Consumers say they want authentic brands. Marketers do, too. Few concepts appear more frequently in brand strategy discussions than authenticity. When a brand loses relevance, marketers often worry that it has drifted from its roots. When a company considers entering a new market, targeting a new audience or updating its positioning, someone inevitably asks whether […]
Brand equity is often measured through awareness, trust and differentiation—but something deeper is at work. Drawing on research in self-discrepancy, compensatory consumption and self-brand connection, this webinar explores Narrative Power: the role brands play in who people are and who they want to become—and why that matters more than ever in today’s marketplace.
When I was in college at the University of Kentucky, I drank a lot of cheap beer. Like many undergrads, I didn’t think much about what I was drinking—only that it was cold and affordable. But one summer, that changed. I was twenty years old, working as a news intern at the Knoxville News-Sentinel—my first […]
For more than two decades, brand insights teams have turned to RealityCheck when they need fresh answers—when standard methods fail to provide fresh insights, the deeper drivers of consumer behavior remain elusive, or when teams are simply looking for new inspiration. These are the moments when brands start to feel disconnected. When consumers drift, the […]
The Importance of Theory in Research When I was a grad student working on my doctoral dissertation on news media coverage of electoral politics, one of my professors pressed me to clarify the theory of democracy underlying my analysis. My research examined how news organizations shaped public discourse about elections, but she wanted me to […]
What do a legendary ad man, a Grammy-winning music producer, and a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist have in common? They all know the keys to innovation in market research. Our clients describe us as an innovative market research company. They come to us for custom studies to answer complex questions. Recently, I was asked, “How exactly […]
There’s a lot of bad reporting in market research. This has serious implications for corporate research buyers. The best designed and executed market research studies will have little impact if the reports don’t communicate new insights clearly and simply. For corporate research buyers, bad reports mean: Wasted time: Corporate research buyers waste time rewriting supplier […]
How do you turn complex market research studies into clear reports? Start by writing a note to a friend. The complexity of market research reporting If you’re a corporate or supplier-side insights person, you’ve likely had to write reports about market research studies that are complex. Maybe you’ve got an integrated study with multiple phases. […]
We recently recommended to a client that she consider an online qualitative study design for an upcoming project, to which she said, “I’m not a big fan of online boards.” We hear this sometimes when we talk about digital qualitative research. It seems many in the consumer insights world still refer to all forms of […]
Empathy has become a bit of a buzzword in marketing and market research in recent years. Many big corporate marketers – wanting to take the trend toward “consumer-centricity” to the next level – started talking about “empathy” several years ago. At the same time, the desire for empathy has been voiced in American culture as […]
