subject: THE GREEN BRAND ALLIANCE [print this page] THE GREEN BRAND ALLIANCE THE GREEN BRAND ALLIANCE
How a premium union of market leader can cut market research cost in the shadow of the business recession.
By: Morenikeji Oluwaseyi IbrahimThe target of marketing is often to attract new prospect but equal focus must be put on past and present clients, in order to win confidence of a line extension or knowing why a former customer abandoned your band. Understanding and keeping a loyal customer is worth more money than one time purchase by a consumer that wants to try the new flavour of the month. Energy must therefore be put into understanding this consumer group better.Leading through listeningWhen promasaidor introduced its popular milk brand cowbell in N10 sachet a few years ago, it turned the milk market upside down. Today such is paramount, just like the case of "Ariel" which we suddenly move to and forget about other brands of detergents because they should us they listen care about us when we asked for a more affordable pack. They did not reduce the real price or quality of the product, but they put it within our reach with the mini packs. We did not have to accept suspicious looking blue detergents tied in nylons as "Omo" or Elephant". They both proved to us they were listening, using market research proactively.It is given fact the company that knows the market best can best address its needs. However, being able to research the market's demands and needs has become a luxury that is weighed against other alternative marketing activities. There are cost efficient ways, for instance, testing out a new packaging design one of them being the use of social medial platforms in marketing.This paper presents another way forward consumer panel networks.Consumer Panels fast and inexpensive feed back. Data registers consisting of mainly current and past keeping in touch with a brand's buyers. The registry, often called a panel, is essentially a database with contact information of customers who wish to answer questions in the hope of affecting companies offering and products.Consumer panels, by themselves, are nothing new, for example, in the US, Heinz operates a panel where consumers regularly answer questions about their ketchup consumption, and Disney has a "mixed race panel" that explores the social-cultural undertones of their brand and theme parks."by using only your owncustomers of their opinion,you may sometime receive results thatare impossible to generalize to themarket as a whole"using these panels has given Heinz and Disney an unfair edge vis--vis their competitors and a deeper understanding of the market's needs and wants. The main merit of panels is the low cost at which concept or advertisement for instance, can cost less than a dollar per answer collected. The depth of the gathered information regarding the survey participants and their opinion out maneuvers traditional, annoying pop-up surveys on the companies' websites.In a recent Swedish apartment, a consumer panel built by the market research company Nepa for Scandinavia's largest TV Channels. TV4, cut research costs by 90% during the panel's first year of operation. As a result, the company now does ten times the amount of research compared to before, and tries out every new program concept before launch, to ensure acceptance with target audience. Further, the company requires all its brand consultants and market research partners to exclusively utilize TV4's aim panel for all their data collection done in TV4 projects, regardless of survey type, thereby dominating any add-on costs from the suppliers.As a bonus, TV4 offers all its advertisers' free pre-tests and follow-ups on the advertisement that run in any of the network's media vehicles. The cost for TV4 is marginal but this offering helps the network when competing for the decreased marketing budget of the advertisers. This is an example of a company investing heavily in consumer insight as a way to gain market shares.The new twist a consumer panel network Even though Consumer panels are a strategy used by several companies today, the standard panel has two major issues to tackle: attention and biased results face the facts asking the same group of people week after week about their Ketchup habits will mean that people leave the panel eventually. Often it is not the number of surveys in itself that cause irritation, but the lack of variation of the subjects that the panelists are asked to comment on. The result is that customers become bored and leave the panel, leaving only the most hard core ketchup fans to answer your questions. And after all, the opinions of the most loyal fans of any brand or category mill seldom project the behaviour or reflect the opinion of the general public. The result may well be the latch of a new flavour or package design that flicks within a few months.By asking only your own customers of their opinion you may sometimes receive results that are impossible to generalize to the market as a whole. For instance, asking the Disney panel for their favourite type of holiday activity will likely exaggerate the "visiting a theme park"- alternative and thereby inflating the predicted market size potential for DisneyThe pragmatic solution to both these issues is to work together with other companies in the same situation through a panel network. All the parties in the network may ask each others' customers for their opinion about products and receive biased free results. At the same time the customer. For instance the TV4 panel experience a variation of questions since theoretically both Disney and Heinz will ask for their opinion.Market leaders unite a panel network caseAn example of this type of network is currently up and running in Sweden. Nepa has united Sweden's largest television network with the region's largest travel agency, a major gambling provider, the country's number one dating site, the most popular clothing company, and Sweden's largest movie theatre chain.As a result, these market leaders can utilize each others' panels to create a deeper consumer understanding at low cost. Nepa has aligned their research practice and a methodological standardization. Between them, these companies have access to 5-10% of the country's total population and thereby have the ability to reach almost any target group, however narrow, for next to no money at all. The idea behind this is simple: we are all major players in our respective markets, but in no way competitors and we share a common problem let's solve it together!"This type of cooperative thinking is something many companies can learn from. Finding strength and a competition edge in a market research alliance with a suitable company is a new idea, but also a growing brand, where a year of experience has rendered Nepa with a model for a research alliance.A similar way of thinking about marketing synergies is seen in the co-sponsored promotion that Mc Donald and Disney had, where both brands address the same audience with non-competitive products but achieved great audience impact at lower cost.Management literature has shown that companies investing in advertising during a recession come out up to five times stronger than average once the economic tide turn. The question is no longer how to be able to conduct an excellent market research but rather how large the merit will be once the recession is over for those out fit that continuously invest in consumer insight.As competition for consumers' downsized wallet intensifies in these tough, times it is increasable important to deliver superior value and whet consumers' natural appetite for all things new and latest. So if you have a brilliant business concept in your hand, do not hesitate to make it happen in today's business marketplace, to keep your outfits booming.Additional material: courtesyMr.Per E Asberg; who is the Head of Production and panels at Swedish market research company Nepa. He has previously published articles on branding and market research in Europe, North America and Asia. http://www.articlesbase.com/international-marketing-articles/the-green-brand-alliance-3809202.html
