The world is not enough
The subject is cartoons, but this is serious business. For Turner Entertainment’s Cartoon Network, nothing short of global “toonification” will do. The cable television network, which shows cartoons all day, every day to over 100 million people in more than 100 countries, has set its sights on becoming an expert on the worldwide kids market. Central to this effort is a wide-ranging marketing research process aimed at helping the network think globally and act locally.
“We pride ourselves on being the experts in the kids market and global research plays an integral role in that,” says David Kudon, vice president of consumer insights and forecasting, Cartoon Network. “We try to get a big picture and look at the commonalities and the differences in our target consumers’ minds around which we can standardize or, alternatively, customize effective and efficient marketing.”
To do that, the Cartoon Network, with the help of San Diego-based Taylor Nelson Sofres Market Development Inc., conducts research with kids, teens and adults all over the world. The research process starts with brainstorming sessions with in-house client groups such as merchandising, programming, and sales, in the U.S., Asia-Pacific, European Union, and Latin America. “We have a plethora of clients and a plethora of interests that have to be sorted out and brainstorming helps us sort and categorize those interests and determine the direction the company wishes to go in with its research,” Kudon says.
After priorities are determined via the brainstorming, most projects begin with a massive qualitative component, the results from which are used to construct large-scale quantitative studies that are generalizable and reliable. “We are extremely data-driven,” Kudon says. “We are very interested in getting as close as we can to our consumer base, whether it’s adults, teens, or ‘tweens’ or younger kids. They’re all part of our audience and they all influence each other to some extent.”
As part of a project involving more than 250 focus groups in more than 10 countries around the world, respondents were asked about the network’s popular Johnny Bravo character. The groups yielded observations about the subtle differences in the way the character is viewed, information that could help with everything from developing future episodes to tailoring advertising and promotions that play off of each culture’s perceptions of the character. “Based on those findings we were able to provide directional information on what makes the cartoon funny, and some elements for us to work with to make it funnier to watch and make it more appealing as branded merchandise,” Kudon says.
The Cartoon Network also conducted hundreds of face-to-face interviews in Latin American countries with kids between six and 15 years old who had access to a color television and who were members of stipulated social classes. The study examined issues such as the main influences and sources of information in the kids’ lives (parents and grandparents were No. 1 across the board), their aspirations, and also their pester power, i.e., their ability to persuade parents to purchase the products they want. (In the U.S, the top three items kids influence the purchase of are clothing, shoes and toys; in Latin America, it’s clothing, shoes, and soda; in Asia-Pacific, it’s school supplies, ice cream, and movies.) In addition, the study examined computer access and Internet usage because the network also has a Web site, the heavily-visited www.cartoonnetworkLA.com. In additional efforts to keep in touch with their consumer base, Cartoon Network also conducted similar surveys in the U.S. and with selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Actionable intelligence
The goal of all of the research is to end up with actionable intelligence that helps the network in its quest to be experts on kids and maintain the “think globally, act locally” approach.
But that’s much easier said than done, especially when you’re talking about cross-cultural and cross-national research. One of the main issues to decide is how the global research effort is organized. Do you centralize it, and have all decisions emanate from one office? Or do you regionalize it, and let individual areas decide what to research themselves? “With a regionally driven approach, you miss standardizations, so comparison of results becomes very hard. There is less chance for economies of scale and the chance for comparing and enhancing ideas by sharing between regions becomes very limited and very different,” Kudon says.
“On the other hand, if you have research aimed at the global market and controlled from central headquarters, that’s great for the main office but it can hurt the local initiative because you have the tendency to become too centralized and miss the trees for the forest.
“The optimum, of course, is having the correct blend of both, the balance that is difficult to describe and achieve. Because when you coordinate overall research plans from a central location and have direct and immediate input from local entities, that’s the best of both worlds. But it’s a lot of work. You have to work as a team and as partners not only with the local entity but with the research firm and with management. When we do research, we involve the local people both on the research provider end and Cartoon Network’s end to help design it. Central coordination is the ‘think globally’ part, while direct and immediate input from the local entities in a teamwork-partner fashion is the ‘act locally’ part.”
Mix of concerns
With such a large organization and so many information needs, how do you determine who gets priority? That depends. “It’s a mix of network concerns, merchandising concerns, and of our wish to be kids experts,” Kudon says. “Which part gets priority depends on what is the item du jour. Sometimes we need some material for public relations, other times we need to solve network programming issues, and of course we want to examine potentials for branded product; so when we design the research we try to get a mix that will provide data for everyone.”
The other vitally important question is how can you apply results from different countries and cultures across different markets? “The research can be used to confirm certain assumptions and refute others,” says Everett Hernandez, senior vice president, director of corporate development, TNS Market Development. “It gives the marketer real knowledge of things that are similar across markets and those that are not. And it gives them information about new opportunities, things that may work only in one area or things that are omni-modal that work everywhere. For example, car owners may be car owners, no matter where you go. But they also may not be. This kind of research gives them insight into product development and it makes them look at the world in terms of attitudes and attributes,” Hernandez says.
“For example, in COMPASS, our firm’s study of Latin America, we looked at the things respondents in the various countries have in common. There are things that cut across all the lines and I think that’s how marketers are trying to approach things now. You start talking about global research or regional research and you really can’t pick apart all the differences. Instead you need to look at what things they all have in common and that is where you start.”
For many large companies or brands, the Cartoon Network’s “think global, act local” approach is the way to go, Hernandez says. “With technology changing and increasing the pace of work and communication, companies will be forced to compete on a global scale. If they don’t, they run the risk of being left behind by competitors.”
Host of variables
Conducting research on such a global scale brings with it a host of variables: from mail systems which can hold up delivery of survey materials, to the variances of facilities (Kudon tells of conducing focus groups in India in which the interviews were conducted in respondents’ living rooms as a video camera beamed the action back to those watching a monitor in the bedroom) and cost factors. “In Latin America we did door-to-door research using a random sample and it was very cost effective. In the U.S., we’d spend much more money doing door-to-door,” Kudon says.
Then there are the individual cultures and ethnicities themselves. “We learned very well that although we perceive that Mexico, Argentina and Chile speak the same language, when translating we find out that they don’t all speak the same language,” Kudon says. For example, “being an individual” means different things. To some it’s “doing your own thing,” to other nations it’s “being independent” or “being your own person.”
Though logistics may add an element of complexity to the research effort, in many cultures, consumers are open to the research process. As their markets open up and product selections expand, consumers in these countries are given more choices, and they are interested in having a role in expanding those choices, Hernandez says.
Active involvement
Kudon’s start-to-finish involvement in the research process means a lot of phone calls at odd hours due to time-zone juggling and differing work schedules, but the end result is worth it. “It’s a lot of work bringing these people together but when you are done, the research is a finer product and more salable within your company community,” Kudon says.
“Our goal is to turn every research finding into an action item. Every finding that has any merit has an action item associated with it: ‘Here’s the finding, here’s what you can do with it.’ We also add in a market research point of view, because market research often thinks of itself as just handing off tabs and a long report. But we go beyond the findings. Because we sit through all those focus groups, we talk to the management, the country locals, and so we feel qualified to put in our point of view and we encourage our suppliers to do so as well.”
This process is helped by the initial planning and brainstorming, which encourages buy-in from internal clients when the results are distributed. “For one project, before the research even started, we prepared a dummy presentation of exactly what they could expect. They knew the risks and the rewards. We showed them what the data could look like and what we expected to learn and so we had buy-in. There was lot of positive news from the research and in areas where there wasn’t, we had buy-in because of the team approach,” Kudon says.