialty marketing promotions and to offer exclusive items.

Anyone with knowledge of the music industry knows music sales aren’t quite what they used to be (Billboard and Nielsen Music’s mid-year 2016 sales data found 2016 was the worst year for overall album sales since Nielsen started keeping track in 1991). Finding new revenue streams has been more important than ever for artists.

“Merchandise has become an important revenue source as music sales have declined, and a pop-up store provides another outlet for that,” Rodrigues says. “It’s also an important branding tool. Some artists, like Kanye West and Justin Bieber, have generated enormous hype not only for their tours and album releases but also for their pop-up stores. It provides opportunities for more meaningful fan interactions through meet-and-greets, special giveaways, exclusive merchandise, etc.”

In addition to providing something extra for fans, the Lollapalooza pop-up shop drew customer insights for the festival as well. According to Rodrigues, the shop offered a prediction of what the best-selling items would be because it opened a week prior to the festival.

“We’re able to extrapolate from the sales and order additional items to be better prepared to meet demand,” Rodrigues says. “It’s helpful in another way that may seem minor but is actually critical to our sales success, and that is by more accurate tracking of sales by size.” C3 Presents uses a register system at the festival that logs what items are sold but not the size because that would slow down the transaction time, and speed is paramount in that environment. At the pop-up, however, C3 has the luxury of time. “When the bulk of your sales are t-shirts, accurate size breakdown can have a huge effect on your bottom line,” Rodrigues says. 

Pop Goes the Success Story

Looking to launch your own brand’s pop-up shop? We compiled some tips from Melissa Gonzalez, chief pop-up architect at , and Arati Sharma, chief of marketing, offline and product, at Shopify.

• Know your audience, know yourself. “What works for a millennial is not the same as Gen X or Gen Z,” Gonzalez says. “Some [customers] are going to be digital natives, some are going to appreciate fewer tech challenges.” It’s also important to keep the brand’s voice present as well. “Everything has to go through that filter of, ‘Is this our voice? Is this our aesthetic? Does this translate who we are and the ethos of our brand?’”
• Look for short-term rent. “Don’t engage in a lease for a long time,” cautions Sharma. “Make sure you’re looking at other locations in a similar area and how much they’re charging for a space.” She recommends considering organizations such as thisopenspace that provide a sampling of comparative prices.  “Do some research on where your customers are or where similar customers for your products are going to be before you spend a lot of money on a location like Brooklyn.”
• When it comes to your space, be creative. This is the company’s chance to put its brand front and center and control the brand story.  “Think about how much you can afford,” Sharma says. “I’ve seen pop-up shops that look beautiful and they’re actually quite scrappy.”
• Consider the inventory. “Is this pop-up shop going to be for you to move your product and actually sell it, or is this just a brand play for you?” Sharma says.
• Have appropriate staffing. Gonzalez says this is one of the most important touch points at a physical space. If the company’s own employees are unable to be present the entire time, there must be an investment of time and money to ensure appropriate training of the pop-up store’s staff. “The last thing you want is a customer to walk in and get this great experience and then have someone who can’t help them,” Gonzalez says.

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Global Unilever food brand Knorr has a collection of rather unexciting products such as soup, sauces and dressings, yet it earns more than $3 billion per year. Twice in the last two years it has told stories that went viral—an amazing accomplishment that provides learning to others.

Knorr is a brand whose roots go back to a dried pea soup in 1889 and the bouillon cube in 1912. The hallmark of the brand has always been flavor, to provide homemakers and professional cooks access to the most interesting, delectable and unique aromas and tastes. The challenge is how to communicate that mission and the products that enable it.

Flavor of Home

The first viral video, launched March 25, 2015, was inspired by two realizations: a survey that found more than 80% of respondents felt that being cooked for is an expression of love, and that flavor is more than taste; it is about emotions elicited by meaningful moments, committed to memory and tied to the sense.

The video describes Carmen, a lover of dogs and adventures, who left her home in Portsmouth, England, to work as a husky guide in Finland. After three years, she missed her mom, her home, and the Sunday dinners her family shared with the familiar menu, aromas and tastes. She gets emotional describing and visualizing those meals. 

Knorr – Flavour of Home

Knorr made her dream of experiencing those dinners come to life. It transported Carmen’s mom to her Artic outpost to cook that meal. After Carmen started to eat and savor those flavors, she emotionally returned in her mind to Portsmouth. Then her mom walked through the door. The reunion was an event everyone could relate to. 

Guided by a social media command center, the video has been viewed more than 100 million times and garnered more than 100,000 social interactions. 

Knorr’s “Home Dining Day” video in Hong Kong, with a similar theme, received 1.5 million views and extensive media coverage in less than two weeks. The video follows a mother and son as they share their memories of what a home-cooked meal means to them. The son is particularly attached to these meals but misses them more and more because of work or friends. As he watches a video of his mom describing her love for him as she cooks a meal, he is surprised and moved when that meal is presented to him. The video host bursts into tears herself when she is surprised by a meal from her grandmother. In both cases, the emotion created by the meal and its connection with family is authentic and powerful.

Love at First Taste

Videos describing the feeling of receiving a home-cooked meal away from home would be ineffective with millennials. They became Knorr’s prime focus because they are a demographic interested in food and cooking, with less exposure to the brand. Knorr needed another approach that would break through their attention barrier, gain involvement and activate social media.

The answer was to link flavor preference to romantic relationships. The idea was based in part on a survey which found that 78% of respondents would be attracted to someone who shared their flavor preferences, and one-third worried that a flavor mismatch could doom a relationship. In addition, millennials use food preference to characterize themselves even on dating sites. Elevating flavor to a role in romantic partnering was indeed intriguing. Why not concoct an experiment to test whether flavor preference could influence love?

To determine flavor preferences, Knorr worked with IBM to create an online flavor profiler that allows people to discover which of 12 flavor profiles best describe them. Profiles included Roasted Romantic, Tangy Dynamo, Meaty Warrior, Earthy Idealist and Melty Indulger. With data on flavor profiles available, the #LoveAtFirstTaste test could proceed.

People were asked to have a foodie date with someone they had not previously met but who had a similar flavor personality, as measured by the flavor profiler. The proviso was that they had to feed their partners—no eating on their own. A video of seven participating couples offered awkward getting-started moments with some uncertainty as to where it was going. Then there was fun, humor and many tender moments. Even a blindfold and a kiss. 

Knorr – Love at First Taste

Knorr scored again, helped by an organized plan with strategies for six social media vehicles and a program to promote the video and the flavor profiler. The video was viewed more than 100 million times over all platforms for a total of 2.2 billion impressions, 72% of which were free (earned). Brand equity measures such as brand appeal and “my sort of brand” rose 7% and recommendation and differentiation saw a 5% rise. Purchase intent among millennials grew 14% in the top 11 markets (as compared to 1.5% in the prior year). Those that used the profiler got recipes tailored to their profile.

Observations

Note the length of the two videos: just longer than three minutes. It does not require the patience of a 20- or 30-minute video but is still a commitment. At a time of reduced attention span and increased media cost, there is an effort to keep the communication short—5, 10, or 15 seconds. These videos are not in that mold. 

The videos were professionally done, the first by Sundance award-winner Nanette Burstein and the second by Tatia Pilieva whose “First Kiss” video went viral and won a Cannes award. Further, the social media campaign was organized and aggressive. Knorr did not just sit back and hope that lighting would strike.

Knorr got away from product features and benefits with powerful stories to tell. The stories were intriguing, authentic and involving because of the characters that were developed, the plot with its tension and surprise baked in and the emotion around relationships of people.

The two videos were very different. One was based on the emotions of family relationships, the memories of a home-cooked meal and a surprise. The second went another way—the awkwardness of beginning a romantic relationship with an intriguing premise and moments of warmth and humor.

The flavor message seeped through in part because the food and the flavor were the heroes of the story. Because the message was not obvious, it was more likely to get through. There was no counterarguing. It was just a story.

The campaigns could not have succeeded with conventional media, they were designed for and directed toward social media. No communication about the product or its attributes or benefits could have had anything close to this impact.

The impact came in part from brand visibility and from the affect transfer from the video to the brand. Visibility is one key to relevance consideration. Liking an advertisement and the associated emotions have been shown to create attachment to the advertised brand.

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1. Get a Broad Base

Unless you are certain there’s a specific area of marketing you want to go into, starting in a generalist capacity allows you to learn a little about all types of marketing. This will serve you well as you determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie and what you are truly passionate about. It will also make you more marketable as you advance your career.

2. Become a Fanatic

Find brands you love. They don’t need to be in your industry or even relevant to what you do (sometimes it’s better when they aren’t). Follow them on social, subscribe to their blog, read their PR. Once you’ve identified what you admire about them, take the elements you like and apply them to your business. Not only will this make you better at your job, it will also enable you to bring new ideas to the table and innovate faster.

3. Branch Out

Make an effort to get to know co-workers outside of your immediate team. Not only will this make work more enjoyable, but you will improve at your role. If you’re not sure where to start, target the sales, product development or HR teams. These relationships will be instrumental to your growth. Having someone in your corner from these groups will ensure you understand their lingo and viewpoint and ensure the product or service is marketed the way it should be.

4. JFGI

If you don’t know what this acronym stands for, Google it. The internet should be your best friend. If you aren’t sure how to do something, Google it. If you have hit a creative block, Google it. Use the internet to generate ideas, validate ideas and improve ideas. If you’re at a loss for a catchy e-mail subject line, Google it. There are articles and information out there on everything. Use your resources. You will work faster and smarter, and it will make you look better to your boss because you aren’t asking questions every five minutes. 

Get a personal resume review, access to an exclusive Slack channel to ask recruiters questions, a free Professional Certified Marketer® exam and other exclusive ��������� Job Path resources all in one page. Get started.

5. Collect Marketing Materials

The best way to understand your product or service is to read all about it. Make it a point to collect as many of the company’s marketing materials as you can—print collateral, direct mail pieces, advertisements, the blog. Go back through social media posts. Read through proposals and old e-mail campaigns. Read whatever you can get your hands on. Then ask questions to ensure you understand the justification, impact and outcome.

6. Find Inspiration

Some of the best marketers have loads of files, samples and examples from other companies. They take materials from trade shows, job fairs, networking events, parties they attend—personal or professional. If they like something, they take it and keep it for their repository. Inspiration can come from anywhere.

7. Attend Sales Meetings

If possible, go on client or customer meetings with your sales team. Understand the product or service from their point of view. Know the need the product or service is filling and understand the pain points of your customer.

8. Stay Educated

Find what works for you in terms of continuing education. Maybe it’s a podcast, a book, a blog, a class, a networking group. It’s important to identify it early on. In marketing, things change quickly. It’s important to stay one step ahead, and knowing how you learn best and the most enjoyable way to learn is crucial.

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Mid-size companies are something of the middle child in the business family. The youngest children, entrepreneurs and startups, are doted on. The oldest, large, established companies, are first in line for resources or acknowledgement.

As many middle children would likely attest, the mid-size market role can feel a bit invisible.

The  identified this out-of-sight, out-of-mind quality as a key reason the sector has struggled with workforce challenges. NCMM Managing Director Doug Farren says talent is consistently one of the top challenges identified by the 1,000 C-suite executives polled in the center’s quarterly middle market indicator survey.

The report, notes that middle market companies create more new jobs than any other sector of the economy, but it’s this exact appetite for employees that makes the lack of access to candidates rather painful.

“Middle market companies in general struggle with an identity crisis,” Farren says. “[Job] candidates simply don’t know of them and certainly don’t know to look to them as a first choice when thinking about a place to work.”

���������t 85% of middle market companies are privately held, and many operate in B-to-B formats, hidden from the view of many job seekers. While the average consumer or general public may recognize big brands or businesses, middle market companies often don’t have much brand recognition. Many well-known companies tend to be more active in the recruiting space on college campuses, offer internships and run other recruitment programs.

The second issue the National Center for the Middle Market identified—and noted in previous research as well—is the lack of available personnel at mid-size companies to run workforce search, support and development efforts.

“Their structure, particularly at the leadership and management level, tends to be pretty thin,” Farren says. “They don’t have large staffs or deep leadership teams, and that would certainly apply to the HR function. It limits their resources and their ability to get deeply involved in a lot of what we would consider more traditional workforce recruiting and development activities.”

It’s not uncommon, he says, to see an HR department at a middle market company that consists of one or two people, and sometimes the head of HR also leads other departments. The report also found 46% of survey respondents say their HR department is primarily operational, rather than strategic.

Working with the  under the Brookings Institution, the center presented two approaches for the solution: what middle market companies can do themselves and what the institutional environment can do.

Company-controlled and Private Sector Solutions

Farren says middle market companies should think less operationally and more strategically in their talent-planning activities.

“That could mean putting certain strategies and programs in place, like an internship program,” Farren says. “I can’t tell you how many middle market companies we’ve talked to on a regular basis that just don’t have those types of things.”

An internship program is relatively simple to implement, Farren says, but does require an investment of time: determining where an intern would make the most sense or how to effectively structure the program so both sides benefit, for example. A particular upside for the company is the opportunity to expose younger talent to middle market culture and what it’s like to be part of this economic sector.

The “Help Wanted” report also found only 41% of survey respondents say they have set, ongoing outreach efforts in place, compared with 59% who say they wait until a specific position needs filling. In addition, 35% of middle market vacancies are filled from within because middle market companies tend to seek fully qualified candidates from outside instead of looking for someone within the company to advance. Companies also have the opportunity to work among themselves to problem-solve. Firms can develop stronger relationships with professional organizations, trade groups or other such associations to encourage talent planning. The goal would be to solve a talent issue shared by members of the group.

“If I’m a middle market company, and I want to hire three or four really skilled welders, I can’t necessarily go to a community college and have them customize a program for that,” Farren says. “But if I could collaborate with five, six or 10 other companies that also need three or four welders, now you’ve created a need for 30 or 40 welders and that becomes a more appealing proposition for a trade school or a community college to then develop a custom program that trains 40 welders to be placed at those companies.”

Public Policy and Intermediary Solutions

Farren says many public policy programs have a tendency to ignore the middle market and focus on startups or where the largest resource needs are, which often overlooks the middle market.

The training organizations within the public sector need to develop programs specifically for middle market companies, Farren says, or consider how they can make adjustments to provide resources that are a better fit for mid-sized companies. Martha Ross, a fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program, says educational, training and job placement organizations offer great resources, including public or publicly funded entities (for example, the network of ), two- and four-year colleges, high school career and technical education programs and nonprofit training organizations. The problem, she says, is that it’s a system characterized by decentralization and multiple actors, which can be tricky for companies to navigate.

“One environmental-focused solution is to develop intermediaries that serve as a bridge between employers, educators and workers,” Ross says. “This could take the form of a workforce development board, a nonprofit, a chamber of commerce, a loose collaborative, etc., but the goal is to identify the skill needs of area employers and help align education and training programs accordingly.”

Ross says effective intermediaries allow educators and employers to avoid the inefficiencies of individual engagements by aggregating employer needs across a given sector. These intermediaries also set up forums for small and medium-sized firms to join forces with larger employers for economies of scale in training investments. Ross points to one example, , or the Federation of Advanced Manufacturing Education consortium. An executive from a middle market firm participating in Kentucky FAME reported in “Help Wanted” that the program was especially beneficial to companies of his size, as he doesn’t have the staff to do outreach to educators and potential students.

Another solution, Ross says, is for public entities to better tailor their services to meet labor market demands in their area. One example highlighted in the paper is Skill Up in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which exists within the Department of Economic Development. The program helps employers address their skill needs by providing resources and expertise. More specifically, Skill Up offers assistance with defining and documenting job duties and skill requirements, custom roadmaps for training employees to industry standards and evaluating their skills and a list of providers for technical instruction and credentials.

“Small companies may not even be at the point where they need to access these resources and big companies have probably been using these resources for years, and in some ways that may have influenced the design and delivery of some of these public sector programs,” Farren says.

Middle market companies would need to better define their specific needs, such as a more qualified sales force or skilled trades in a specific area to support growth. There’s a burden that would be placed on the middle market to gain a clear understanding of where there may be gaps in processes, and then to articulate those needs.

The solution to middle market talent gaps—whether internal or in the public or private sectors—may rest on companies’ ability to collaborate; however, many don’t define themselves by their size.

“When you talk to a company, they’re more likely to identify by their industry, by their location or by their ownership type, rather than to say they’re a mid-size firm,” Farren says. “They need to recognize that they’re not a start-up, they’ve outgrown that phase; but they also know that they’re not General Electric or Procter & Gamble or Nationwide. Intuitively, they may realize that, but the term middle market is something that we see get used without the companies themselves identifying into that segment.”

Farren says the challenge is in getting middle market companies that are used to working within their industry to instead collaborate with like-sized companies to solve talent needs. Whom this task falls to is unclear.

“It’s easy for us to sit here and say that’s a good solution, but I don’t see a lot of those firms initiate that and do it on their own,” Farren says. “There has to be some type of ignitor or convener. It could be a chamber of commerce or another natural convener like a trade group or organization, but somebody that can bring these companies together and say, ‘Look, you all have a common need, and here’s how we can solve that.’ It’s by working together and coming up with solutions that can benefit everyone.”

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According to the 2017 ��������� Gold Top 50 Report, the top 50 U.S.-based market research firms exceeded $11.5 billion in revenue in 2016. Market research activities cover customer surveys, social media monitoring, CRM, transaction monitoring, analytics and data visualization through dashboards. Each of these is a costly endeavor. Yet, executives wonder: Do market research and analytics really improve sales, margins and EBITDA? The answer is yes, in three different ways.

1. Market Research Directly Increases Sales

Market research often takes the form of customer satisfaction surveys, which indicate how satisfied customers are with a brand’s value proposition. But do they boost sales? Or, do they just annoy customers? The answer is both. Customers like satisfaction surveys but only if the surveys are conducted infrequently.

A 2017  of 7,513 customers of a large North American automotive dealership examined the financial benefits of customer satisfaction surveys. Two findings stood out: First, customers who completed a satisfaction survey purchased more than those who did not, even after accounting for the satisfaction rating. On average, sales per visit were $12.18 greater among those who filled out the satisfaction survey. With an average of seven visits per customer, this amounts to roughly $85 per customer. Even if a relatively high average cost of $10 per customer is assumed for the survey, there is a 750% return on the survey investment. For B-to-B companies, the return should be even higher given the dollar volume of sales per customer.

Second, the purchase amount decreased as the frequency of surveys increased. Too many surveys cause survey fatigue and irritate customers. Transactional surveys that try to measure Net Promoter Score after every transaction backfire. Companies should measure cumulative satisfaction as part of a larger tracking study that is done no more than twice a year.

A customer satisfaction study signals and reminds customers that you care, motivating customers who complete a survey to purchase more. Over-surveying customers irritates them and decreases their purchase amount. , measured once or twice a year as part of a systematic tracking study should be a company’s gold standard. Especially in B-to-B contexts, companies should reduce the use of transactional and ad hoc customer surveys, instead focusing on benchmarked satisfaction surveys. The latter can increase sales directly and indirectly.

2. Investments in Analytics Increase ROI, Sales and Profitability

Marketing analytics use customer and market data along with statistical models to aid decision-making. Some argue that analytics slow down decision-making through analysis paralysis. Others cite the experience of companies such as , a medium-sized German mail order company that expanded its customer base by 55% and quadrupled sales using marketing analytics.

A 2013 of 212 executives from Fortune 1,000 firms addresses this issue. Executives rated analytics deployment in their company on a scale from one to seven, and the authors linked their ratings to return on assets using stock market data. A one-point improvement in analytics deployment was associated with an 8% increase in return on assets, or a $70 million increase in net income for the average Fortune 1,000 firm. This benefit of analytics deployment was stronger in companies where top management supported analytics deployment through hiring analytically skilled employees, investing in IT and creating a culture supportive of analytics.

Marketing analytics improve return on assets, net income and profitability. Executives must  to incorporate analytics through personnel and cultural changes. Housing analytics in the strategic planning function can provide the necessary boost to analytics deployment.

3. Market Research Increases Firm Value

Companies invest millions in strategic initiatives, even as they lack a systematic approach to quantifying the bottom-line benefits of the initiatives. It’s no wonder companies continue with failed initiatives when their negative effects on margins and EBITDA cannot be documented. On the other hand, a failure to quantify the positive impact of successful initiatives leads to their discontinuance. Both hurt the bottom line. Market research can eliminate guesswork and focus resources on successful initiatives.

Take the experience of a large bank (500-plus branches) that started a customer service initiative designed to reduce wait time at branch tellers. Was the initiative successful? Did it contribute to profitability? If yes, by how much? How much did the initiative add to the bank’s valuation?

To answer these questions, a marketing analytics group created a randomized field study with 200 branches implementing the initiative, and the remaining served as a control group. The idea was that reducing wait time should manifest as increased overall customer satisfaction. A statistical model that linked branch-level customer satisfaction to branch-level revenue metrics (deposits, loan volume) and margins was developed. The model showed that a one-unit improvement in customer satisfaction generated 1.2% improvement in EBITDA and increased net profit by $83 million after accounting for the cost of the initiative. Over time, the research-based model became an informational asset for the bank. Branch managers used the model to forecast their loan and deposit volume. Executives used the model to predict EBITDA and profitability based on customer satisfaction ratings. A financial simulator was developed to help with budgeting.

The research-based model became a key informational asset that was embedded in the strategic planning process. Over time, the bank grew at a 30% faster rate than its competitors. Executives attributed the growth to their ability to strategically use the research-based model to focus on successful initiatives while pulling the plug on unprofitable initiatives. This simultaneously increased revenues while decreasing expenses. The outcome: improved valuation for the bank’s stock.

By using research-based models, companies can create a rigorous and objective basis for identifying successful initiatives. The research-based model requires linking customer survey information to financial data in a statistically valid and rigorous manner to evaluate the return on a specific initiative. Over time, this can increase firm valuation as a direct result of information—market research.

Market Research: Intellectual, Structural and Cultural Changes

Market research and analytics should no longer be viewed as information-providing functions. Rather, they are strategic planning assets. Smart companies use market research and analytics as a blueprint for linking information about products, customers and markets to financial metrics like sales, margin and EBITDA.

Market research must be reconceived—intellectually, structurally and culturally. Intellectually, executives need to demand that market research become a research-based approach for linking customer and market information to financial metrics that CEOs and boards care about—sales, margins and EBITDA.

Structurally, organizations need to elevate and integrate the market research group in the strategic planning function. In one organization, marketing research and analytics reported to marketing communications. The CEO made a structural change, housing the function with the strategy and planning group, charging them to create a financial tracking system for the different initiatives.

Culturally, executives should stop engaging in speculative and wishful thinking. (I “feel” that branding adds value; we “believe” Net Promoter Score increases sales.) They need to make and demand research-based statements such as “our research-based model shows increasing satisfaction by one point increases sales by $20 million and EBITDA by $1.8 million.” These shifts can take the emotion, confirmation bias and infighting out of the decision-making process and give market research and analytics their rightful place in an organization.

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By the time she finished the series, she was on a path to a new career.

Gittings didn’t yet know she’d entered a new field. To this day, as the host of three successful true-crime podcasts, she views her job as an extension of her previous occupation: social work. All she knew was she needed to talk about what she just watched. She brought up her reaction to the program’s critical examination of the murder trials of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey with a co-worker, who revealed she shared Gittings concerns that the accused were railroaded.

“We were appalled. Here we are white, middle-ish class people who view the police as our friends, and we couldn’t believe the things that happened,” she says. “Our hearts went out to Brendan Dassey.”

The two resolved to continue the conversation begun by the series. With a borrowed mic, free editing software and zero recording experience, they launched the podcast “Making a Murderer: View From the Couch” roughly one month later.

“The podcast was largely terrible … I didn’t know how to edit; I was going to the school of Google … My LLC is actually called Borrowed Equipment Pod,” Gittings says. “There were 10 episodes of the docuseries. We talked about the issues going on in each one.”

By April, the pair had run out of story to tell. Gittings’ co-host, having said her peace, was done with the endeavor as well, and ready to return to her regular life. Gittings wanted to keep going. The debate around Avery and Dassey had inspired her to look at other examples of possible wrongful convictions.

She was back the next month with a new show called “.” Each episode profiled exonerated individuals. She banked a few programs to shop around to podcast networks, ultimately selecting one that specializes in true-crime stories, particularly those focused on flaws in the criminal justice system. That network, , would later sign “,” a long-form wrongful-conviction podcast that boasts more than 200 million listens as of July.

“I actually got several networks that contacted me, and that was just the one I decided to go with,” Gittings says. The deal provided her with hosting services, access to professional editors and the ability to collectively negotiate with sponsors. 

Today, Gittings continues to produce “Actual Innocence” from her home in Indiana. She also started a limited-run series called “” that features an especially compelling case. It briefly ranked as the second-most popular podcast in the iTunes store before ending its run in September 2017. A third gig materialized when A&E recruited Gittings to host the podcast supplement of its popular TV show “.”

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All this work allows Gittings to focus on podcasting full-time, making an income primarily from ad revenue. Her earnings were supplemented for a time using , a service that lets people donate directly to content creators, but she abandoned it after she felt obligated to produce freemium bonus content, the final straw in an already massive workload. Still, that Gittings can exclusively live off podcasts is a reflection of the industry’s growth. The fact that people like Gittings see enough opportunity to quit their jobs shows how the format, which has already endured a previous hype train only to be left for dead, has evolved into a medium with staying power.

Try to think of where you were when you first heard the term “podcast.” For many, it was in the 2000s when listeners were captivated by the peculiar, homespun philosophy, loopy poetry and consummate shit-talking of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. The trio came out of the traditional world of broadcast radio and, on the strength of Gervais and Merchant’s smashing success with the TV show “The Office,” produced a podcast that was downloaded roughly 18 million times by September 2006, and more than 300 million times by March 2011.

For others, their introduction to the format came with the medium’s next mega-hit: “.” The 12-part true-crime investigative spinoff of “This American Life”—the nation’s most popular podcast according to Podtrac—which examined the 1999 murder of Baltimore teen Hae Min Lee and subsequent conviction of her former boyfriend Adnan Syed electrified the nation. It was heavily promoted each week by the dulcet tones of Ira Glass, host of “This American Life,” to his show’s 2.2 million listeners. “Serial” debuted atop the iTunes podcast charts and remained in first for the next three months, well after the program’s conclusion. Barely four months after its release, “Serial” boasted 68 million downloads. The program’s influence radiated outward into larger culture, generating frenzied speculation on Reddit discussion boards and serving as spoof material on YouTube and “Saturday Night Live” as it helped kick-start a true-crime storytelling renaissance. 

Still, others only first waded into the platform with the 2017 release of “,” another show incubated by the team at “This American Life.” It’s a gripping tale of a gifted-but-troubled clockmaker whose unexpected death sends host Brian Reed scouring a small Alabama town for answers. The seven-episode show dropped in its entirety on March 28. Four days later it had been downloaded 10 million times. It remained ensconced in the iTunes store’s top 20 podcasts at the end of August. 

Notice the trend? With every new hit, more are finding time to download and listen. The audience is getting larger. That’s not to say podcasts are a staple media outlet at this point, but they are getting close. Nielsen’s Q3 podcast insights report finds that half of all homes in the U.S. contain podcast fans. The most recent survey data compiled by shows that 168 million people have heard of the term “podcasting” as of February 2017. That doesn’t mean they’re all listeners though; only 112 million, or 40%, of the U.S. population aged 12 and older say they’ve checked out a podcast once. The number shrinks yet again when limited to monthly listening, with an audience of 67 million. Still, that’s roughly one in four Americans who say they listen to at least one podcast a month.

Overall, monthly podcast consumers skew slightly male; 56% are men. Of regular listeners, 44% are between the ages of 18 and 34. Forty-five percent come from households earning $75,000 or more per year (whereas just 35% of American households earn $75,000 or more). Compared to all Americans, monthly listeners are more likely to be employed full-time and possess a four-year college diploma or advanced degree. An average weekly listener (estimated population of 42 million) hears five podcasts per week and has a mean listening time of five hours and seven minutes. 

It’s an affluent and engaged audience tailor-made for advertisers, and it doesn’t hurt that listeners are invested in the story and connected to the host and content in a way few are with websites. Podcast advertising network Midroll says that 61% of listeners report buying something they heard about on a podcast ad. Fifty-three percent of listeners spend at least $132 on books annually, and 28% percent spend at least $300. Thirty-four percent drop at least $300 on ticketed entertainment, 35% spend that much on home subscription services, and 57% spend more than $600 on dining out. 

Data compiled in estimates that ad spend on podcasts reached $34 million in 2015, a miniscule figure compared to other forms of advertising. However, a separate study by to be as high as $69 million during the same period, $119 million in 2016 and $220 million by the end of 2017. This equates to 228% growth on a quarterly basis between Q1 2015 and Q4 2016. 

Gittings’ shows aren’t at the top of the pile, but they are impressive. She says “Actual Innocence” averages 75,000 downloads per month, and each episode of “Convicted” has a regular audience of 200,000. One episode had more than 1 million downloads. Her reality is exactly the type of success story many indie content creators visualize for themselves in this new media ecosystem. Yet, many aspiring podcasters will never match what she’s done. 

Each week 1,000 new podcasts debut on iTunes, according to a presentation given by podcast data expert in August at the conference. Six hundred of them will be abandoned by their creators in six months’ time. Shows that garner 214 downloads per episode within 30 days of release are in the top half of podcast performance. The top 20% of shows will receive just 1,900 downloads per episode. With so many competitors, it’s hard to stand out. And it’s about to get more crowded with major media companies investing in the space like never before.

Take ESPN. The sports media monolith now produces about 30 original podcasts in addition to radio programs that can be shuffled into the podcast space after their initial broadcast. ESPN has dabbled with the format for at least a decade, but it wasn’t until three years ago that the network became serious about establishing a major podcast presence, says , vice president of audio digital strategy and marketing for ESPN.

“At the end of the day, the radio business is changing overall,” Ricks says. “It’s no secret that the podcasting marketplace is growing. … It’s the place that we needed it to be. And if we were going to be in that space, it was important that we were producing original content that spoke to our fans.”

The network made its biggest move yet earlier this year when it launched , an extension of its popular sports documentary series of the same name. Narratives told in the five-episode run include an ill-fated Reebok campaign during the 1992 Summer Olympics that required modification after one of its stars failed to qualify for the games, and the creation of a Yankees Suck t-shirt that came to be emblematic of baseball’s most acrimonious rivalry.

“We’re extremely happy with how well [‘30 For 30’] did,” Ricks says.” We launched the podcast with six sponsors that came onboard, and from a consumption standpoint it certainly met our expectations. We have in excess of 2 million downloads for that first season.”

The network could use the hit. Before it shuttered its blog Grantland, following the departure of editor Bill Simmons in 2015, the site created four podcasts that made it to the top ten in the sports and entertainment category on iTunes. Ricks admits “30 For 30” hasn’t yet replaced that output but is optimistic it can build on a robust debut when the series returns for its second season this fall.

Operating in ESPN’s absence are several other well-funded media companies, some existing solely in the podcast space. launched in 2013, led by former “This American Life” producer Alex Blumberg and former Slate podcast producer Matt Lieber. The company now produces 11 shows and employs around 80 people. Flipping the script of the standard media funnel, some of its podcasts are being turned into shows. The Gimlet series “Startup,” about the challenges of getting a business off the ground, is now a Zach Braff project with a pilot order from ABC. Another series, “Homecoming,” is being developed into a prestige drama, with negotiations rumored to include Julia Roberts.  

In August, Gimlet announced a $15 million round of venture capital funding led by . The total brings the purported value of the company to $70 million. The move is among the first major investments by private equity firms in the medium. But Gimlet is far from the only network to be flush with monetary possibilities at the moment. Crooked Media, a startup that produces political podcasts, most notably “,” is rumored to have a run rate in the neighborhood of $5 million. And Slate’s “” is said to have raked in $1 million last year at $25 CPM.

In many respects, podcasts are the analog to television. Much bandwidth has been consumed charting the world’s gradual shift from broadcast to cable to over-the-top streaming services, which allow viewers to access their favorite shows on demand with limited or no commercial interruptions. This is that, but for audio. 

“The whole world is essentially moving in this direction of on-demand content, and the ability to produce—whether it’s video content or audio content—in that space provides people a lot of flexibility,” Ricks says.

One major difference is that podcasts require no screens and function well as background noise. They do not demand full attention from two physical senses; rather, podcasts give people something more cerebral to contemplate while going about the mundane activities of day-to-day life. 

Mobility is another differentiator. In the , 52% of respondents report listening to podcasts in a car. The Edison Research-Triton Digital number puts that figure at 65%. The growth of Bluetooth and smart car technology allows podcasts to sync up to car stereos, and the ubiquitous smartphone-and-headset combo carried by many consumers at all times ensures podcasts are only ever a few touches away, ready to be heard as soon as push notifications let users know new episodes are available. 

This level of convenience and accessibility is creating large numbers of superfans. Nielson says that 22% of podcast fans are avid listeners, meaning they consider themselves especially interested in a particular genre of podcast. , these fans represent millions of dollars in consumer purchases every year.

Reaching these fans and others are a unique patchwork of advertisements. According to IAB, 60% of podcast ads are host-read, using talking points supplied by the advertiser, compared to pre-recorded spots, which constitute the remaining 40%. Gittings says she prefers to use host-recorded ads on her shows because they pay more for her personal endorsement. However, because of this explicit vote of confidence, she says she will only accept advertisements from products and companies she personally believes in. This type of native advertising, so taboo in the world of digital and print, fits in quite well in the world of podcasting. Ads can be placed before, after and in the middle of episodes. According to Gittings, it’s the midroll ads which are costliest, since they are the least likely to be skipped.

“My shows are about 45 minutes,” Gittings says. “I generally have three ads per show. The first one has to go within the first 15% [of runtime]. The second one has to go at 45%, and the third one is at 65%.

Until recently, one common hindrance to more money funneling into the world of podcasts was Apple’s chokehold on the medium and the data related to specific shows. That changed this June when the company announced it would start to release more listener metrics to podcast creators and advertisers. Before, advertisers could only assess the success of their commercials by counting the number of promotions redeemed with a special podcast-specific code.

“Typically, [the available data shows] you’ve had this many downloads or listens … and all that really means is somebody accessed that media file URL. But there’s no information on if they actually listen to it on their iPhone or how long they listen to it on your website or anything like that.” says , founder of Podcast Motor, a company that helps companies produce branded podcasts. 

Now, updates to Apple’s podcast app will let interested parties know exactly how long an episode is played after being downloaded and what parts of an episode are actually being listened to. 

“iTunes giving this data about when people are actually listening and for how long will be pivotal for advertisers. That visibility will both encourage more savvy and sophisticated advertisers to come into the market and give them more negotiating power with the podcasters,” adds Hewitt.

Apple’s increased transparency appears to have opened the floodgates for advertisers, and, as long as podcasts continue to grow, more will be tempted to invest. How the industry further evolves from this point is anyone’s guess, and there are still fair questions about the format’s lasting legitimacy.

At this point, however, podcasts are more professionalized than ever before, and it’s easy to see them becoming more so. The listener analytics announcement could be part of a trend that inches the industry closer to the world of Facebook and YouTube or, in Gittings’ view, a different breed of media distributor-turned-establishment.

“This is my vision. I don’t have any confirmation of it,” Gittings says, “but within the next few years podcasts are going to be Netflixed. Networks are going to have users subscribe to listen to all the podcasts on a network. For the little people like me in my closet, I think it will be harder to get into a network.”

To find out, we’ll have to stay subscribed. No doubt many in marketing already are.

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There remain stark differences among humanity’s social groups, many of which can pose a problem for researchers seeking to gather data from several distinct cultures. 

No one wants to stereotype any culture, but it is a hard truth that significant differences exist between societies, which will lead to inaccurate and ultimately useless market analysis if left unchecked. To accurately compare brand performance across countries, it’s necessary to understand and incorporate cultural nuances into research methodology. Or, as Michael Czinkota, a professor of marketing and international business strategy at Georgetown, :

“The culture of the region being researched will have an impact on how marketers conduct the research, what is asked and the length or form of the information received. The willingness and ability of respondents to spend time on the process and provide a free-form response are influenced by factors that include culture and education, the market conditions and the segments being studied. Cultural and individual preferences, which vary from country to country, also have an impact on research techniques.”

Any researchers wanting to gather samples across cultures need to level the playing field before conducting their questionnaires to ensure the responses are representative of actual consumer sentiment and predictive of future brand performance. To achieve that, , senior manager of insights and analytics at , helps identify the most common issues that crop up in international research and presents common troubleshooting techniques. 

1. Translation

The most basic stumbling block to international surveys is often translating research questions into the language of its subjects. 

“Sometimes words don’t exist in other languages,” says Lagae, recalling a time he was hired to create a study for a tobacco company that focused on new types of product packaging designed to keep the products fresher. His employers wanted to know if these package changes would be well-received in Russia. His team went to work, only to learn that Russians use many variants of the word fresh, each with a subtle difference that is lost in verbatim translation.

“It took us a while before we discovered that we were asking consumers questions around taste, as in a mint cigarette,” he says.

Mannerisms and norms also can become garbled across cultures. Here in the U.S., the phrase “thank you” is employed as a matter of routine, a polite way to complete a personal interaction. Not so in the rest of the world. 

“In India, for instance, there is no such phrase as ‘thank you.’ If you use those words, it’s most often [seen] ironically or even sarcastically.” Lagae says. “If you want to express your gratitude in Indian culture, you won’t just simply acknowledge the fact that you’re grateful. Instead you’ll very explicitly ask for an opportunity to return the favor.” 

The best solution to overcoming unnecessary obstacles posed by language conversion is simply to hire local researchers to convert ask and answer data.  

2. Data Collection

There was a time when all research was done in-person, by paper or pencil, or, later, via telephone. Now, digital surveys are the primary means of conducting international market research. It may sound standardized at a distance, but there are great differences worldwide in the adoption of digital technologies. Platform variance among respondents places pressure on researchers to develop universal questions and visual materials.

At Landor, Lagae says, much of the testing infrastructure related to visual identities or marketing collateral is designed to be run on desktop or laptop. However, this poses a problem in areas of the world which have bypassed an entire generation of technological hardware and are encountering the internet for the first time largely from mobile devices. 

“Mobile is becoming the gateway to consumers, and in many of the emerging markets, if you think about Africa and India, marketers will talk about leapfrogging. Those markets skipped a phase where desktop and laptops are the main devices to connect to the internet,” says Lagae.

Lagae’s recommendation for this problem is to design the survey specifically for mobile. “Use less text in those markets for mobile devices,” he advises. However, the strategy runs into problems as soon as the researchers head north to Europe, where most survey questions will inevitably be translated into German, the language of the continent’s largest economy.

“Interestingly, if you translate a question to German, the German language has a tendency to use very long words, and it can easily add a couple of pages to your questionnaire and also [increase] the efforts that research participants will need to go through to read all of your questions and answer options.”

Given these idiosyncrasies, it may be best to conclude no survey is universally translatable between formats, and different versions of digital surveys need to be developed for specific regions. 

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3. Response Styles 

Even if language and platform are accounted for, cultural upbringing can influence how people respond to what they are asked. Within certain identities, respondents are more prone to “extreme answering,” meaning they tend to use the strongest indicators of approval or disapproval at their disposal. A separate response pattern is called the agreement bias, or yea-saying, where respondents answer affirmatively to every yes-no question presented to them, regardless of their personal feelings. 

“That is linked to very specific cultures,” Maarten says. “When you do research in collectivist cultures—think China and India for instance—there’s a much greater emphasis on maintaining interpersonal harmony. The group is bigger than the individual, so it’s more important that the group is in harmony than it is to express your personal opinion. That leads people in those cultures to agree to whatever you’re asking them.”

Such places can be particularly vexing when it comes time to test new innovations or determine why a certain product is not performing well within the internal marketplace. When consumers in these countries are asked about a new product, they tend to tell researchers it sounds like a great idea, only to promptly ignore it once it is released within the culture.  

Fortunately, this problem has been known to market researchers for decades and many methodological advances have been developed to counter the yea-saying effect. One simple way is to benchmark new product research against historic scores of past releases. 

“If I’ve tested 1,000 products in China, I can compare any new product to how those products have performed in the past. If I have data from surveys on 1,000 products before they were launched, and I can check with sales data after they were launched, I can also correct how much of a discrepancy there is between what people will say they will do and what they actually do,” Lagae says.   

For marketers lacking the large databases necessary to perform such a test, it’s possible to unlock the truth about a product’s future success or failure with detailed statistical analysis. Taking all the generous, positive responses from a collectivist society, it is possible to normalize distribution to reflect that higher ratings are less compelling in China than they are in the U.S. or Western Europe. 

“You reconfigure the distribution of your data in a country, and instead of looking at the absolute differences going from a four to five, you look at the relative differences. Going from a four to five in China may be a much bigger deal than going from a one to two in the Netherlands,” says Lagae.

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