“Online research is cheap, fast, and the wave of the future. Tools like SurveyMonkey allow non-expert users to create custom surveys in minutes. As an alternative to offline focus groups, custom online panels of consumers can be formed for qualitative research on new product ideas or new ads. Taking the do-it-yourself approach rather than outsourcing to a market research firm is attractive in a cost-cutting era, but you risk getting no more than what you pay for. The opinions of convenience sample of an enthusiastic online brand community may not represent all users.”

The advances that are being made right now in online research methodologies are really exciting. And they do give companies the opportunity to not only learn from but become part of the ongoing conversations that people are having about brands, companies and their products online. However, I wholehartedly agree that the “do-it-yourself approach” to online research carries with it some serious risks. I can’t tell you how many SurveyMonkey surveys I’ve come across that just make me cringe. At best, poorly concieved online research yields results that aren’t useful; and at worst, it yields results that are misleading or incorrect.

They found that despite the industry buzz about conducting qualitative research online using social media technologies, 71% of firms’ revenues still come from quantitative methodologies. Mobile survey technology is also not a money-maker; it makes up just a tenth of a percent of revenues. Sounds to me like there’s some opportunity there.

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Next, we have Stephanie Holland. Her blog, She-conomy, is a great resource for marketers (and those of the male variety specifically) who want to get smart about how to market to women effectively. We’re a finicky bunch so do your homework! Stephanie also does a weekly reader survey which just makes me happy. I love a good survey!

Click on their names to follow them on Twitter. Have a great weekend!

It could be the game of Pong played with glowing flocks of sheep, or the sheep-herding dogs carrying out their primal duty despite the fact that the goal in this case is completely unrelated to it’s instinctual purpose. Whatever it is, it looks like others agree.

It’s been at the top of the Visible Measures Top 10 Viral Video Ad Campaigns Chart for two weeks running and has gotten more than 1.6 million views. UK’s The Viral Factory created the video for Samsung. However, they might want to consider making their association with the brand more obvious - I watched this video no less than three times on YouTube and never noticed that it had anything to do with Samsung. Although admittadly, I should have realized that no one, not even Welsh farmers, could possibly be that bored.

Then there’s Tropicana’s misstep with the redesign of their packaging, and Facebook’s about-face on changes to their Terms of Service in response to the resulting backlash.

There’s some really interesting debate going on about what the implications are for companies trying to navigate the social media phenomena. Social technologies are making it easier for consumers to disseminate their opinions and rally around one cause or another by creating Facebook groups, blogging, posting comments on other blogs and using Twitter. As a complaint or opinion gains momentum, google ranks are impacted and the issue can become a PR nightmare.

It begs the question, “How much weight should companies give to this technologically-empowered and very vocal segment of customers that, in most cases, makes up only a small portion of their consumers?” If companies react to these social media outcries by caving in, then in many cases, they’re catering to a small minority.  It seems this was certainly the case for Motrin. These stats from a survey by Lightspeed Research are being reported by AdAge and PR-Squared:

“(Almost) 90% of women had never seen the ad. Once they saw it, about 45% liked the video, 41% had no feelings about it, and 15% didn’t like it. Even fewer, 8%, said it negatively affected their feelings of the brand, compared with the 32% who said it made them like the brand more.”

The takeaway for me is that companies need to supplement their market research by getting input from the social media community before they undergo branding makeovers or make big shifts in policy. For example, Facebook just announced that they’ll be conducting a user vote to guide their decisions on the policy changes they want to make. For most brands, the segment of people that are actively using social technologies isn’t typical of their consumers. But because they are more influential, companies need to start taking their opinions and concerns into account preemtively.

As frequent travelers, we already love Hotwire for its extremely affordable rental cars from only the most reliable rental car companies. Well they’ve just given us another reason to love them. Through a partnership with TerraPass, Hotwire will now pay for half of the cost of offsetting customers’ carbon emissions for travel booked through the site. Through the program, offsetting your share of the carbon emitted from a domestic flight would only set you back six bucks.

So far, this is the only carbon offset matching offer we’ve seen from a travel company. But considering the impact that travel (and air travel in particular) has on carbon emissions, it seems like a good fit. Travel-intensive businesses can negate the impacts of their jetsetting in an easy, affordable way and individuals concerned about their ecological footprint can offset some of their CO2-related guilt. If marketed well, this program could be a significant draw for Hotwire. We’ll be watching to see what creative concepts they come up.

For a long time now, we’ve been waiting to see some advances in the area of consumer-related healthcare technology. We’ve heard of a few cool ideas but nothing has really entered the mainstream or started changing the way people interact with their healthcare professionals.

Gizmodo is reporting today that Nintendo has teamed up with a few other technology companies to launch a system in Japan that will transmit information collected by the Wii Fit system to a user’s healthcare professional. It will allow doctors to track and monitor a patients’ activity and progress over time and has some pretty interesting implications for the role they might play in the health and fitness habits of their patients. Although, I have a feeling that many people will have reservations about giving their doctors’ access to that type of personal information. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

We talk a lot about how important it is to have a clear and distinctive point of view, and we love seeing someone embody that. At an event last night at Red Bull’s headquarters in Santa Monica for women who work in youth and action sports marketing, the moderator asked the panelists what inspired them, and Amy Stettler, Global Director of Communications for OMD/Apple, said, “We live in a big bureaucracy with a lot of rules. We need more people in marketing who are willing to blow shit up.” Indeed.

We’ve been doing a lot of marketing communications work lately and thinking about the process of creative development. Rodin said that the task of a sculptor is to remove what is unnecessary from the stone, and in some ways a marketing campaign requires the same approach. Simplicity and clarity are important, but ultimately we aim for “stickiness” - messages that stick in people’s minds and affect their behavior. In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly, Stanford University’s Chip Heath says, “A sticky idea is one that people understand when they hear it, that they remember later on, and that changes something about the way they think or act. That is a high standard. Think back to the last presentation you saw. How much do you remember? How did it change the decisions you make day to day?” It’s a high standard, but a good one, and Heath offers some excellent advice on the discipline of messaging (luckily, it’s not about being a born genius like Rodin).

We recently started working on a public health campaign for the California HealthCare Foundation that has a high stickiness imperative; the “product” we’re selling could save thousands of people from blindness. It’s an important message, and it’s tempting to throw a lot of words at it, but the real challenge of marketing is to tell a good story and know when to put the chisel down.

During the run-up to the holidays this year, we’ve heard friends and colleagues working in the non-profit sector voicing concerns about the effect that the economic downturn is having (and will continue to have) on non-profit organizations and the people that depend on them. United Way estimates it will raise about $110 million this year, down from $117 million last year. Washington Mutual was one of United Way’s largest contributors before its collapse, giving $2.1 million last year through employee donations and matching gifts. We spoke with a friend who works for a prominent arts institution in San Francisco about how they are suddenly missing the masses of smaller donations they receive from regular people who, unlike larger donors, generally don’t have any input or information about where their money goes within the organization.

In interviews we recently conducted with non-profit donors and non-donors we saw a clear pattern - people want to be able to see where their donations are going and the impact they are having. Our hunch is that as consumers tighten their belts, it’s easy for them to cut non-profit giving to larger organizations out of their budgets because they don’t see the tangible impact of their donations and conversely, what they are taking away by not donating. Microlending organizations are an example of a type of non-profit which connects donors directly to the real people they are helping (Kiva is one we like). In this case, lenders can see the difference they are making in people’s lives through online profiles of borrowers. Their personal connection to the people they are helping means that lenders will likely think twice before cutting that money out of their budgets.

There are a few ways that larger non-profits can develop mechanisms for creating that personal connection for their donors.

• National organizations can allow donors to give directly to their local chapters instead of compiling donations into a virtual “black hole” that doesn’t allow them to see their dollars at work in their own community. 826, an organization that offers free tutoring for language and writing skills, is set up to take donations in this way.

• Non-profits can also offer merchandise for purchase that gives donors something for their donation. CharityUSA and their network of websites calculates the impact of each item for sale so buyers know the impact of their purchase before they even buy it (for example, each purchase of one of these Balanise shawls will preserve 2290.0 sq. ft. of rainforest).

This holiday season, we as consumers can also do our part. Instead of buying your dad another tie, make a donation to his favorite non-profit in his honor. This year BeSui is giving the gift of bees in honor of our clients through Heifer International, our favorite non-profit, who helps families achieve self-reliance through the gift of livestock. You can also forego the usual family gift exchange and give the money to a local food bank instead. If you do give presents, try to make purchases from organizations that donate a percentage of the profits. Benevolink is an e-commerce site where you can make purchases from major retailers such as Target and Gap and accumulate funds for donating to the charity of your choice.