Disposal of Cigarette Research work

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am doing a research study on how students at my school dispose of their cigarettes. To understand this further I have decided I will do an observational study as well as an online survey.


The survey questions
1.) Do you smoke regularly (yes or no)
2.) Do you smoke on campus? (yes or no)
3.) How do you dispose of your cigarette? (cigarette disposal unit, dropping it on the ground, other)
4.) How often do you use the cigarette disposal unit? (every time, most of the time, occasionally, rarely, never)
5.) How often do you drop your cigarette on the ground? (every time, most of the time, occasionally, rarely, never)
6.) Do you normally smoke with friends or by yourself? (mostly with friends or mostly by myself)
7.) If your friend used the disposal unit would you be more likely to use the disposal unit as well? (yes, no, maybe/ I don't know)


The obersvational study perameters:


Objective: To understand how many people use the cigarette disposal units vs. dropping their cigarettes on the ground in hopes to identify patterns or areas of influence for behaviors.


location: at the college campus in two locations- one right outside the student life center and the second in the courtyard of the school.


Time: 1 hour in each location both on a Wednesday between the hours of 12:30 and 1:30 (peak traffic hours).


Spreadsheet/what I will be looking for-

   I will be looking to see how many people use the disposal units vs. dropping the cigarette on the ground and stomping it out. 


What do you think?! Please give me any suggestions :)

Market Research Project

   As a student at Champlain College, I have decided to put all my learnings to the test and conduct some research. The topic will be around smoking and using the appropriate disposal products that are around campus. I will conduct some observational research as well as an online survey to gage people's thoughts on top of watching their actions. As I make the survey and observational study I will post them here as well as a report at the end with all my findings!
   Stay posted! And if you have any suggestions as I go forward please comment!

Why Black Friday is So Huge

   Black Friday is the retail industry's favorite day. It is the day people line up at the wee hours in the morning and buy products they wouldn't normally buy. Arie Kruglanski a psychology researcher believes that a major factor in the phenomenon that is Black Friday, is the theory of need for closure. Some people take a long time to make a decision then take an action based on the decision, while others are quick to make a decision and then quickly make an action. Someone's need for closure can certainly motivate them to act.
   In the case of Black Friday, it motivates people who don't think about a decision as much to take action quickly. They don't consider all the factors in that moment. They simply want the product and know they can "afford" (sometimes they have to give up things to afford the product) it, so they buy it. Retailers have noticed this is the main factor behind the success of Black Friday. Which is why they make deals that any quick decision maker would go for!
    Being a big fan of Black Friday I realize now that I am very much an impulsive buyer. Also, I can easily justify a purchase to myself. Knowing that I am a quick decision maker, maybe now I will try to take my time before making a decision on Black Friday. We will see how that goes..
    What about you?! Are you a quick buyer or do you think things out before making a decision? 

Not on Social Media? Reconsider NOW

For those companies who don't know whether or not to be active on social media sites here is the market research study to PROVE you need to be there interacting with your customers!


The Retail Consumer Report surveyed 4,512 social media users as well as monitored multiple social media sites and review sites. The following are the key statistics that every company should know!


1.) 68% of people who complained online (whether it was on FaceBook/Twitter or a review website) had a response from the company
2.) Of those, 18% turned into LOYAL customers of the company they had a complaint about and bought more items from that company


This shows how powerful it is for a company to see a complaint and respond to that complaint. It could change a "hater" into a lover of your product. This is also an element of surprise for the customer.


3.) 61% of customers would be shocked if a company replied to their complaints on the web.


Do we need any more proof on why companies should be online?! 

The Challenges of Web Analytics

Location of visitors to megcril.blogspot.com

   Currently I have web analytics running on my blog. I figure the best way to fully understand a tool like this is to simply use it! As I look at all the information, some of it can be very deceiving. A difficult measurement is number of visitors. My favorite thing to look at is where all my visitors come from. There are a few from Russia, the United Kingdom, India, Canada and of course the US. However upon closer inspection of the reports, I notice that some visitors don't spend even a second on the blog. 

Av time on site for megcril.blogspot.com

    This is an important factor in understanding how well my website is doing. On the surface it looks like its a highly successful blog that people around the world are reading. However, upon closer inspection I can see that this is true for some of the countries, but it is not true for all. Which means I have some work to do on my blog to keep people on the site as well as I have to be critical of any of the information I receive via my analytics!
    This tid bit goes for market research in general. Don't just accept something at face value. Dig deeper and find out what they numbers are really telling you! More to come on this topic in future blog posts!

Are we Still Angry at Groupon?

Today I found a very interesting study about people's feelings towards Groupon now that about two months has past since their infamous commercial on the Super Bowl. Like any huge controversy the public upset has subsided, however Groupon has gotten lucky. Their like-ability wasn't severely damaged. Conversition did a study using text analytics with social media tools and found the following results:


   Picture from conversition.com


This first graph shows how much Groupon came up in tweets or Facebook statuses or other social media tools. The spike is at the Super Bowl. Then gradually people stopped talking about Groupon. The interesting stuff is in the next graph-


  Picture from conversition.com

    In this graph the top line is measuring the positive talk about Groupon and the bottom line is measuring the negative talk about Groupon. So, clearly the social media world was upset with Groupon, voiced it but it seems as if the public has forgotten about the commercial and have moved on. 


   Maybe this is because of recent events in Africa and the Middle East or Groupon simply has a good idea as its business that people love. In any case, Groupon took a huge risk that could have potentially ruined their brand image and reputation, but luckily they were able to surpass it very easily and with little harm done to their company. 
  SO, do you think Groupon got lucky or did they know people would get over it so quickly?! What does that tell us about society today?

Ethical Dilemmas

In my marketing capstone class today we talked about ethical dilemmas people and companies may face everyday. The debate came down to are ethics relative or situational? Or is their a standard of ethics that should be used in any situation? 


The market research industry has ethical dilemmas they face all the time. From how to conduct a research study to issues with clients and respondents. A major problem that market researchers face is when a client wants to get the name of the respondents and their answers to the survey or interview questions. Market researchers have an obligation to keep confidentiality with the respondents, however they also have been hired by the client. In the client's eyes they own the results as well as the individual answers to the survey questions. The researcher must make tough decisions knowing they could potentially "harm" someone. 


Personally, I would not give the names of the respondents to the client explaining to them that you have promised those respondents confidentiality. Additionally I would explain how if this confidentiality wasn't promised to the respondents the client would not get the true information/ data they were able to receive


What would you do if you were the market researcher? What if there was no promise of confidentiality given to the respondents? Would that change your answer to this question?

The Power of Asking the Right Questions

In a recent study done by the CMO council, revealed that many companies are not closing on close to 80% of their leads, or potential sales. There are a few reasons as to why this number is so high. The biggest being structural problems within the company. For example many respondents said they do not have the tools to generate and create new business opportunities. Another issue is that many people do not think sales and marketing departments are functioning as efficient as they could be. These different factors are severely affected sales in companies around the country. 


From one study that asked the right questions, they were able to identify these major problems within multiple companies. With this knowledge companies can now focus their efforts into creating stronger, more understandable structures. This study shows the power of asking the right questions and how it can lead to a greater understanding of a problem. While structure is always a challenge for companies, they probably didn't realize how much of an impact it was having on their sales and revenue. 


For the complete analysis of this study go to Marketing Today

Text Analytics Put to Use

  Text Analytics is the newest way of analyzing all digital data and compiling the information based on parameters set by the user. Text analytics works like data mining. The software can be programmed to search out key words, phrases, etc. and compile all the information that comes with each of those tagged words. Experts in this industry can then go in and create reports and recommendations based on the reports to the clients. Text Analytics was very helpful for JetBlue in 2007 when they left thousands of people stranded on JFK runways. They received 15,000 emails the following day (almost quadruple what they normally see). They needed to respond quickly but they had an information overload. Thankfully, they had begun using text analytics before this event and were able to use the technology to understand the main problems and were able to quickly solve the problems. Additionally with text analytics companies are able to combine structured and non structured data together and understand situations even better. For example, JetBlue can combine structured info like flight times, fares, etc with the results of surveys and interviews with their customers to get a better understanding of their consumers and economic influences. Text analytics is a powerful tool that will become a major measurement of success/ need for improvement for all companies. 
To read more about JetBlue's Text Analytics, check out this link


Currently, customers have hired consultants to interpret the data in ways the client can understand. I recently read an interview of Tom Anderson, a consultant and an expert in Text Analytics who says, within the next five years companies that specialize in text analytics consulting will not have an advantage in the field because other market research firms will adapt the softwares and be able to do the same thing as part of their packages to their clients.(read full interview here) I see Text Analytics becoming like Web Analytics; where individuals can set up the software and have the education and information to be able to interpret their own data. When this will happen I do not know, but I think it will end up that way.