My 10 year-old son is an avid follower of online product reviews so he could relate quite a lot to my latest readings about P&G online Market Research. It was a bedtime story with a difference and I was amazed at what he had to say. Maybe my son is developing the mind of a good Marketing Manager?
He thinks that people could make a lot of money by selling products that 'have special parts in it'. In saying that, he explained to me that viewers votes can help improve products to make them more saleable and appealing to customers. He admitted to me that he has voted on many, many toy unboxing reviews. "When new toys come out and you are the first one to put it on the internet, you will get lots of hits. People comment about how good and bad it is and also ask you questions like: 'Is it breakable?' 'How good does it work?'" or the best question in my son's opinion is: "What's it's best feature?" He also said, "Sometimes viewers say something is 'really cool' and 'awesome' because that will encourage customers to buy it. Maybe if you are a YOUTUBE partner then you will get paid for it?" Now where did he get that idea from?
Websites frequently visited by boys include: atamaii.com, Ebay, toywiz.com, amazon.com, youtube.com, hasbro.com, beybladebattles.com and toysrus.com. Sometimes there are links to see new games and toys. Viewers find it interesting to look at what other customers are saying and the reponses can be interactive. My son doesn't always agree with what people say about it. If a new product gets a bad review when it is launched in one country, say USA, then it can damage it's product launch in the next country even before it gets there. Similarly, customers can be so eager to get their hands on it that they are willing to pay extra money on international shipping to be one of the first to have it here. Young children are often visiting websites such as YOUTUBE to watch videos of new releases for toys and movies. For example, my son had seen nearly all the episodes of Ben10 Ultimate Alien, Beyblade Metal Fusion and Bakugan Battle Brawlers well before it came to Australia. We see here that the distance between idea and implementation is shrinking so much so that customers are becoming upset. Waiting too long can be risky as discussed by Elie Ofek and Luc Mathiew in the HBR article called, "Are you ignoring trends that could shake up your business?" Sometimes new products are sold out and superseded with a better model before the original product launch in another country. Technology can be a double edged sword if we can't work with it fast enough in the developed world.
So it is evident that the new generation of customers are using the internet to do their own market research before buying a new product or service. They are scrutinizing feedback from various sources to form calculated opinions and make decisions. With a sample of young online repondents that, according to Robosurveys, "tend to be more truthful when answering computers", the ability for organizations to collect accurate market research for their business is high. In fact, some time ago P&G's Chairman & CEO said, "Today we do the majority of our concept tests in 48 to 72 hours online at the fraction of the cost and with equal or higher reliability. That's the kind of power the Internet can bring." It may be a lot easier to capture the minds of the young but this raises serious moral concerns, especially for me as a mother.
Children are not 'qualified' customers because they don't usually have the ability to pay for the goods and services themselves. Yet children can greatly influence the decision maker who has the buying power. Are children simply being brainwashed? Are the core beliefs and values of the family unit under attack? Governments now recognise the link and are now trying to regulate the messages portrayed by smoking, drinking and fast food advertisements for example. This is probably not so much because it affects families, but because the health system is paying a high price for the unhealthy lifestyle that has been promoted.
In our course textbook, "A framework for marketing management" by Kotler Keller, we read about the sociocultural environment where marketers deliberately attract teens because they believe it will likely keep them as customers for life. Teenagers are highly impressionable. So how can I be sure that only secondary beliefs are going to being affected?
On the other hand, if the target market is middle-aged, they are unlikely to do on-line surveys, answer honestly and may be reactant people. So a good strategy to use for this type of customer is a sort of reverse psychology - double negative - using subliminal messages and implied meanings in communication as suggested by Emily Moyer-Guse and Robin L. Nabi. in HBR's Idea Watch, October 2010.
Different approaches are required for doing market research in various target markets. Not just the usual criteria of demographics, economic, sociocultural, natural, technological and politcal/legal environments are necessary but also understanding how consumers think and respond is a key factor in collecting reliable data.
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