••• neuromarketing research

Hardwired to be different?

Neuro research looks at Boomers vs. Millennials

Despite being born 30 years apart, the Boomer and Millennial mega-generations have something in common: they are in demand by advertisers wishing to attract their attention and their dollars. Beyond the typical demographic/psychographic-based approaches to capturing their interest, some recent research from Nielsen NeuroFocus offers a different way to think about developing messages aimed at the two groups.
The research shows that neurological changes that come with age result in certain types of communication being more effective. For example, in our mid-50s, distraction suppression mechanisms are weakened. But as early as our mid-40s there are severe and dramatic drops in neurotransmitter levels – dopamine and serotonin in particular. Dopamine drops lead to thrill-seeking behaviors to compensate. Serotonin drops lead to the feeling that something is missing – typical for midlife crises of career and relationship.
What are some of the other ways that Boomer and Millennial brains are different?
Boomers: Nielsen research finds that Boomers prefer clever, lighthearted (rather than mean-spirited) humor and relatable characters who are Boomers themselves or not much younger. The tone should be positive, avoiding words like “don’t.” For Boomer males, clever wit and calm dialogue-driven storylines work. For Boomer females, family-friendly humor and sentimental themes resonate best.
Millennials: Millennials prefer offbeat, sarcastic and slapstick humor. Like Boomers, they respond to characters that are relatable to them and their life stage. Highly arresting visuals (special effects, unexpected visual elements) will best capture their attention. For Millennial males, extreme, offbeat and sports-related situations really resonate. For Millennial females, aspirational themes (female celebs, having fun) resonate strongly.
Boomers: The aging brain likes repetitions – and will believe information that is familiar to be true.
Millennials: Younger brains are most stimulated (better attention capture, engagement and memorability) with elements of dynamism such as rich media, lighting or rotations to cut through their perception threshold.
Boomers: The aging brain is more easily distracted. As the brain ages it slowly loses the ability to suppress distraction.
Millennials: Millennials can equally deal with the bleeding-over communication we see in most dynamic banner ads on Web portals, while older generations need a clear-framed, separated communication to be able to engage.
Boomers: The aging brain has a broader attention span and is open to more information.
Millennials: Younger brains have high multisensory processing capacity – which makes them very amenable to (and almost seekers of) multisensory communications, especially with interaction, such as search tasks, interactive sites.
Boomers: Contrast is the preference vs. color for online ads.
Millennials: Millennials respond better to an intense color palette for online ads.
www.neurofocus.com

••• mothers

Save time and keep in touch

Study outlines why moms love social media

BabyCenter.com, with comScore, has explored moms’ usage of social platforms across all devices and found that moms are 20 percent more likely to use social media than the general population. Ninety-one percent of moms now use social media regularly, a 20 percent increase since 2010. And 22 percent of moms say that if friends or family don’t participate in social media, they are not as much a part of their lives.
Ninety-one percent of moms have used Facebook in the past six months (compared to 80 percent of the general population) to socialize, share pictures or videos and keep up on the news. Ninety-two percent use the social network specifically to share family milestones and 60 percent of moms feel closer to friends who post regularly.
Sixty-one percent of moms have used Pinterest in the last six months, nearly double its 30 percent usage among the general population. That means mom is 87 percent more likely to visit it than the general population.
Moms who participate in social media shop online more than moms who don’t. Moms were responsible for 32 percent of total online spending in the last quarter, says the report, despite making up only 18 percent of the total Internet audience. Compared to the general population, moms who are also heavy social networkers are more likely to shop online for: clothing (61 percent); portable devices (91 percent); baby supplies (63 percent); and home and garden products (65 percent).
Eighty-nine percent of moms with smartphones access Facebook on their mobile phones and mom is four times more likely to prefer to check social media on her smartphone. Compared to the general population, 49 percent more moms have smartphones (81 percent vs. 54 percent). And, moms’ smartphone ownership is up 25 percent and their tablet ownership is up 79 percent year over year.
New moms spend an additional 10 hours of their day on parenting responsibilities, so they are time-pressed and seek ways to get more accomplished in less time. Social media enables mom to do her research, get her shopping done and share family milestones instantly with friends and family. Forty-five percent of moms say they are e-mailing less often and communicating more through social media. Sixty-one percent of moms are using social media to get information quickly, including health and wellness advice.
Seventy-eight percent of moms follow a brand for coupons and discounts, compared to only 55 percent of the general population. To learn about brands and products to buy, 73 percent of moms rely on recommendations from parenting social media. Posts from a friend are 16 percent more influential than posts from a brand and posts from another mom are 55 percent more influential than posts from a brand.
The findings of this study were the result of an in-depth survey of over 1,480 moms and other online adults; social media diaries from 14 new and expectant moms; and a behavioral and secondary analysis with comScore covering e-commerce habits and social analytics.
www.babycentersolutions.com

••• retailing

Invest in integration

No matter the channel, consumers want to buy easy

According to the Seamless Retail study by Accenture, 49 percent of consumers believe the best thing retailers can do to improve the shopping experience is to better integrate in-store, online and mobile shopping channels. Eighty-nine percent of consumers said it is important for retailers to let them shop for products in the way that is most convenient for them, no matter which sales channel they choose.
Ninety-four percent of all survey participants found in-store shopping easy. They are less bullish, however, about their experience with other shopping channels: 74 percent said online shopping is easy but only 26 percent found the mobile phone shopping experience easy.
The report says that consistency weighs heavily on the consumer experience: 73 percent of consumers expect a retailer’s online pricing to be the same as its in-store pricing and 61 percent expect a retailer’s online promotions to be the same as its in-store promotions.
Yet, a benchmark analysis by Accenture indicated that while 73 percent of retailers offer the same promotions online as in the store, only 16 percent offer the same prices online as they do in the store. Additionally, while 43 percent of consumers surveyed expect a retailer to offer the same product assortment online as they do in the store, only 19 percent of retailers actually offer the same product assortment, according to Accenture’s analysis of top retailers.
The survey found that as online shopping continues to grow as a consumer preference, there is a mutually beneficial relationship between stores and online channels. For example, during the six months prior to the survey, 73 percent of respondents indicated that they had showroomed, while 88 percent said they participated in “Webrooming” or browsing first on the Internet then buying in-store.
Of the consumers who had showroomed in the six months prior to the survey, 41 percent said they are doing that more than they were the year before. Additionally, the survey found that 43 percent of all U.S. consumers plan to shop more online and 23 percent plan to shop more with their mobile phones in the future.
Asked what kind of information would be useful to have from their favorite retailers before going to a physical store, 82 percent of consumers selected having access to current product availability as their top choice. However, the research showed that this is offered by only 21 percent of retailers.
After purchasing, 81 percent said it is important for a retailer to enable them to pick up or arrange for delivery of their purchase regardless of how they paid for the item.
Offering a range of different fulfillment capabilities is something only 56 percent of retailers do; only 26 percent have a same-day delivery capability. Twenty-five percent of survey respondents said they would be willing to wait two weeks for free shipping, while 24 percent of respondents said it is important for retailers to offer same-day delivery, including 30 percent who are willing to pay $5-$10 and 19 percent who are willing to pay $11-$20 for same-day delivery.
Forty-nine percent of those surveyed are influenced by in-store offers (promotional displays, salespeople), 56 percent are influenced by e-mail coupons and offers and an equal amount say they are influenced by coupons mailed to their home. Sixty-nine percent and 62 percent, respectively, said that online pop-up ads and mobile banner ads would never influence their purchasing.
www.accenture.com

••• customer loyalty

Pardon our mistake

Higher NPS = more forgiveness

Research from Temkin Group, Waban, Mass., shows that consumers are more likely to repurchase and forgive companies that receive higher Net Promoter Scores (NPS). NPS is based on asking customers how likely they are to recommend a company to a friend or relative. In a report called The Economics of Net Promoter, Temkin Group analyzes NPS and loyalty across 19 industries based on feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers.
NPS characterizes respondents as Promoters when they are very likely to recommend and Detractors when they are very unlikely to recommend. It turns out that 81 percent of Promoters are very likely to repurchase from the company in the future and 64 percent are very likely to forgive the company if it makes a mistake. For Detractors, those numbers are 16 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
Promoters who are likely to repurchase range from 87 percent for grocery chains to 73 percent for TV service providers. Those who are likely to forgive range from 72 percent for rental car agencies to 59 percent for TV service providers. Those who actually recommended a company range from 80 percent for retailers to 47 percent for parcel delivery services.
NPS offers consumers the option to respond from 0 (unlikely to recommend) to 10 (extremely likely to recommend). The research examined patterns across this scale. NPS categorizes Detractors as those who answer 0 to 6. The research shows that forgiveness and repurchase loyalty stay at a consistently low level between 0 and 4 on the scale.
While NPS categorizes Promoters as those who answer 9 or 10, loyalty appears to increase consistently starting from either 6 or 7. Consumers select three responses disproportionally high: 0, 5 and 10. These options often carry text descriptions (called anchors) in many NPS implementations.
The analysis covers the following 19 industries: airlines, appliance makers, auto dealers, banks, car rental agencies, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast-food chains, grocery chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, retailers, software firms, TV service providers and wireless carriers.
www.temkingroup.com

••• shopping research

It’s the little things

Everyday items now merit Web-based info-gathering

Consumers have long been turning to online research in the form of reviews, blogs, forums and social media sites as they consider making big-ticket purchases. But a study of online media use in U.S. households from New York-based Radius Global Market Research (Radius GMR) shows that consumers are increasingly conducting online research as they make smaller everyday purchases.
The firm measured consumers’ stated use of online research when considering purchases both now as well as in the future. While more-expensive purchases, including televisions (14 percent) and apparel (14 percent), continue to show the highest increase in future online research, less-expensive items such as OTC pharmaceuticals (11 percent), daily baby care (11 percent), home care (10 percent) and cosmetic (10 percent) products all showed comparable growth potential.
While consumers remain bullish on the future use of a number of online research tools as they consider purchases, they do not view QR codes as a valuable piece of the equation now or in the future. When asked about current experiences with QR code technology, only 12 percent of consumers indicated use across all product categories. The number of consumers who planned to use QR codes in the future remained at 12 percent.
www.radius-global.com

••• food research

Not a canned response

Consumer confusion about canned food persists

Americans enjoy the many benefits of canned foods but a telephone survey from the Canned Food Alliance (CFA) also revealed consumers’ misperceptions about canned food nutrition. (CFA surveyed 1,007 American adults via phone [landline and mobile numbers] using CARAVAN on April 4-7, 2013.) Less than half (42 percent) of Americans surveyed realize the nutrients contained in canned food count toward meeting the daily recommended goals. Only 27 percent of respondents agree that canned foods are as nutritious as their frozen counterparts and only 18 percent agree that canned food is as nutritious as fresh.
Canned food contributes less than 1 percent of the sodium in consumers’ diets yet only half (52 percent) of those surveyed know canned foods can be low in sodium. Fifty-eight percent of respondents think canned foods are more highly processed than frozen or other packaged forms. Contrary to popular belief (67 percent), canned foods do not require preservatives, as the canning process itself serves to preserve the food. In terms of packaging, the CFA says, the steel can is one of the safest forms available, yet less than half (46 percent) of Americans surveyed realize this.
www.mealtime.org

••• hispanic research

Demanding on-demand

Entertainment needs driving Hispanic phone habits

A recent U.S. Communications & Entertainment Insights Report from Centris Marketing Science, Horsham, Pa., suggests that some Hispanic households may be abandoning traditional telephone and Internet services in favor of mobile data plans and using those plans to access over-the-top (OTT) video content that is videostreamed over the Internet on their smartphones.
While smartphones can be found in 58 percent of U.S. households, 71 percent of Hispanic households have at least one smartphone. Among households with a smartphone, 62 percent of Hispanic households viewed video on a smartphone in the past month compared to 52 percent of total U.S. smartphone households.
Subscription OTT services appear to be an important component of Hispanic mobile video use; 33 percent Hispanic of households subscribe to Netflix, in contrast to 25 percent U.S. households overall. Not only are Hispanic households more likely to own smartphones but they are also more likely to have cut the cord on their landline telephone service (44 percent compared to 36 percent of total U.S. households). Sixty-one percent of Hispanic households have a broadband connection; broadband penetration is 70 percent for total U.S. households. These findings are based on the responses of 30,207 U.S. households, including 2,057 Hispanic households, collected in the Q1 2013 Centris survey.
www.centris.com