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Beyond Personas: Creating Customer Doppelgangers

Dear smart marketers: it’s time to start dabbling in doppelgängers. What does this mean, exactly? It means the future of substantial and effective consumer understanding relies on the intersection of behavioral analysis and Consumer Identity Strategy (CIS). Although consumer research has always been a crucial component of advertising, CIS is a new, more comprehensive level of consumer research. Through CIS, brands establish an authentic and evolving portrait of a consumer and their purchasing journey informed through persistent evaluation of online and offline behavior coupled with demographics and psychographics. By developing an identity strategy that layers behavioral data onto more traditional methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis, brands are able to truly identify their consumer. Discovering how, when and where a consumer shops, seeing what brands are stealing closet or cart space, and understanding how customers connect on social channels — brands can even see how their customers behave when they aren’t shopping. In essence, brands don’t just build personas, but create doppelgängers of their customers through Big Data. It’s the creation of these doppelgängers that enable brands to attain a comprehensive understanding of how their consumers act, live and behave. With this knowledge, brands can make viable predictions of how particular consumers will shop and act based on similar consumers. This doppelgänger approach can even be applied to the smallest business all the way up through the big leagues. Even in big league baseball. At age 32, Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz hit a career-threatening slump. But Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com used doppelgängers to refute the conventional wisdom that Ortiz was washed up. >> Interested in taking a swing at the details of Big Papi’s doppelgängers? Download our white paper now to learn more. Ortiz ultimately shook his slump and improved his game, just as Silver’s doppelgänger data suggested. With the right amount of the right data, brands can build more effective and accurate personas. They can design strategies to reach and serve their customers not only with the right messaging, but also the right timing and cadence. Using behavioral data to create a consumer identity strategy is no longer for the Amazons, Walmarts and Googles of the world. It’s for every brand that has a physical, digital and mobile presence in their industry. Brands that don’t focus their marketing dollars on consumer identity strategies immediately will find themselves playing catch-up in the years to come. Now is your chance to step up to the plate and make bold business moves. Get a deeper look into the power of behavioral analysis and AMP Agency here by downloading the white paper, or visit AMP’s website: www.ampagency.com.

Big Data's Impact on Consumer Research and Strategy

When it comes to the dynamic nature of marketing and advertising climates, stagnancy is rarely recommended. That’s why it may seem unfathomable that consumer research tactics have seldom adapted since the folks at Arm & Hammer discovered that their customers were putting baking soda in their refrigerators to keep them fresh. But now, marketers are no longer confined to surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Consumer research is finally following the lead of Arm & Hammer’s customers and freshening things up big-time. Data scientists and smart data-led marketers today are creating methods that improve and expand upon the insights coming from traditional qualitative and quantitative research. As a result, consumer research as a whole is embracing a new wave of audience understanding thanks to the help of Big Data. That’s right — Big Data just so happens to be the next big thing for consumer research. By layering in Big Data, brands can develop a comprehensive Consumer Identity Strategy (CIS): an authentic and evolving portrait of a consumer and their purchasing journey informed through persistent evaluation of online and offline behavior coupled with demographics and psychographics. The idea of observing people’s actions, habits and behaviors may not seem all that groundbreaking. But being able to observe consumers at scale and use data models based on behavior is, in fact, disruptive for marketers and is rapidly becoming the core of every identity strategy. By augmenting self-reported surveys, behavioral data analysis builds a picture of a consumer based on their actual behaviors. These behaviors can range from what they purchase online and offline to behaviors as specific as what time of day they like to shop or how often they actually go to the gym. To see how Big Data and CIS play out in real-life scenarios, just look at Netflix — a company who learned early on in its life cycle that actions speak much louder than words. >> Read more about how this streaming giant succeeded in using Big Data-driven consumer identity strategy by downloading our complete white paper here. Netflix grew their business by using behavioral data that showed true consumer behavior. On top of that, this data helps reveal counterintuitive results that may go against what society or individuals believe to be true. When this behavioral data is layered onto more traditional methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis, brands are then able to truly identify their consumer in ways traditional research methods had not made possible before Big Data came into play. Now’s the time to be bold and lead with the best tools available.Get a deeper look into the power of behavioral analysis and AMP Agency here by downloading the white paper, or visit AMP’s website: www.ampagency.com.

Measuring Brand Esteem through Social Media, Insights Lab Episode 2

Hear the AMP Insights Lab perspective on social media metrics and measuring what matters. AMP Agency presents Videos by the Insights Lab- a think tank dedicated to uncovering, understanding and leveraging the best way to connect brands with consumers via the latest technology. To learn more about these metrics, download the Psychology of Social whitepaper at http://bit.ly/z0OQvX

The Psychology Behind Social Media, Insights Lab Episode 1

AMP Agency presents Videos by the Insights Lab- a think tank dedicated to uncovering, understanding and leveraging the best way to connect brands with consumers via the latest technology. Host Jason Rivera discusses this week's topic: The Psychology behind Social Media Connections. Download the Psychology of Social whitepaper at http://bit.ly/z0OQvX

Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville

At a recent lunch, a client commented that one of the hardest adjustments his wife from South Africa has had to make to living in the United States is adapting to how consumer-driven we are as a society. Growing up in another country, she was unaccustomed to the sheer volume of brand messaging that is imparted into our lives on a daily basis. This got me thinking about how much brands affect us and our decisions every day, consciously or not. I didn't have to think about it too hard during a recent trip to Orlando, FL. Brand messages compete for attention the moment you step off the plane. Billboards touting Disney parks, Universal exhibits (the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter is pretty amazing if you get the chance to visit), Sea World, Busch Gardens, etc. line the highways to entice you as you drive to your destination. Our first night in town, friends and I headed over to Universal's CityWalk to grab dinner. After surveying our options, we migrated over to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, thinking it would be quick and familiar. Initially, I wanted to head off the beaten path to another Orlando restaurant that might not be overwhelmed with tourists, but was shot down as my friends weren't up for venturing too far from our hotel. We put our name in and were able to move to the top of the list because we were staying at a Universal property. Even then, there was a half hour wait. At 6:30 p.m. On a Wednesday. While grabbing one of the Adirondack chairs outside the restaurant to sit and wait, we glanced over at the Latin Quarter restaurant next door. There didn't appear to be a wait there. I was up for the dining adventure, but one of my friends said that if it wasn't crowded, then, in her mind, the food must not be that good. If the food was better, there'd be a line. This got us talking about why then there was a line at Margaritaville. Is the food that spectacular? It's not. Is the service five-star? Again, no. What it boiled down to was that people were waiting to eat there because of the name, for the cache of saying they ate at Margaritaville and spend their time waiting at the onsite store buying Margaritaville merchandise. What Jimmy Buffett did was bring the experience of his popular song to life for all. If you build it, apparently the Parrotheads will come. I almost had my friends convinced to check out the Latin Quarter when our buzzer buzzed. Even as a marketer, I'll admit that I wasn't able to get away from finding a familiar brand appealing. After an ok meal with subpar service (thanks Dana!), I was left to wonder if we missed out on a fabulous dinner at a restaurant whose only fault was it wasn't named after a popular song, or anything else we, as consumers, had ingrained in our subconscious. I guess I'll never know. At least not until my next trip to Orlando.

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