Some of us are soldiering on, choosing to suspend disbelief. I am among those who are suspending belief. Quite a change from the heady days of January when change seemed not only possible, but also inevitable. Now I’m not so sure. It may all turn out ok. It may not. I only know that I am tired of thinking about things over which I have no control.

And so I am pausing this blog. And I am pausing Research Arts. After 25 years, we both need a break from this analyzing and writing business. I am literally going to smell the roses, walk my dogs, dust off my old non-digital cameras and bellows, paddle in cool waters, and turn off the tv. I need to get away from the abstractions and focus on the real. Because beyond the statistics, this is a beautiful world and life is a blessing.

1. Listen before you talk.
2. Make each and every person feel that they matter to you.
3. Stay in touch with your supporters. Honor their loyalty and safeguard their trust.
4. Treat your supporters with respect, regardless of how much they contribute financially.
5. Tell the truth. If you can’t do something, admit it. If you make a mistake, admit it.
6. Be consistent. Know who you are. Convey your message simply and stick to it.
7. Reach out to your competitor’s supporters but respect their right to make another choice.
8. Do not speak ill of your competitors. Point out differences but without malice.
9. Represent values people admire and want to adopt.
10. Build a team of smart and committed people who believe in what they are promoting.

You can probably think of many other lessons. These are the ones that occur to me today. Here’s hoping and praying that this day marks a turning point in our country, and we can look towards the future with optimism and courage.

But Judy is not just deserving of the award because she is a woman. Her contribution to the industry is enormous. She has done more than anyone else I know to champion and further the practice of qualitative market research.

Here’s her bio:

Judith Langer is President of Langer Qualitative, LLC.  An expert in qualitative research and on lifestyle trends, she previously was Senior Vice President, GfK NOP Qualitative Practice, and headed her firm, Langer Associates for 20+ years.

Judy is often published in research publications, including the American Marketing Association’s Marketing News and Quirk’s Marketing Review.

She is a speaker at a number of industry conferences, such as AMA, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and the Qualitative Research Consultants Association.

She has conducted workshops on qualitative research trends at ESOMAR conferences in Singapore, Istanbul and Montreal in 2008, and training sessions for other organizations as well.

She is a member of the Market Research Council, a by-invitation organization of industry leaders, and previously served on the AMA’s Board of Directors.

Judy was a founding member and first president of the QRCA, has served several times on its Board of Directors, and is currently co-chair of its Field Committee.

Her book, The Mirrored Window: Focus Groups from a Moderator’s Point of View, is a practical and opinionated guide to the use of qualitative research.

Her BA is from Smith College, MA from Columbia University, both in American government.  She has been a guest lecturer at Columbia, Pace and New York Universities on qualitative research.

I can’t think of anyone more deserving. I hope you will join me in supporting Judy’s nomination for this award.

Fast forward almost 40 years. While women continue to be an important part of the market research industry, recognition has not come our way. And that has to change. This week, the American Marketing Association has put out a call for nominees for the Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award, given since 1945 to leaders in the field.

The Parlin Marketing Research Award is the oldest and most distinguished award in the field. This award honors Charles Coolidge Parlin, who is recognized as the founder of marketing research, by honoring distinguished academics and practitioners who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and sustained impact on advancing the evolving profession of marketing research over an extended period of time.

In the 63 years since its founding, the award has been given to only one woman, Faith Popcorn, in 1993. Yes, that’s right, one woman in 63 years.

I am an emeritus member of the AMA. There are 150 of us, but only 16 women. So perhaps part of the reason for the oversight is that women have not stayed in the industry without interruption as long as men. But I have to believe that it is more than that. Women have dominated the qualitative wing, but this has been seen as the “softer side” of market research and also has been given less than its fair share of recognition. And by “fair”, I mean a share reflecting not only the dollars accounted for by qualitative but also reflecting its contribution to the marketing efforts of most major companies over the past 63 years.

And so this year I am going to nominate a woman and a qualitative practitioner who deserves to be recognized for her contribution to the market research industry. Her name is Judith Langer. More about Judy in my next post.

I’d like to hear what you think about this. I’d especially like to hear from women in the market research field. Let’s get the word out. Please forward this post to every woman you know who is working in the industry. Thanks!

So many ways of saying “The End”. Here’s hoping for a good beginning and happy times ahead.

1. Economic growth, as measured by GDP, will be negative for all of 2009 largely due to the contraction in consumer spending and investment. The only segment that has the potential to offset these declines is reduction in the foreign trade deficit. We will import less, but we do not have the manufacturing capacity to increase exports by any significant amount. Net effect: economic contraction with significant loss of jobs and consumer spending in freefall.

2. Adaptations by consumers as they struggle to cope. Emphasis on frugality and thrift. Aversion to messages that trumpet luxury and excess.

3. Growth of the “other economy” that produces goods and services that do not get counted in GDP. An upswing in cooking at home, vegetable gardening, crafts, DIY projects and repairs, at-home entertainment over going out, “staycations”. Consumers will take pride in self-sufficiency and taking part of their economic life back into their own hands.

4. Related to this, growth in consignment stores and resale businesses, as people sell what they are not using in order to raise money and simplify their lives. Or, when they do buy, look for second-hand bargains. An increase in bartering - for childcare, professional services, etc.

5. Growth in home-based and small businesses as people struggle to find ways to make a living when there are very few employers willing to hire.

6. Greater importance of digital media sites like YouTube, Twitter and Craigslist, using them as tools to connect, do business and gain access to free information and entertainment.

7. Suspicion of any investment that is not real and tangible. More government spending in infrastructure - rail, roads, bridges, schools - and an emphasis on projects that bring benefits to the local economy. But the effects on this new “new deal” will not be felt until 2010.

I believe we are experiencing a major shift in consumption patterns that will last for many years. Already, I am hearing people talk about the silver lining in this economy - the reemphasis on simple pleasures and a home based life, the demise of greed and selfishness, and the hope that eventually everything will be fine. Let’s hope the optimists are right.

Happy New Year!

I  would have checked them out anyway but they sweetened the deal by giving me a coupon for $5 off a $20 purchase. Then another. And another. In the mail, in the newspaper, at their check-out counter, even online. And better yet, I discovered that if I spent more than $40, the system would accept a second coupon - a whopping 25% off already low prices. I’ll take that. And so apparently did many of my neighbors. When the researcher in me asked them what they thought about Fresh&Easy, the answer was usually along the lines of: “Oh, that’s the store with the coupons I get all the time.” Nothing about the bright interior, convenient locations, everyday low prices, fresh foods… almost always it was all about the coupons. This got to be quite a personal project for me. (Note: Fresh&Easy is not a client and, after this, will probably never be.) I asked a lot of people what they thought of them - my hairdresser , the guy who trims my trees (hey, this is Arizona), a woman sitting next to me at the car wash, and lots of friends. Always the same answer - the store with the coupon, or maybe the green coupon. In short, Fresh&Easy had done a fantastic job training its customers to expect great coupons, consistently and often.

Well last week, it stopped. No more free coupons at the check-out counter. No more in the morning paper or in the mail - at least not in my mail. Not to be outdone, I went on the web and hunted for Fresh&Easy + coupon on Google and found one for $6 off a $30 purchase buried in their website. Off I go to the store, coupon in hand, and found three cars in the parking lot at noon on a Wednesday. More staff than shoppers. Maybe a coincidence that the dearth of shoppers coincided with the dearth of coupons - but a correlation if ever I saw one.

Ok, now I’m curious. I went to their website to see if there was any discussion of the disappearing coupon and clicked on a link on the home page to “Get all the latest news about fresh&easy™ - check out our blog”. Which I did. Well seems that their blog posts are not as fresh as their food. The latest one was September 14, 2008 - and it still is the latest as I write this. The blog is written by Simon Uwins their CMO. A good start, seems like a nice guy, likes Radiohead and the Chili Peppers so shares my taste in music. But where was he? So I headed over to Twitter to check out the Fresh&Easy tweets there. Oops, the first one I came across was an offer to get the $6 coupon, but only if you signed up. Seems I circumvented that one. Still in search of an answer I asked @Fresh_and_Easy “Have you abandoned your blog? Says to go there for ‘latest news’. Last post was 9/14/08“ A little while later I got back this: “no, blog is going to get updated, soon. (Simon has been out on Paternity leave)”.

Now on one level, this is rather charming. But on another level, the one on which the marketer in me works, it seems to be just one more example of “death by expectations”.

(fresh&easy™ is a registered trademark)

Economics, as defined in most basic textbooks, is about the allocation of resources, REAL resources. It is not about the allocation of money, or the Gross National Product, or how well the DOW is doing, or even job losses. But these measurable things have become what we understand by economics. The “Economy” has become about what can be counted. What can’t be counted, according to economists, simply doesn’t count.

Gross National Product, the yardstick of economic growth, only takes account of product that has a defined monetary value. If I buy and eat a can of  Campbells Tomato Soup from the store, then the price of that can becomes part of GNP. It is a consumable. But if I make soup from tomatoes that I grew myself, simmered in rainwater in a solar oven in my backyard, nothing counts. Not my labor, not the ingredients, not the energy used to cook the soup. And yet, I am still nourished. I still consume.

Ok, this is an extreme example. But you get the picture. And as consumers pull back, as they begin to adapt to shrinking incomes by doing more cooking, gardening, childcare, home repairs for themselves, we will see a shift from the market economy that measures everything in money to this “other” economy that is not easily measured. And if we expand our definition of “the economy” to include these real unmeasured consumables, then things may not feel quite as dire.

photo: thanks to sonicwalker on flickr

I began using focus groups as a client in the early seventies, then later as a moderator and head of my own qualitative firm. This was against a backdrop of a heavy dose of quant research and econometrics. It took me a while to focus entirely on the qualitative side of market research, but this is where I finally felt I belonged.

Qualitative is the type of research that doesn’t count - literally. No numbers, just listening to words, watching for the little things, looking for patterns, sometimes weaving in a little poetry. It attempts to (and sometimes does) understand people’s decision making in the context of the mess of their real lives. It recognizes that we live with ambiguity. It doesn’t force answers into neat packages that can be squeezed into a behavioral model. It doesn’t assume that people’s attitudes and behavior can be categorized as variables that are treated as independent of each other. There is none of the cetera paribus of economic theory. Other things have a way of not remaining static and equal; they don’t stand still long enough.

Lately, it has occured to me that if more economists had used qualitative analysis, maybe we would understand what is happening now a little better. Just a thought.

But in the past couple of days, we’ve been treated to two examples of the in-crowd eating their own. Chris Brogan, a rock-star of social media, has been skewered for blogging about a $500 shopping spree courtesy of K-Mart. with the Twitter people suggesting that ” my involvement with a marketing campaign for Kmart somehow erodes my credibility as a social media business strategist. The logic, or that which seems to be acting as logic, goes like this: Brogan took money for writing about his experience with Kmart, so we might not trust his opinions as much.” In a very articulate response, he challenged the notion that blogging and corporate sponsorship are incompatible. You can read his piece on Advertising and Trust on his blog here.

The second example is the spat between Loic Le Meur of Seesmic and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch that originated at Loic’s LeWeb ‘08. Basically, Arrington said some pretty nasty stuff about the lazy French and their limpness as entrepreneurs. You can check out what he said and a video of the encounter here. Loic set up poll on his blog asking whether Arrington should be disinvited to future LeWebs, to which Arrington reacted. So far, there are hundreds of comments that you can read here. If you were thinking that social media was maturing, you might want to check out these guys. Anyone running a real business would be baffled at the bickering that is going on. But then maybe I’m just adding to the noise simply by bringing this up.