Brands
Narrative Identity: What Role Does Your Brand Play in the Life Story of Your Consumer?
If they a made a movie about your consumer, what role would your brand play? Hero? Trusted sidekick? Mentor? Villain? Would your brand even have a speaking part? Or would it be an extra? You know, “Man in crowd #3 played by your brand”.
Narrative Identity: 3 Roles Your Brand Can Play in Your Consumers’ Life Story
In a recent blog post, I wrote about the concept of Narrative Identity and what it means for brands. (You can read that blog post here.) In short, Narrative Identity is the life story we tell ourselves to give our lives a sense of coherence and purpose. We are all creators of our own myths — […]
Market Research Trends: What Brand Insights Leaders Are Saying
Last year saw dramatic shifts in the world of consumer insights and market research. With face-to-face research such as focus groups and ethnography shut down, marketers shifted to online platforms and streaming services for many projects, and postponed others indefinitely.
How to Live Up to the Modern Purpose of the Corporation
Last week came a message from American business leaders that was nothing short of revolutionary: The corporation now has a broader purpose than making money for shareholders. The Business Roundtable – a group representing the nation’s most powerful chief executives – released an updated Statement on the Purpose of the Corporation. For the first time […]
How to Apply Human Insights to Market Research
If you work in Consumer Insights, you probably hear the word human a lot these days. Everybody seems to be talking about human insights. Whether this trend is driven by a backlash to the sterile, uninspiring nature of big data or a desire to get team members to connect more directly with consumers, we think […]
Why Iconic Brands Decline and What Can Be Done to Reverse It
Iconic brands are often in decline for an easily overlooked reason…they have lost their contextual meaning because people have changed but the brand has not changed with them. People have evolved their story but the brand continues to tell its story in the same way with the same message and/or the same voice it has […]
How Humanizing Your Business Strategy Can Add Value to Your Business and Your Life.
The feeling of being understood by others creates an elevated and unique sense of value in someone’s life. Think of the people in your life who really know you and get you. Do you find an elevated value in these people that you don’t feel with others who know you on a more superficial level? […]
Shifting from CX to HX: 3 Guidelines for Aligning Human Experience and Brand Experience
Everywhere you turn these days you hear people talking about Consumer Experience or CX. For a few, it is relegated to the digital or “User Experience” people have with a brand’s digital properties. For many more, it means more broadly tracking and improving the consumer journey through various “touchpoints” with brands. For some others, it […]
Market Research & Activation: How a Brand Insights Team Can Deliver More Impact with Fewer Resources
We see almost every day that the global economy is rocking. Consumer confidence is rising. And corporations are flush with cash. But even so, market research budgets shrink. It seems insights teams continue to be asked to do more with less and we expect that to continue.In a world of constrained budgets, market researchers, account […]
