Still Hungry for more...

Updating the blog after a loooong time…


@ Nielsen: Now it has been almost 3 years, let me summarize what I had been doing…



I am Senior Executive, Client Solution with Nielsen (India) Pvt. Ltd. (earlier The Nielsen Company)

I am having a nice stint with IMR B2B team, many projects, ups & downs, highs & lows, joy & sorrow.



Would like to portray few of the domain skills

• Executing market research of data for making high-quality business reports.

• Conducting market analysis to assess prevalent financial & economic environment, identifying business risks & implement effective mechanisms to mitigate the same.

• Analyzing business processes, assist management in taking critical business decisions.

• Defining research objectives after consultation, designing the research plan while preparing research reports; interpreting results and providing recommendations.

• Identifying new streams for revenue growth & developing marketing/ advertisement plans to build user preference and achieving the business targets.

• Understanding market implying analysis of market size, trends/ trade/ attitudes & habits/ economic environment/ technological changes/ social/ culture environment/ demographic changes/ substitute markets.

• Interfacing with key influencers among Corporate for ascertaining requirements, and making presentations to create product awareness



The job responsibility and key deliverables:

• Interacting with client for briefing, debriefing and proposal designing & discussion.

• Identifying potential markets and factors affecting product demand while analyzing data on customer demographics, preferences, needs, and buying habits.

• Evaluating methods and procedures for collecting data, primary & secondary as field surveys, opinion polls, or questionnaires, or arrange to obtain existing data.

• Collating, documenting & compiling reports of findings, illustrating data graphically and translating complex findings into presentable format.



I have handled individual projects on different categories as market sizing, concept testing, usage and attitude (U&A), customer satisfaction and market assessment studies.



But, still hungry for more learning and new types of project…

@ Nielsen: New Job, New Life

What is the feeling when you get the direction towards your goal?
What is the feeling while walking on the path you always wanted to wander?
What is the feeling when you know your dream is about to turn into reality?

I found the answers to all question when I got the offer from “The Nielsen Company”

It has been 4 months now and the experience has been colorful. As a researcher I have been working on every aspect of research. I have been involved into client interaction, briefing, questionnaire designing, field coordination, primary and secondary research, analysis, reports and presentation.

Being into Industrial Market Research (IMR), B2B division of Nielsen, I have got vast exposure to hardcore research. There are many things yet to be explored, but I am ready to jump into the ocean of knowledge.

I hope I would be able to give back to the company more than revenue and satisfied clients, i.e. some innovative and better methods to improve research.

Researching CSR in Market

We all must have come across this buzz-word ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ somewhere or must have studied/implemented in our life/organization. AIrcel’s ‘Save our Tigers’, ITC’s ‘e-choupal’, Idea Cellular’s innovative ways to educate, save trees, etc. are few examples of CSR in India.


Let me refresh what CSR means. According to CSRnetwork:

“Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is about how businesses align their values and behaviour with the expectations and needs of stakeholders - not just customers and investors, but also employees, suppliers, communities, regulators, special interest groups and society as a whole.”

As far as I have understood, CSR should help the organization to strengthen their brand. There are many corporate who take up CSR activities, but how many of these activities help in brand-building? What is that an organization should do/not do while implementing the CSR activities? When, how, should a company take up CSR initiative? These are the questions a strategic manager should answer. An effective market research would certainly help the manager to take such decisions.

There are many MR companies which conducts consumer and business to business research to quantify the benefits of CSR activities. Let me through some light on how these MR companies can help organization develop, design and implement CSR activities?

The market research companies help the corporate to analyze the options for CSR activities in areas like environment, social, political, etc. They also help to align these activities with the vision/mission of the company. It is important to check the implication on the brand-equity. For that the MR companies collects data (primary/secondary) while recommending the type of CSR activity.

To understand the types of approach adopted by companies for their CSR activities one should go through the article ‘Three strategies for integrating CSR with brand marketing’. According to that article by KRISTIANE HANSTED BLOMQVIST AND STEVEN POSNER, the approach towards the CSR should be linked to assessment of purchase drivers and the business strategy. They have proposed three kinds of relationship between Business, CSR and Brand. Following figure demonstrates the three approaches:

They have named the three strategies as ‘The Integrated approach’, ‘The selective approach’ and ‘The invisible approach’. Click here to read the article.

 

Using this approach we can classify mostly all the CSR activities being implemented in India. It also helps us to measure the extent of branding and the business a company did using such activities. This methodology has a scope to be developed further, which could measure the brand recall, brand equity, marketing impact, etc.

Let me do further research and come back again…till then Happy Reading

References:

http://www.marketresearchworld.net/

http://www.csrnetwork.com/

http://www.reports-research.com/

Search for Personality types in Market Research

Market research was my favorite subject while I was pursuing my PGDM. Now, when I am into the corporate world exploring new ideas for market research, I find interesting to apply knowledge from different subjects in MR.

I studied Personality Types in Organizational Behavior (by - Dr. Salman Ahmad). There are sixteen personality types developed by well-known researchers Carl Jung, Katharine C. Briggs, and Isabel Briggs Myers. The theory of Personality Types, as it stands today, contends that:

• An individual is either primarily Extraverted or Introverted
• An individual is either primarily Sensing or iNtuitive
• An individual is either primarily Thinking or Feeling
• An individual is either primarily Judging or Perceiving

My personality type is INTJ.
INTJ’s are perfectionists. They tend to be exceptionally innovative, strategic, long-range thinkers who pursue excellence in everything they do. Their strong need for autonomy and achievement – and their faith in their own original ideas – drives them to reach their goals. Highly logical and astute, INTJ’s are quick to see the implications of new ideas and products, and will work hard to see their ideas translated into real-world results. They may set unrealistically high standards, and push other people almost as hard as they push themselves.

Click here to know your personality type.

Ok now that you know about the personality types and its theory, let me come back to the main point that I want to put forth in this article. Through my venture in this application, I came across many such papers, articles and researched material which have already explored this area. “The impact of personality types on purchasing decisions”, “Personality types and Marketing”, etc. are few of them.

As most of the research was conducted in the market which is outside India, we still have lot to know about personality types of Indian people and marketing applications of the same. I am sure that the results would help marketers to increase their business. Formulating much better marketing strategies, improved understanding of the target audience, aiming for the right segment can be some of the benefits of such research.

There are around 72 questions to know the personality types of a person, but we can customize the questionnaire to our benefit. The requirement can be figured out, like whether one needs to know that the customer is either Introvert or extravert. Using the correlation tool; buying pattern, buying decisions, preference, etc. can be related to the personality types.

I know that my hypothesis is weak because of lack of hard figures/data, but I am sure that my secondary research should be enough to prove my point.
I am excited to get an opportunity to use this theory in practice.

Your views and comments are most welcome.

Reference:
http://www.personalitytype.com/
http://www.charlesvermette.com/mbtimktg.html
http://www.personalitypathways.com/article/applications4.html

Virtually a Product Manager…

It’s a nice feeling when you achieve a milestone in your career. I have completed many small projects in 3 yrs of my career, but this is different and very special. Though my designation is Product Analyst (assistant to Product Manager) but, I solely did manage to grab and of course successfully launch the following product.

A new product has been launched under the banner of MaxPrep namely MaxPrep Bank P.O. & Clerical by IMS Learning Resources Pvt. Ltd. Due to increasing demand for banking jobs in India, we saw a great opportunity to tap this market and expand our business. I was working on this project unofficially for past 6 months, but in December I was given a green signal.

It was a herculean task, as all the documents needed to be designed and approved. We were targeting the upcoming SBI clerical exam in March and the deadline was really a dead-line. All the Marketing collaterals had to be designed (Leaflets, Brochures, Posters, newspaper ads). Website had to be designed, that means coordinating with the tech team. Material and the product flow had to be finalized. Academics team had to be briefed for the test designing, hussshhhh.

OHH MY GOD!!! I had a month of sleepless night and heavy dose of caffeine. Overtime, less personal calls, quick brunch, junk food etc. left me completely stressed out. I was only thinking of giving my best to complete my first project.

It’s really hard to climb up the ladder and it is even more difficult to sustain it. I realize that a manager has more responsibilities and he has to deliver more than 100% in any situation.

I hope all my pain doesn’t go in vain, surely my big boss will notice this on my KRAs.

Read more about this product on www.imsindia.com/bankexams

My first survey that got noticed

With lot of fiasco caused by CAT 09 this year, we (@ IMS) thought to collect the responses from the test takers. After joining IMS, I designed some surveys to capture the feedback of students about the programs and Test-CD pack. The response was tremendous and quiet useful. So, we decided to the same for CAT test takers.

The Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) prevented us from asking questions which will reveal the test details. I had to design the questionnaire keeping in mind the NDA.

There was lot of issues while conducting CAT, so that data needed to be captured and the numbers were critical. Following are some questions in the questionnaire:

Has your test being rescheduled?

Did you face any problems while test lab allocation?

Did you face any disturbance while taking the test?

The response to the survey was quick and huge. When the media marketing team decided to go public, my boss suggested using my survey results and BINGO it got published in Mumbai’s edition of Hindustan Times dated 8^th December 2009.

Check out the glimpse here

Click on the link to view the article http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Default.aspx?selpg=2151&BMode=100&selDt=12/08/2009

Getting on one’s Nerves

I came across the term coined by Ale Smidts i.e. ‘Neuromarketing’. It was interesting to read about this theory. Market research has vast application in this concept, though they have to spend big bucks for this. As wiki says:

“Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli.”

Let us try to analyze this concept. Answer the following questions as quickly as you can:
   1. Name one toothpaste brand
   2. Name one cricket player
   3. Name one fairness cream
Now keep your answers in mind and answers the following questions
   4. Which toothpaste brand are you using?
   5. Which cricket player do you like?
   6. Which fairness cream do you use?

Now I am sure if you an Indian, most of you must have answered Q1- Colgate, Q2- Sachin Tendulkar and Q3- Fair & Lovely. But your answers to the next three questions might have been different. Why so?


The mind-space of brands and the brands that you use are different, because there are some qualities in the products which one seek un-consciously. Like in toothpaste one would look for fluoride content, taste etc. Now, if the survey is conducted to know the impact of an advertisement on the consumers mind, the questionnaire designer has to make sure that he/she asks right questions so as to get the right information required.

Now you would say researcher can ask right questions and get the information, what is the need of Neuromarketing? My answer is: what if the consumer doesn’t know what he needs? But he still fulfills his needs by buying some or the other product. That’s right to know the reaction of the consumer in un-conscious level. Though it’s not so easy as to use a key and enter a room, but we have advanced equipments like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, electroencephalography (EEG) to measure activity in specific regional spectra of the brain response, and/or sensors to measure changes in one's physiological state (heart rate, respiratory rate, galvanic skin response) to learn why consumers make the decisions they do, and what part of the brain is telling them to do it.

Ya, I know now what are you thinking, who is going to use it in India? But we can be optimistic for some time and say that if a research company uses this technology it will be of great use to both; for company as well for the marketers.

Curious to know more about Neuromarketing here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromarketing
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/
http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2009/3210/neuromarketing-is-the-future-but