Closing the Loop

Last week I opened someone’s fridge and received a small revelation. Purple top milk. Not white or red or green. Purple. (It’s like green top only with less fat….).

At last! It seems that milk has been unchanged for a decade, and finally a dairy has had the nouse (and the courage) to do some good segmentation.

I’d like to think that Purple top milk can be the inspiration for others too. We need to start innovating again, not retreat to a bunker marked “recesssion mentality, avoid all progress”. Earlier I said that Purple top is a variant of green top. That’s certainly how they position it. But I suspect that in reality it originated as a version of red top which tastes better. That’s where research can help establish the all important consumer proposition: where does the new product concept add most value?

Come on marketers, the time to make progress is when others are asleep…let’s make it happen, from inspiration to perspiration, from idea to reality, from concept to revenue stream….let’s close that loop!

The challenge for researchers in 2011 and beyond, is not that of adapting to the economic climate. That is the same for all businesses: adapt or fail. The specific challenge for research is to justify the need for time and thought spent on analysis, in a digital age when everything is instant and ephemeral. The age of Facebook presents research with great opportunities. Virtual Focus groups can do the seemingly impossible, which is to save both time AND money. In addition Bulletin board focus groups enable the moderator to eliminate any chance of bias or “group-think” by gaining private responses from respondents. So digital research can improve on traditional methods. But the value of research comes from the analysis stage, when the researcher chews over the findings and thinks about what they mean to the client’s business. Research may use contemporary “instant hit” methods, such as Facebook or chatrooms, but it is only the time spent analysing this, which allows researchers to add value.

The Closing the Loop website is currently under construction. Please visit us again soon.