Blog (insight)
From Appreciation to Aspiration: Unlocking Your Organization’s Potential
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters enjoyed tremendous growth. From its humble beginnings as a coffee shop in 1981, the business bloomed...
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Change the Way You Think
In the fall of 1997, Dr. Andre Briend was having a perfectly ordinary breakfast at home when his gaze settled,...
The Invisible Gorilla
Sorry, I Wasn’t Paying Attention I remember the first time I watched the Invisible Gorilla experiment, a short video that...
Innovation Starts With Empathy
The Heart of Game-Changing Innovation Everyone gets the power and potential of new ideas—but there is precious little research and...
Sleep on It
Songwriting Satisfaction I have a few friends who are songwriters. They spend hours in their homes, studios, coffee shops and...
The Brand is Not Part of the Business; It IS the Business
People don’t invest a lot of time on details. They sort out the promise a brand makes and the meaning...
What to Expect in Marketing in 2014
Although Big Data tells us what is happening, it rarely tells us why. Too much reliance on the rational brain can lead to 'data, data everywhere and not a thought to think.' In 2014, marketers will stop drowning in data and starving for insights--and uncover those insights that can only be found in peeling back customers' deep emotional layers....
Brandtrust’s TMRE Top 5 Takeaways
Brandtrust recently attended The Market Research Event (TMRE) conference held in Nashville, TN. We sent our largest contingency to date to learn, observe, and gather trends, insights and best practices that are shaping the future of an industry about which we care so much. The 2.5 days organized by TMRE were full to say the least. The challenge every 50 minutes was deciding which session to attend next.
...How to Win Customers—and Friends
It is hard for me to imagine managing a brand with any other intent than winning customers the way we win friends. Would you invite me to your home and make me wait at the front door until you got around to answering it? Would you not take my coat or leave me sitting in the living room by myself for half an hour? Would you serve me a warm martini with a hair in it? Would you leave me sitting at the dining room table by myself while you got on the phone to talk to your cousin in Oshkosh? If this sounds like a gruesome picture, compare it to the way some brands appear to operate.
...The Scarlet “S” of Segmentation
Looking at how brands affect our subconscious thoughts and feelings provide refreshing insights for all marketers who want to better understand what makes you, me, and the rest of the world tick. Not just for profit but for the sheer fun of getting to know ourselves and our customers as human beings. We are not Affluent Singles, or (my favorite horror) DINKS, meaning Double Income No Kids. These kinds of pigeon holes are artificial designations, known as “segmentations,” to make marketing seem easier, but they lump us into amorphous masses that simply do not align with the way we think of ourselves, our families, or friends and neighbors.
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