When the prevailing consumer attitude is “don’t tell me, show me,” what values can a brand highlight to spark consumer interest? Consider this article a jumping-off point.
Gen Z was taking their first meaningful steps into the world when the novel Coronavirus came and established a new norm. Check out our update on how COVID-19 impacted the upper echelon of this generation amid a global pandemic.
How does one create robust, thoughtful and engaging discussions for qualitative research when it’s all remote? You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.
How many times have you heard a brand exclaim they are data-driven? It’s a phrase that many brands are using, but what goes into the data that drives them? Why are those brands so confident in their data-driven decisions? Below are a few considerations regarding data cleaning and data analysis when leveraging data for your brand.
Many of us have been there, either as part of the merger or the merge-ee company. This is a journey for both corporate staff and consumers/customers. It is critical that these key parties be given the right level of information at the right times in order for them to feel confident in the change and in the brand. People are looking for cues that they will benefit from, or at the very least not lose something based on, the new construct.
2 points for each of these things you’ve heard before:
- “It would be over budget”
- “We’ve tried that before”
- “Upper management won’t buy in”
- “It’s not differentiated enough”
- “That’s gonna take too long”
- “Not enough margin”
- “Too similar to competition”
- “Not compelling enough”
Got some points on the board? A bit disheartening, isn’t it? It’s really easy for us to get swept up in the “why it won’t work” and to poke holes in ideas before they’ve been given room to grow.
We kick off our brand positioning projects with one-on-one stakeholder interviews. Why? Because getting an understanding of how organizational leaders perceive the promise of the brand and the needs of the target audience is critical to success. In addition, these interviews help to paint a picture of what is “blue sky” possible for the brand in the future. And it doesn’t hurt to get that extra touch of buy-in to the project at the onset.
Fountainhead, twice yearly, conducts primary research among whom we deem “Elder Gen Z.” These people are currently 16 to 23 years old. So, with that lead–in, let’s get to the meat of things.
As I reach my third year as an insights analyst with the Fountainhead team, I can’t help but think back to my last year of undergrad. I knew the basics of market research. I knew that I was interested in people and their motivations. I knew that there was so much I didn’t know. The funny thing about learning on the job is you don’t notice how much you’ve learned until you take a second to reflect and think how little you knew before. Looking back now, here are five key awakenings I’ve had from my time with Fountainhead.
In the “Before Times,” October 24 through November 17, 2019, to be exact, Fountainhead fielded quantitative research among 1,221 people ages 16-22. While that’s not the whole of Gen Z (it’s largely defined to go down to people age 7 or 8), we believe that this upper age range was best equipped to share insights about their habits and their world.