WHILE IN THE FIELD ...

Marketing execs (and other leader types) are now crowing about their latest discovery:  Immersion assignments.

It usually starts with a need for intelligence.  Some examples of knowledge seeking:  How does middle America shop, dine, and/or drink?  What must hotels in faraway places do to create a feeling of home away from home, yet with a local flavor?  What’s a typical day for a restaurant employee … especially before and after s/he clocks in?

Then the visits begin.  One lodging company relocates its senior-most leaders to exotic locales for a month; immersion-ers work with employees, government officials, other citizen groups to determine what kind of tweaks the brand needs to thrive in that area.  After identifying a top-secret town that most closely emulates its client’s target market, a slew of ad agency pros visit it every month, adding to focus group intel and other research findings.

In a sense, this latest twist on “getting to know you” resembles some fairly recent trends.  Like hiring cultural anthropologists to stake out a desirable cohort.  Or spending time with a family or group of families to understand their fears and dreams, habits and wishes.  Even on-the-road onboarding trips for new hires at major corporations.

If this is, indeed, such a valuable pursuit, why not more – and more often?  What keeps each of us, whether desk bound at headquarters or road warrior consultant, from, essentially, gaining a great bead on our stakeholders, our clients, our milieu?  Definitely, “no time” and “no permission” are common answers.  Yet, when the benefits clearly outweigh the effort and expense, that, in itself, impels us to put together a business case … and sell it to upper management. 

Just ask Jane Goodall.  

KILLING US NOT-TOO-SOFTLY

We’re tired, just plain tired, of our opinions being asked.

For the first, oh, dozen times or so, it’s ego-satisfying to learn someone wants to hear what we think.  And when the asker combines it with an incentive, boy, we’re so there.  Who wouldn’t want a free bagel or a dozen from Einstein, or the chance to win $$ in a retail splurge spree?  Or a coupla dozen thousand miles on an airline?

In the last year or two, we’ve stopped responding.  To be completely transparent, the incentives aren’t there anymore.   [We’re simply not interested in entering a drawing for another high-caloric treat when, really, the establishment just wants to get a fix on our personal data.  Now that’s another story.  For another blog.]

The real truth, though, is that today, every time we stop in a grocery store, shop online, or get something fixed, a survey’s awaiting.  And many don’t take “no” for an answer.  We’ve been bombarded online, then via robocalls and finally land lines, for instance, from car dealerships … ironic when we already told the salesperson we weren’t interested in a “special” service.  When that happens, we hang up, and not so politely say “no.”  In a different language. 

More than a few gurus have cautioned about survey fatigue, resulting in a lower response rate and weakening the value of the questionnaire.  Others talk about respecting our time, sending clear invitations, keeping it brief, and responding to our complaints.

Yet couldn’t another underlying cause of “please sir/madame, no more” be the type of survey selected?  Usually, researchers hit us in our technological homes, from emails and online requests to mobile and social media touchpoints.    It’s hard not to speed up survey responses when we’re faced with multiple choices to a question, checking, often blindly, whatever hits us at the moment.  Or whatever sounds good.

Here’s a novel thought:  Why not talk with us, either on the phone or in person, one to one or in a small group?  For those watching an hourly clock, it’s definitely more time-consuming and expensive – the actual process as well as the analysis and reporting.  But aren’t we worth it?

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE 2012 ELECTION

Numbers fascinate us.

Political pollsters live (and die, metaphorically) by them.  They’re the center of accountants’ and actuaries’ work.  PR professionals create news through numbers.  And Web sites and social media attempt to  measure impressions and results in some form of credible numerics.

At the same time, numbers can be manipulated.  Just because only a teeny percentage of Millennials isn’t bored by advertising – or so trumpets an Edelman survey of 4,000 of these cohorts  – doesn’t mean that the vast majority of them don’t fast-forward their Tivos during ad segments.   Any reported quantity of Facebook likes, even in the high double digits, only reveals that many folks are clicking in to participate in a promotion, win a prize, or share information for points.

In short, we’re jaded number crunchers.  The mother/daddy of all statistical generators, the election researchers, showed their true selves this fall, with the U.S. Presidential election.  Instead of guiding and advising candidates, pollsters allowed for the churns and flip-flops of their clients.  [No, it wasn’t just Mitt Romney, trust us.]  A majority of West Coast voters favor gay marriage?  Then, our to-be representatives replied “aye” with vigor.  Healthcare the number-one issue on Easterners’ minds?  You bet, at least some form of Obamacare was sanctioned by all.

Polls, to us, are real opportunities to listen, to guide our behaviors, to refine our actions.  Sure, they’re grist for our external relations colleagues to drive awareness.  We’ve done the same in previous lives.  Consider this:  The best of researchers use carefully planned statistics as an architecture, the foundation for causes and reasons and emotions.  They pore over every word, every question, then copy-test to ensure that the clarity of the question will produce answers of meaning.    When responses appear, they’re sliced and diced and cross-scrutinized to ensure accuracy of reporting, then mapped to indicate future trends and issues (and needed metrics).

That kind of care with numbers is our true North Star, whether driving change or marketing or brand campaigns.   Say it’s so, Mark Twain.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

We’ll admit it (if you will):  We’re addicted to those ten or so-question quizzes that pop up, every month, in some magazine or on Facebook or on our smartphone apps.

And yes, we do take them, score ourselves, then, after seeing the results, wonder why we got suckered into it.

Yet thinking about the behavior behind those quizzes gives us pause:  Obviously, the content has to be compelling enough for us to spend 10 to 15 minutes filling it out and then seeing where we fall on the spectrum of personality or health or change. 

There’s also something about the seduction of knowing – in other words, being able to characterize or “type” ourselves with a bit of certainty.  Finding out that we’re extraordinarily charismatic or more apt to accept change or healthier than the average test-taker feels like we’re a step up on the rest of the population.  No matter if it’s true or not.

Sharing and applying that new self-knowledge works for businesses, too.  How often do we survey our customers – and our employees as well – when new products and new programs are in the offing, to test the marketplace or assess the internal environment?  At the same time, how frequently do we communicate the results of those multiple-choice exercises, and what they might mean to the success of the venture?  

No matter if it’s a major or minor change – from, say, revolutionary self-cleaning tissues to the use of a different process in filing expense reports – the test/quiz results, when explained and communicated, shed a light on individual and collective behaviors, present and future. After all, when we finish the media quizzes, the answers are at the bottom.  In real life and work, who wouldn’t want that kind of information?