Kantar's Profiles Blog

In a time when choice is rife for consumers and disruption produces new opportunities regularly, understanding the factors that help or hinder your brand to be chosen by customers is vital. I was recently involved in a Kantar study that explored the reasons consumers stay loyal in their reported buying behaviours, as well as the motivations to switch brands. We interviewed 3657 people from the Kantar Profiles Network across 12 countries (US, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Mainland China and Korea) covering 11 categories of products and services.

We hear about the rate of consumer change, but what do these behaviour’s look like when it comes to a traditional holiday season? We took a look at the intentions for 1500 panellists from five of our panels where Chinese New Year will be celebrated… what did we find?

The GRIT 2017 Q3-Q4 Report is now available for download at GreenBook, and below you can find one of the key sections: the Challenges & Opportunities for the industry. Jon Puleston of Lightspeed, with contributions from Ryan Soulet of the MSU MMR program and Tom Anderson of OdinText, led the charge in analyzing thousands of verbatim responses to the questions we asked about challenges, solutions, and opportunities for the industry in the year ahead. This gives us a quick read on where the “heads and hearts” of researchers are and offers a glimpse of where the industry may be going. This blog first appeared on the GreenBook blog as part of their GRIT Sneak Peek. 

With less than two week to go, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But what does this look like to Australian consumers?

‘Tis the season to be jolly but it is also the season to know your consumer…even better than the rest of year, that is! We asked our Australian mobile and tablet respondents about a few of their plans for the festive period. Here’s what they told us.

“Groups often make better decisions than individuals, but you need to create an environment in which people can express themselves and in which other people are prepared to genuinely listen to alternative points of view,” stated Eric Salama in a recent blog post. He went on to say, “Marketing can be an enormous force for good. The industry should remind itself more often of the impact it can and does have.”

What does personal loan usage look like among your customer segments or within your footprint? In the latest Lightspeed Financial Services Group post, we look at consumer trends across secured and unsecured loans. 

The world of marketing research is constantly evolving – new technologies enable consumers to move onto the ‘next thing’ seconds after engaging with a survey today. Given the fast pace of change with our industry now, ESOMAR initiated a “Research Rally” series to challenge researchers and expand their ways of thinking, and designing.

The notion behind the event was simple – researchers would collectively evaluate local start-ups looking to improve their business model, product or services. Currently Britain is experiencing start-up fever: 80 new businesses were born each hour throughout 2016. However, these rosy statistics are tainted by the fact that 9 out of 10 start-ups fail. In today’s competitive marketplace, lucky guesses are no longer enough to create a successful innovation – the decision to invest in market research might determine a business’ survival.

I was lucky enough to attend the recent MRS Impact Conference and sit in on seminars covering the perennial problems that Market Research is said to have, including: What do we call ourselves? How do we add value? What do we do about automation?

On a recent earnings call, Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of Lightspeed’s parent company WPP, talked about what keeps him up at night. And no; it’s not (necessarily) his infant daughter – it’s Amazon.

“And I would just mention the rise of Amazon, because in answer to the question, my favorite question is what worries you when you go to bed at night and when you wake up in the morning. It's not a three-month-old child (laughter), it's Amazon, which is a child still, but not three months. And Amazon's penetration of most areas is frightening, if not terrifying to some, and I think there is a battle brewing between Google and Amazon.”

I was fortunate enough to attend the Insights Marketing Day event presented by Greenbook; the full day event included eight guest speakers, two panel discussion groups and networking opportunities covering marketing trends and opportunties including: 

• why we should look to move to in-house marketing and PR
• the most effective ways to improve start and open rates on email campaigns and getting the communication right
• what marketing automation can do for you
• what clients really think of marketing
• the future of social media
• how people can be influenced and persuaded