September 29, 2014 by Jeff Bierer in Ideation, Innovation, Problem Solving, Research
  • Comments Off on Find the Pebble…Solve the Problem

Find the Pebble…Solve the Problem

Tell me if this is familiar to you.  Your team is charged with coming up with the next new product to drive revenue.  Or maybe you’ve been asked to differentiate your customer experience.   What do you do?  You might host Ideation Sessions and maybe even hire Creativity Consultants.  You hop

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March 05, 2014 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest
  • Comments Off on Want better laddering results? Add technology and teamwork.

Want better laddering results? Add technology and teamwork.

Several years ago, I was moderating focus groups with IT professionals on the topic of business software selection and loyalty. The client wanted to build communications around scenarios that had an emotional pull, so we agreed to ladder from the “likes” (the rational features and attributes) on up to the

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October 10, 2013 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest, Latest News
  • Comments Off on Focus on What Annoys & Frustrates Consumers to Drive Innovation

Focus on What Annoys & Frustrates Consumers to Drive Innovation

The following article written by Farhad Manjoo published in Wall Street Journal 10/10/13 speaks to what I have observed through many consumer focus groups.  Consumers are not very good at suggesting the next break through innovation – we’re too tied to our existing world and product sets.  But, we are

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October 23, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest, Latest News, Uncategorized

More Americans Worry about Financing Retirement

More Americans Worry about Financing Retirement Adults in Their Late 30s Most Concerned by Rich Morin and Richard Fry Despite a slowly improving economy and a three-year-old stock market rebound, Americans today are more worried about their retirement finances than they were at the end of the Great Recession in 2009, according to

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April 20, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest

Can Innovative Thinking Be Learned?

Written by Erica Swallow, as first published in Forbes [Note: I have had the pleasure of contributing to a number of breakthrough innovations, from launching the first prepaid international money transfer card to building the first consumer conditional loan.  I can testify to the validity of the five key innovation

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April 16, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest

Effective Digital Branding Measurement Requires A Mix Of Metrics

Written by eMarketer New digital-specific metrics mix with longstanding offline and direct-response measurements to determine campaign successAs companies invest a greater portion of their branding dollars in digital advertising, marketers are facing increased pressure to prove digital’s branding effectiveness both as a single channel and in concert with a broader,

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March 21, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest

STANDARDS FOR MEASURING PR OUTCOMES

    Just as there are many tools and techniques that PR practitioners can utilize to begin to measure PR outputs, there also are many that can be used to measure PR outcomes. Some of those most frequently relied on include surveys (of all types), focus groups, before-and-after polls, ethnographic studies

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March 20, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Articles of Interest

Marketers Struggle To Link Digital Data To ‘Big Data’ Picture

Written by eMarketer Lack of digital insight and internal data-sharing challenge companies Marketers are abuzz over “Big Data” for its promise to deliver a more complete understanding of each customer, who can then be targeted with advertising tailored exactly to the individual.But according to February 2012 research from Columbia Business

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March 01, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Uncategorized

Example of Focus Group Gone Wrong

If you watched the Oscars this year you may have seen the faux focus group.  It is a very funny example of how a focus group can devolve and produce no value whatsoever.  It serves to remind us of how important it is to carefully screen and recruit group respondents,

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February 22, 2012 by Jeff Bierer in Latest News

What emerging Research Techniques will be used in 2012?

[Leonard Murphy, Editor-in-Chief of the Green Book provides a view of new research techniques being adopted.  I believe  the RIGHT research methodology is one tailored to the needs of the client and situation.  At BRG, every design is customized in that fashion.] The figures for what companies plan to use/provide

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