August 9, 2010
The Creativity Crisis
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
A few weeks ago, Newsweek published an article title The Creativity Crisis. Essentially, the article discusses how “creativity scores” in American kids are declining. Creativity scores? Basically there is a test that can gauge creativity. Creativity is defined as “the production of something original and useful.”
First, who knew that sort of test existed? I know that school (middle school and high school) has changed a lot since I was there … but a creativity test? Poor kids... they are graded on everything.
February 25, 2010
$25,000 Reward for Great Marketing Idea
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
by Allison Marsh, VP Consumer Insights
You can do a lot of things with craigslist.org. You can post a job, find a job, search for a missed connection, find a date. You can buy a couch, sell a couch, sell a car. But find a social media strategy? A viral marketing campaign? I didn’t think so either, until I stumbled across the following posting:
$25,000 Reward for Great Marketing Idea (Bedford, MA)
January 18, 2010
Dear Martha and Scott, Please Stop Calling Me!
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
My phone has been ringing off the hook. Some pretty powerful and famous people want to talk to me – I have gotten calls from President Obama, Bill Clinton, and Curt Schilling to name a few. I should be flattered, I should feel important but instead I am annoyed and angry. It is too much...
November 17, 2009
The Next Wave of User Generated Content?
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
In July, Japanese band sour released a new video for its song “Hibi no Neiro” (Tone of Everyday). As of today, the video has received over 1.6 million hits on YouTube and even for those of us that don’t understand Japanese it is something that you must see
October 27, 2009
Getting to Know Consumers
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
As part of the Consumer Insights team, I field a lot of very specific and sometimes obscure questions. Ranging from “how many 18 year old college students that live on campus are interested in renting furniture?” to “how many moms between the ages of 28 to 35 read newspapers?
August 11, 2009
Tweeting DURING Labor?!
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
I just learned that the wife of Twitter CEO, Evan Williams (@ev’s wife @sara), has been tweeting during her labor. Her tweets followed her from when her water broke to when she was admitted to the hospital to when she asked for the epidural.
June 19, 2009
Fun Facts
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
Every month we survey The Pulse, our network of high school and college students.This month we had over 80 responses. Here is what we learned:
Samples, Samples and more Samples
Just about a quarter (24%) of the Millennials we surveyed have received a free sample in the last 6 months.
June 15, 2009
Influences on Purchase Decisions
By : Allison Marsh, Vice President, Consumer Insights
Understanding the impact of different marketing tactics is critical – especially today. ROI is something that we talk about daily. However, determining exactly what that impact is, or defining ROI can be a bit of a grey area. For example, take a look at the following chart.
