In this article we revisit a 15-year old article in the Harvard Business Review (“Rethinking Marketing”) about the transformation of marketing. It relates directly to an important theme of Versta Research’s recent talk at the AMA in Chicago—namely, dissipation of the research function. The article argued that marketing was shifting from being product-centric to being…
As we put the finishing touches on our recently produced video introduction to Versta Research (see the video below!), I kept wondering whether videos really matter. I don’t jump on bandwagons without strong reasons to believe the wagons are going where I want. So it was a happy coincidence to come across research just published…
Versta Research has just published is spring 2014 newsletter which features a short video on how to do pricing research. If you ever work with price and demand data, and need to figure out the optimal price for your product or service, here are two great tools worth knowing about: 1. PowerPoint (yes, that says…
If you do concept testing that involves evaluating messages, ad copy, value propositions, benefits claims and so on, chances are you get to the end of the study and say, “Now I know which messages are best. But how many should I use?” New research just published in the Journal of Marketing suggests that the…
I usually feel guilty when returning merchandise to a store—like some over-indulged child, ungrateful for what he has, or unwilling to finish all the nutritious food on his plate. But recent research shows that if people like me can get over the guilt, companies actually make more money from us. How does that work? Research…
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways,” wrote Oscar Wilde in The Critic as Artist. That’s just the problem for market research and consumer behavior. Few design aspects of products, packages, brands, logos, advertising, and environments are more subjective than color. Which…
An article not too long ago in the Journal of Consumer Psychology summed up current research on brand extensions thus: What factors determine whether or not a brand extension will be successful? The most important factor identified by prior research is perceived fit. Consumers respond more favorably if they are able to perceive a fit…
Conventional wisdom is that your current customers are your best customers. Indeed, when marketers focus on cross-selling as a strategy, they typically see substantial increases in revenue and profit. Not only that, but when you look only at customers who cross-buy a lot, the profit from these customers is huge compared to customers who do…
An article in the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review (“Rethinking Marketing”) argues that marketing is shifting from being product-centric to being customer-centric. The old method was to develop a portfolio of products, build a team around each product, find the customers who need that product and market it to them. The emerging…