Kantar's Profiles Blog

In building the Kantar Profiles Network, we had a clear aim: helping brands and marketers to better understand their audiences. This commitment has been central to the development of our largest single source of respondents to help, simply and securely, connect our clients to trusted data and make informed decisions. But how exactly do we do this?

Here’s just five of the reasons the Kantar Profiles Network helps improve your access to actionable data…

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.

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.

Our four-part series from Lightspeed Financial Services Group continues with a look at credit card reward programs. Our first post highlighted consumers' views of daily dangerous driving activities, demonstrating how mobile enables risky behavior. Today, we focus on what rewards programs appeal to consumers and how the branded competition stacks up. 

In a recent blog post I presented a research use and technique framework. Today’s blog focuses on two of the applied research uses—strategic marketing management and marketing performance. Strategic marketing management involves getting the big picture by understanding opportunities, problems, and potential targets. Marketing performance is focused on assessing performance by monitoring and analyzing what is happening in market. 

Teaching marketing research has given me the opportunity to connect with people who could be future leaders in the marketing research industry, which I find to be an exciting extension of my ‘day job’ heading-up research methods and best practices for Lightspeed. I am currently teaching Consumer Insights at Northern Kentucky University. Teaching undergrads marketing research has made me reevaluate how we in the industry talk about various topics and try to come up with simple ways to explain what we do. One of my first challenges was coming up with a framework that summarizes the uses of marketing research and the specific research techniques tied to each use. I was thinking this should be simple; however, I quickly realized I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I created my own framework.

Primarily due to restricted cash flow across households, Q4 2016 in India had a major impact on the local durables market. Demonetization not only impacted households, but also retailers and manufacturers. However, the PC market had its own story.

Note: This post was originally published on greenbookblog.com

From the moment I get up in the morning to the last thing at night I am immersed in information gathering.

News was something I used to read once a day. Ever since having a smart phone, my propensity to consume news has slowly increased month by month, and with the ever increasing proliferation of news aggregation apps, it’s becoming something I dip into almost every spare moment during the day. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning and last thing I do at night before switching off my phone is check the “news.” It has become a total addiction. In addition to news there is social media, which I consume with equal levels of hunger, be it Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. When I run out of new information from these sources to consume, I switch to doing things like looking through pictures on Instagram or virtual shopping on eBay. 

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

Chinese New Year (CNY), also known as the Spring Festival in Mainland China, has been celebrated for thousands of years. Traditional Chinese customs are observed with this holiday, such as giving red pockets, family gatherings and reunion parties and gift giving. Many argue that these customs and behaviors cannot be easily influenced or replaced by external factors. However, China is a fast adopting culture increasingly driven by the latest technologies. With this in mind, Lightspeed ran a short survey following the 2017 CNY holiday amongst 1,024 of its panelists in China, to understand how and if new technologies have changed the way people celebrate today.