To all Qualvu clients, friends and followers,   On behalf of our entire team, I want to wish you the very best this holiday season, and say thanks to all of you that have made 2011 another big year for Qualvu (our 4th year anniversary)!   2011 was quite a ride – here are just some of the highlights:   Qualvu was at the center of the smartphone revolution in qualitative research in 2011: More than 25% of our projects now include smartphone video responses, Read more »

Gracias, danke, spasiba…   No matter how we say it, it means “thanks.”   This Thanksgiving, all of us at Qualvu are a little extra aware of all the things we are thankful for.   We begin by being thankful for our many clients – the people who put consumers first and have a continuous desire to learn from them and to make their companies more successful.  Their high expectations lead us to aim high, to excel, and to do whatever it takes to earn Read more »

You hear it at research conferences constantly:  How does research remain relevant in an economy constrained by recession on one hand and ballooned by new digital technologies on the other?  How do market researchers prove their value to senior management?  How do we overcome what the American Marketing Association considers the four challenges of market research today – getting to the “why” of consumer behavior, separating the significant from the insignificant among the reams of research companies gather, finding ways for market research to communicate Read more »

We love any company that tries to find out what its customers think.  That means they care about their customers, care about their business, and don’t put a lot of stock into guesswork or mind-reading.  And we love humor in marketing.   That’s why we got a chuckle out of the research-themed angle in the “made for YouTube” Domino’s Pizza ads for its new chicken offering.  The ads feature their (I’ll assume fictional) chicken chef, who is a pariah among the pizza makers who don’t Read more »

Our engineering team just completed in-field testing of the Qualvu mobile app on the iPad2, and it works like a charm.  First, let me state what everyone who has fiddled with an iPad2 will tell you – the device is jaw-dropping cool, lightweight, and the iOS is lightning fast and as intuitive as thinking.   If you want to know where the PC category is going, take a test drive of the iPad2. If you want to know where the qualitative research category is going, Read more »

I’ve been a researcher; I know what that closet looks like. Boxes and boxes of focus group output, all on DVDs, saved because you just can’t throw away all that valuable data. But let’s face it – how many times have you actually pulled out one of those boxes and watched any of those DVDs after the fact? From my own experience: Not often. Never?   Here’s a new way to eliminate those boxes, and more importantly, get invaluable intelligence from all of that data. Read more »

Technology breakthroughs in our industry are naturally going to lend themselves to vertical integration.  And these changes in the status quo – in this case the web’s impact on traditional focus group spending – are always rocky transitions.  The cost of things change.  The people delivering the services find themselves faced with new options to do their work. However I am a big believer that value wins. Value isn’t just about price, and it’s not just about access. Sure those help – but they only Read more »

An experience in a Colorado classroom holds a lesson for researchers everywhere.   A story on Colorado Public Radio told about a school district’s effort to raise funds by selling advertising space on school buses.  A teacher in a high school media class tried to determine if the ads were effective by asking students if they could recall any specific ads.  One student enthusiastically volunteered that he had noticed the ads for Pizza Hut on buses.  No doubt Pizza Hut would be happy to hear Read more »

Unless you’ve managed to miss the buzz, the new iPad2 has just been announced along with the promise of delivering “Facetime.”  That is, allowing users to share moments that matter via video on the admittedly glorious iPad high resolution screen.  We’ve been expecting this development, as the Qualvu Smartphone app was developed specifically with these types of tablet innovations in mind.   The new Apple tablet features cameras on each side of the device, which not only makes it cool for video calling, but also Read more »

(Hint:  Collaboration equals illumination)   In this month’s issue of Quirk’s magazine, Bill Abrams writes about the power of “second sight” in qualitative and ethnographic research.  In his article, Abrams argues in favor of a collaborative approach to analyzing qualitative data.  The idea is that one set of eyes can yield good findings, but two sets of eyes can yield even better insights.   Here at Qualvu, we couldn’t agree more.  Because we’re dedicated to delivering the best and richest insights to our clients, we Read more »

Messaging matters, as this sign from an entrepreneur clearly shows.  But do your clients clearly understand what you’re saying?  What we think we say isn’t always what the consumer hears; what we write isn’t always what a consumer reads.  When a meat market advertises a special on “ground hog meat,” will a consumer think that it’s advertising “groundhog meat”?   Often times what you need to do is connect visually and verbally with your customers – ask them to take a look at your own Read more »

Truly breakthrough products are the magical combination of style and function.  If those two attributes come together in just the right mix, what results is more than just a great product – it’s in essence a fantasy experience for the customer and a smashing success for the company that provides it.   But even the best and brightest product developers fail if they ignore the fact that it’s the consumer – not a company — who defines whether a product has those qualities.   Understanding Read more »

…It’s time for you to start seeing more about your customers. Most consumers would never describe themselves as “promiscuous,” but the influence of the Internet and changes in technology, content and the way consumers send and receive information have made them much less loyal to familiar brands and much more open to new influences.   The result is that the traditional marketing practice of spending the majority of marketing dollars into building brand awareness and closing the sale at the point of purchase just doesn’t Read more »

Quirk’s Market Research Review January cover story was, “Motivate and Inspire: How to Establish and Nurture Online Discussion-Board Conversations.”  The crux of author Bonnie Eisenfeld’s story was that market research study respondents need to be interested in the project, feel like they are part of a community, and receive a reward or incentive for participation.  While the story in Quirk’s was about discussion board participants in particular, the same argument could be made for participants in all qualitative projects.   It’s essential to have cooperative Read more »

If, as the lyrics of the song go, Santa “..knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good…” well, that makes Santa the envy of all retailers trying to gain insights into their customers at Christmas. If only they knew what Santa knows, they might have to work only one day a year, too!  That’s because knowing what’s in the mind of the customer leads directly to what’s in the bank account of the retailer.   Read more »