The Merrill Dubrow Blog

Last week I was at a promotions conference In Las Vegas. Having never been to the conference I was looking forward to the speakers, networking and of course the gifts that you receive at a conference. This conference didn’t have an exhibit hall so most of the gifts or "chotchke" were in the conference bag that I received when I checked in.

Yes there were mints in there, an eight ball that you roll and will tell your mood, a wallet and a number of other promotion items that had company names on them.

The question is what do you like and what is a total waste of time?

For me, save your money I don’t want a highlighter, calculator or pen. Those items just don’t work for me! I like something a little more creative, something that catches my eye. Something that stands out a little more than others. Maybe a small travel game like connect four or a small picture frame that I could use in my office–something that has a company logo on it but is small enough so it doesn’t stand out.

• Are you a stress ball person?
   
• Do you want a stuffed animal with a bow and logo on it?
   
• Do you want some mints or M&M’s? Selfishly, I love candy so this also works for me but does it really promote the company?
   
• How about a flash drive? Does that work for you?
   
• What are your favorite gifts that you like to bring home to the kids?

I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Over the years I have attended lots of MRA board meetings. The first week of June was no different for me. I went to the annual conference and attended the MRA board meeting prior to the conference.

Watching someone in action at a board meeting is fascinating to me. Whether it is their body language, how they control the room of volunteers, how they keep the meeting on point and frankly how they keep the meeting on time. The goal is to make sure you engage everyone and balance that with not having a few people dominate the conversation. Believe me this can happen when so many people (including myself) are very long-winded.

This can be a challenge for most if not all leaders. Rarely does someone have the grace, intelligence and respect of people to do everything that I describe here. This board meeting was probably the best of the last four that I have attended. The conversation was strategic in nature and attendees all voiced their opinions. Most discussions had a nice debate with everyone respectfully giving their opinion. It was poetry in motion. The board meeting was a Broadway hit in my mind. The star of the show, the leader of the pack, the person who was in charge to control the room was MRA Past President Colleen Moore Mezler.

Before I was on the MRA board, I really didn’t know Colleen. I knew who she was and admired her from afar. Over the past few years I am happy to say that has changed. I have gotten to know her very well. With each conversation I have with her I respect her even more. The conversations are always fresh and full of new ideas and passion. She is a terrific person and leader and the research community is much better off with her involvement and leadership in the industry.

Over the past few years I have seen firsthand what a great leader can accomplish. Colleen made things happen during her year of presidency and should be very proud of what she accomplished in the last 365 days.

Colleen’s passion doesn’t start and end with the MRA. She is a second generation researcher, wife, mother and business executive as well. From where I sit, she is successful in every aspect of her life. Last week I was honored with a national award from the MRA. One of the FIRST emails I got to congratulate me was from Anthony. Oh I forget to mention Anthony’s last name — Mezler. Yes Anthony is Colleen’s son.

Peggy, Richard, Frank and Anthony, I can only imagine how proud you are of your daughter, wife and mother. Believe me when I say you are not alone because myself and THOUSANDS of researchers are as proud of her as you are.

I hope others will share comments or stories about Colleen.

It appears to me that there is a shortage of good researchers in our industry. The MMR and MSMR Programs in the United States graduate less than 100 people every year with each graduate getting multiple offers.

When someone leaves your company unexpectedly what do you do?

For M/A/R/C we will do a number of things that breakdown into four buckets:

1. Use referrals from our current staff. This makes up about 15% of our new hires. People want to work with their friends and contacts especially if they are happy. We do have a referral bonus program in place that seems to work pretty well.
    
2. Pay attention at conferences — You can pick up some really good leads there. This makes up about 20% of our new hires. Once I get the attendee list, I will review the list a few times looking for clients, prospects and potential new hires. This has worked very well in the past. If you aren’t doing this you might want to try it.
    
3. I tend to use industry contacts. If I call someone a friend, I put a very, very, very high value on our friendships. We can ask each other for favors and bounce things off each other knowing that the person asking the question will get a candid response — not necessarily the response they are looking for. I always rely on industry contacts for potential new hires and references. This has probably made up 50% of all of our new hires.
    
4. The other bucket is a miscellaneous one that contains ads, search consultants, advisory boards, presenting at colleges, conferences and makes up 15% of our new hires. Some of these things you need to do just to keep the buzz about your company fresh. For me, there hasn’t been an immediate return with staff, but there have been some pleasant surprises like this blog recruiting a person whom I had lost touch with 15+ years ago.

• Where do you look for new talent?
   
• Have you had success putting ads in research publications or online sites?

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Recently I was reading a chart with US Public Market Research Companies and their 2007 results vs. their 2006 performance.  Here are the results:

See a trend? Of the sixteen companies, six had an increase from 2006. Only two of those companies had double digit increase in their stock price. Of the ten companies whose stock price went down in 2007, eight of them lost over 10%. That to me was pretty amazing. Based on this graph there are lots of questions:

• What is going on?
   
• Will this trend continue?
   
• Once you get to a certain level, can you really grow the company to have success year over year?
   
• Is this an opportunity to buy a stock at a good value?

What do you think? What does this graph tell you about our industry?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Okay, I will admit it.  There are some things that I buy that I will bargain shop. No, I won’t drive all over town, but I tend to buy a lot of DVDs and will go to Target, Circuit City or Best Buy depending on price. Like I said I won’t drive 20 miles to do this, but all of those stores are within two miles of where I live so it isn’t a big deal. I am sure a number of people (if not most) go through the newspaper every Sunday looking for deals or items on sale that they either need or are too good to pass up.  In essence they love a discount, yes love a discount. The reality is where does it stop?  Does everything we do or buy need to have a discount? Yes I will buy some things based on sale items like paper towels, mulch for our yard and bottled water for sure. Clearly I view those items as a commodity. But where does it stop?

Not a week goes by where I don’t receive an email from a market research company not only highlighting their services but highlighting their discount. "Try us now and receive 20% off." "Use our services before the end of the month and receive a discount."

• I realize that business is challenging these days, but isn’t there another way to promote their services?
   
• Doesn’t it commoditize our industry and cheapen the value of research?

If I need a lawyer, am I going to go to them because they send me a 25% off coupon? What about going to a new dentist because I can save $10 on my next cleaning? The answer for me is NO, NO and once again No!. I consider those types of services professional and would never choose one because of price. I have never and will never choose a hospital because a surgery might be $400 less than another hospital. Don’t we all choose those services based on reputation, quality of service and location?

Isn’t the market research industry the same thing? Aren’t we all professionals? Don’t we want clients to use our services based on our service, quality and insight?  NOT because of price! NOT BECAUSE OF A DISCOUNT. AND I WOULD NEVER USE A COMPANY FOR THE FIRST TIME BECAUSE A COMPANY SENT ME A DISCOUNT.

• Would you?
   
• How do you feel when you get one of these discount opportunities?
   
• If your company does it (clearly your choice) what is your position and strategy?

I realize this might be a controversial posting but I really look forward to reading your comments and point of view.

Since I am on the advisory boards for the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Georgia, the University of Wisconsin, and Southern Illinois University and mentor lots of students, I get asked this question very often.

Client or supplier: which way should I go?

• Is it better to start in one direction or the other?
   
• Which part of the industry is more enjoyable?
   
• Where can I learn more?

And of course the really brave students will ask…

• Where will I make more money?

For me this is a real difficult question because I have NEVER worked on the client side but definitely have an opinion. (There’s a shock! Of course I have an opinion! I’m from Boston!)

First of all I am not sure you can go wrong with either choice. As someone who truly loves the industry, I am just excited that the person is choosing to be part of it. When I think about what I enjoyed and looked for in a job way back when I graduated from Hofstra University it was:

• Learning new things
   
• Working in different industries
   
• Being exposed to seeing new products and services
   
• Being challenged during the day

Because of that, I truly believe someone graduating and wanting to start in this great profession, should start with a supplier. I believe the learning in year one can be much greater at a supplier because of the mix of projects, industries and different methodologies that you are exposed to in your first few years. By doing this it will become a platform for growing as a professional down the road and give you many options.

There are many benefits for going the client way. You are much closer to the ultimate decision process and yes, you probably will make more money starting out.

Let the debate begin.

I would really like to hear from both clients and suppliers about the benefits of going in either direction.

• What did you do and why?
   
• Have you worked for both types of companies?
   
• What were the challenges?
   
• What is your recommendation: client or supplier?

I really look forward to your comments.

We all know that clients are very important. In some ways they set the stage for the direction of the research industry and whether the latest methodology is accepted. I really enjoy meeting and speaking with clients. It is probably the best part of my job. The seven clients that contributed to this blog all have different backgrounds and represent different industries. What they all have in common is they are professional researchers, have been in the industry for many years and represent large research budgets.

Please sit back and enjoy getting to know seven special people:

What is your most memorable research project you have ever worked on?

Jon Last - Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Research and Brand Development – Golf Digest
(To see all of Jon Last’s responses, click here)

What’s that adage about always remembering your first time? My first exposure to MR was where we conducted a study of top level executives for a conference center client about the effectiveness of meetings. The goal of the project was to generate publicity for the client, and the "shout it from the rooftops" headline that we derived was that these execs felt that over half the time spent in meetings was wasted. We quantified the dollar value that was wasted and garnered incredible amounts of press for our client. It was this project that flicked on the lightbulb for me that marketing research could be incredibly powerful on multiple levels.

On a lighter note, I will never forget some focus groups we were doing when I was in the cruise industry. On a check-in, I went to the back room to find our CEO, incredibly enthused by the input of a particular respondent. He begged me to let him come into the focus room and address the group. I tactfully explained why this was a bad idea and then pulled the rest of my team aside, encouraging them to watch him and hold him at bay. Of course, it was to no avail. Just as I was wrapping up the group, he came bursting into the room and started "selling".

Regina Lewis, PhD VP, Consumer Insights InterContinental Hotels Group
(To see all of Regina Lewis’ responses, click here)

1997 extensive in-home ethnographic study of how women were using the internet. I did this in conjunction with P&G, and it really changed the way we all (I was at women.com Networks at the time) viewed chat, info seeking, and much more!

Jill Donahue, Brand Insights Manager Nestle Purina
(To see all of Jill Donahue’s responses, click here)

I was working for a footwear retailer and we were conducting ethnographies to see how woman organize (or not) their shoes. One woman not only had a separate closet for her shoes, she had religated her husband to the basement storage area for his everyday clothes. Amazing!

Dan Womack, Manager InsightsAflac
(To see all of Dan Womack’s responses, click here)

For me, there is one project I’ll never forget and the reason has nothing to do with the research I was conducting. On the evening of September 10, 2001, I flew to Austin, TX and prepared to moderate focus groups early the next morning. That day, a few of the last respondents to arrive for the first group were talking about hearing vague reports of a plane crashing into a building in NY City. That was all any of us knew until after the group was finished.

My second group of the day was mid-morning. The show rate was surprisingly good, but the research wasn’t. We spent very little time discussing the products I came to study. Instead, we used the time to discuss something we all knew was far more important.

I spent much of the next two days waiting, worrying and talking with the two flight crews that were also stranded in the same hotel. I was fortunate to have a rental car and, on the third day, I decided to drive the 1500 miles back to Virginia. I’ve never loved business travel, but I have never been happier to return safely from a trip and hug my wife and kids.

Jami Guthrie, Senior Director, Global Consumer & Market Intelligence Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company
(To see all of Jami Guthrie’s responses, click here)

It was a segmentation study in an adjacent category that we (as a company) knew very little about. The reason that it is my most memorable is because the learning was completely new and so insightful. It allowed us to look at our brands and the opportunities through a completely different lens. It was great to see how engaged everyone in the company was with the learning and more importantly, how quickly we took action against it.

Bill Tanner Director, Strategic Research & Audience Development Dallas Morning News
(To see all of Bill Tanner’s responses, click here)

I was in Hangzhou China, in January, many years ago, doing parent- child dyads in a school with a TV monitor set up. A window was broken in the observation room, a cold winter wind blowing into the room. We were bundled up as best we could but it was impossible to stay warm. The monitor flickered and there was a military training event going on outside making it hard to hear. I asked that we move to the hotel the next day where we set up in an empty dining room. Unfortunately, the next day’s sessions at the hotel were stilted. Parents did not open up as much as they had in earlier sessions. It turned out that the hotel once was a major Communist Party Leadership hangout and still a place often visited by the hierarchy, so the next day, it was back to school. Fortunately, the window and monitor were repaired.

Bob Graham, Consumer Research Manager Energizer
(To see all of Bob Graham’s responses, click here)

Hard to say. At Micrografx, I did an international project with focus groups in London, Paris and Munich. It was fascinating to observe the cultural differences among respondents in different countries. I’m prouder of some of the other projects I’ve worked on (where I used a new method or analytical tool), but I think the international one was the most memorable.

(more…)

All of us have probably looked at a situation and can’t detect the problem. Whether it is a DVD or any piece of technology that just doesn’t work for some reason or your car just won’t start. You have NO idea what the problem is so you have no idea what the solution might be.

I must say that doesn’t appear to be the issue in the market research industry. All of us know what the issues are. In fact we have known what the issues are for years — many years. I recently sent out a quick email and asked people what they thought were the top three or four issues with data collection. There were a number of common themes:

1. Length of questionnaire
2. Boring, repetitive, poorly written surveys
3. Declining cooperation rates
4. Great variation in quality across online sample providers

As a follow up, I presented at the CASRO Data Collection conference in November and you just read my presentation. That’s it. Short and sweet. I started listing the current issues in the research industry and launched into what I hope was a step toward a very productive brain storming session.

Isn’t it about time to do something about it?

Isn’t it about time that we all work together to make things better to solve some of these issues?

• What do you think the research associations should do?
• What can clients do?
• What can your company do?

THIS IS VERY CRITICAL TO THE LONG TERM SUSTAINABILITY OF THIS GREAT INDUSTRY.

If there is only one posting you comment on the next year — please make it this one.

I really look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Last month, I had a wonderful experience. I had the honor and privilege to go back to my alma mater and present to an MBA Class at Hofstra University in Long Island, NY.

During Dr. Joel Evans’ Marketing 248: Strategic Decisions For Internet Marketing class I had the opportunity to present the research industry and online research.

One of the main reasons I have donated time to committees over the years is I always felt a need to give something back. Being at Hofstra was another opportunity to do just that.

I truly LOVED every minute of the four years I spent on campus. I literally grew up on the campus and was able to mature way beyond my wildest dreams.

My time spent at Hofstra last month was very special. It started with a tour by Ben Vogt, Senior Director for Major Gifts. The entire time I was walking around, I was thinking about my experience there 20+ years ago. My first few days where I met roommates Kenny Woods and Barry Packer. I looked at the ball fields where I recall scoring a touchdown and spraining my ligaments or a restaurant/bar where I had a few too many. I could close my eyes and hear the music of Nick Lowe or the B-52’s ringing in my ears from concerts in 1982. I remember meeting friends like Diane Harsch, Mike Wagner, Mike Aarons, Eli Magids, Barry Scholtzman and Kathy Dutke for the first time. I remember eating my first Blimpies sub at 4:00am.

The university has come a long way. I always said there was more to learn out of the classroom than in the classroom, and for me that has worked. What a great trip down memory lane. The school is even more beautiful than I remember it.

The night continued with a nice dinner with Salvatore Sodano, Dean Zarb School of Business and Ben. If you had told me 20+ years ago I would be having dinner with the Dean of the business school I never would have believed you. Sal was a very passionate, energetic and interesting guy. He was the CEO of the American Stock Exchange prior to accepting the Dean position at Hofstra.

Over the years, I have presented at many conferences, colleges and universities. I don’t usually get nervous. At Hofstra, I must admit I was a little anxious. . Sal, Ben and Joel thank you so much for a night to remember. To the students of Marketing 248: Strategic Decisions For Internet Marketing class my hope is that you learned one thing – one thing that can impact your life or career in a positive way. If I was able to accomplish that, then my goal was met.

During dinner Sal had mentioned that there were 105,000 alumni from Hofstra. For that one night, I was on top of the world and was the luckiest one of all of them.

Thank you for bringing back the memories and creating new ones.

• What were you doing the last time you felt like you were on top of the world?
   
• Have you ever presented at your alma mater?
   
• If so, how did you feel?

I look forward to your comments.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Marketing Research Association (MRA) fall conference and among the many solid presentations there was an award presentation. Colleen Moore Mezler, President of the MRA, presented the annual ward.

Each year, the MRA recognizes one company to receive the Celebrated Company Award. The purpose of this award is to recognize a company who has provided outstanding volunteer efforts and/or who has shown outstanding support at the national and/or chapter level for five years or more.

This year, this award will go to a company that began in the garage of a New Jersey home, where the founder started her business in 1966.

For over 40 years, this company has provided data collection services that have helped companies understand and realize their potential in the marketplace, and has established high standards of professional, courteous and quality service. In addition to 13 established research facilities in major cities across the U.S., they also acquired a London-based research company in January 2006.

At the local and national level, this company has consistently provided outstanding volunteer efforts and has shown great support to both the Marketing Research Association and the opinion and marketing research profession. This organization has been instrumental in many events, programs and boards and has ultimately had a profound influence on the MRA and the industry it represents.

With significant current involvement on the chapter boards in Southern California, Atlanta/Southeast, Philadelphia, and Greater New York, and current representation on the MRA National Board, it would be difficult to find a company who is presently allowing so many of its key members to volunteer at such a high level for our association and profession.

The MRA’s Celebrated Company Award is the highest honor a company in the marketing research profession can achieve. Past recipients of this award include CfMC and Galloway Research.

It is hard to imagine what the MRA would be like today without the contributions of this company. So it is with respect and appreciation for their achievement that we say "congratulations" to Schlesinger Associates and The Research House for this award honoring 40 years of exceptional service to this great industry.

When Debbie and Steve were on the podium they accepted the award for their family. That word means something different to them — because to them, "family" is everyone who works with them–from the hundreds of part time or full time employees who have spent years and years at the company, to the new employee who started last week. Knowing them as I do, I am sure they were all choked up in accepting the award and wish their Mom Sarah could have attended the ceremony.

If you haven’t had a chance to meet them you should. All of their staff are very special and care deeply about this great industry.

Again, congratulations, Schlesinger Associates. You deserve to be the recipient of the 2007 Celebrated Company Award.

Please feel free to post any well-wishes to the Schlesinger team. I am sure they would love to hear from you.