• Monday 8 am – Gutcheck begins in-depth interviews
• Monday Noon – Gutcheck completes in-depth interviews (n = 25)
• Monday 2 pm – GutCheck gathers and shares data with CoverGirl and Google
• Monday 4 pm – Google fields survey 
• Tuesday 8 am – Survey complete (n = 500)

Bingo bango!  Two agile research studies completed in 24 hours with the qualitative iteration informing and refining the subsequent quantitative iteration.  For those interested in learning about more of the details, I’ll post the presentation recording once the MRA makes it available in the coming days.

While you’re waiting, feel free to view how CoverGirl’s sibling Dolce & Gabbana (ie, and other fragrances in the P&G Prestige portfolio) used agile research to optimize consumer path-to-purchase over the holidays.

The post P&G CoverGirl = Poster Child for Agile Research appeared first on GutCheck.

We are concocting a bit of additional genius in the Lab with real-time research on Coca-Cola’s recently released (in Colombia) bottle made from ice. The ice bottle looks similar to a glass bottle and the red band allows consumers to hold the bottle without getting cold. When the bottle melts, the intent is for consumers to keep the red band as a keepsake bracelet.  

We’ll be releasing the results of our consumer research next week, so stayed tuned.

What do you think? Will the new ice bottle resonant with consumers? Where could you picture yourself drinking from this new ice bottle?  

We’ll have answers for you next week!

The post Concocting Coca-Cola Insights at the ISC Genius Lab appeared first on GutCheck.

The post How Brands Are Making Us Fall In Love appeared first on GutCheck.

H&M followed words with actions by hiring a 5’10’’ size 12 model as the star of this summer’s swimsuit ad campaign. And anecdotally speaking, the ads featuring plus-size model Jennie Runk have generated some positive buzz according to Time and AdWeek.

Here at GutCheck, we wanted to dive a level deeper than the current media coverage to understand the brass tacks insights underneath the buzz. Specifically, we wanted to answer these questions:

• Do women actually prefer the ad with the size 12 model to one with a size 0 model?
• And if so, to what degree and why?

So, we fired up an Instant Research Community (IRC) this week to answer these questions. Within an hour of kick-off this past Wed morning, we had our 40 female recruits raring to go. Twenty-four hours later, our ladies completed the guided discussion, collaborated heartily with one another, and gave us some fantastic insights. First and foremost: H&M is hitting it out of the park with this ad campaign. Take a look at the infographic our research team at Gutcheck put together yesterday once the community ended.

The key takeway: 76% preferred the ad with the size 12 model while 14% preferred the size 0 model. The media buzz would lead you to believe that the former would win; the key insight, however, is that it won by over 5x! And the reasons were both emotional (“A beautiful ad that I feel would relate to a lot of women.”) and rational (“It’s hard to picture myself in some of the clothing since I am not as small as the model.”).

I started with a contrast, so I guess it’s only fitting that I end with one:

• A&F Q1 sales: -9% worldwide and -17% in the US (source: Abercrombie & Fitch)
• H&M Q1 sales: +6% worldwide (source: H&M) 

Given H&M’s recent marketing and financial successes, I wonder if A&F is reconsidering its market focus. I sure would be.

The post On-Demand Insights: H&M Wins Hearts and Minds with Plus-Size Swimwear Model appeared first on GutCheck.

To quote Forbes:

“JC Penney put a designer teapot on a billboard in Culver City, CA, and last weekend at least one viewer thought the thing looked like Adolf Hitler. The social media world lit up. The media covered the buzz. The company tried to make light of it, then pulled the billboard down and discontinued the product (or it sold out).”

Honestly, I feel badly for the responsible product and marketing team, as I’m sure this resemblance was an unintended consequence of well-intended design choices. No doubt the marketers at JC Penney are doing some second-guessing on how this could have been avoided.

How about a little online market pretesting?

If the product team’s paradigm on market research is circa 1990, then I can understand why it wasn’t used to pretest the product design: takes too long and costs too much. Good thing it’s 2013, because designers and marketers today can affordably field an on-line pretest and within 48 hours receive feedback on the design’s appeal and gain insights on why naysayers find it unappealing.

Voila, the resemblance to Hitler would have jumped out of the qualitative insights from such a pretest.

Moral of the story: Research like it’s 2013…if not to design the killer product or ad campaign, then at least to avoid downside scenarios like this ‘Hitler in a teapot’. Online research vehicles are so timely and affordable these days, there’s no reason not to.

The post Research like its 2013 and Avoid Marketing Disasters (like the JC Penney Hitler teapot) appeared first on GutCheck.