Black on Black

Standard Deviations: Where Market Trends Emerge

2013-03-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

In business a lot of effort is spent exploring the middle of the market - whether it's understanding what the average person wants, or the mid-point of customer behavior, we search in the middle because it appears to offer the greatest marketing opportunity. The middle has size, the middle has scale, and focusing on the middle fulfills a deep human desire for safety and security. Like

Cultural Appropriation: Why People Hate Hipsters

2013-02-27T05:30:00.000-08:00

“Hipsters adopt the styles and affects of many cultures; cultures which aren't theirs. Cultures which they don’t actually belong to… Other sub-cultures enjoy what they enjoy, and that is the end of the story… People see hipsters as devaluing cultural fashions by cashing in on their capitol without embodying their meaning.” - Mike Rugnetta This is an interesting video posted by Mike Rugnetta on

Instacode: A New Language for Digital Youth

2013-02-25T23:36:00.001-08:00

“People show more of themselves on Tumblr. They don’t use their real names, or write personal stuff, but they blog pictures. I don’t do any written stuff because I don’t want people from school to read it… I wouldn't want them to read about my feelings and tell other people what I've been thinking… Depending on my day and how I’m feeling, I might post a dramatic picture of rain on glass.”

The Evolution of Self-Esteem

2012-11-27T11:56:00.003-08:00

A few weeks ago while sitting in a cafe, I overheard two mothers discussing different ways to build self-esteem. Turning to her friend one mother remarked, "I'm trying to limit the amount of disappointment my daughter experiences, because it may be bad for her self-esteem." This conversation got me thinking about our modern approach to self-esteem: avoiding disappointment and

AIPMM - Digital Teens Webinar

2012-10-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

This Friday October 26th at 9am PST, I'm excited to present a webinar titled, 'Digital Teens: The Drivers of Digital Behavior.' The Webinar will be hosted by Cindy Soloman from the AIPMM, and will provide an overview of our latest research on Digital Teens. The study, completed in June 2012, used qualitative and quantitative research to explore the online behavior of over 1905 Digital Teens.

Digital Teens - The Drivers of Digital Behavior

2012-08-13T01:07:00.001-07:00

Over the past month, the team at Concerto Marketing have been conducting a study into the online motivations of digital teens. The study involved interviews and online surveys with 1905 digital teens, and provided some interesting insights into the online behavior of teenagers. "The internet has multiple personalities. You can do multiple things on the internet… For some teens, the internet

Why Everyone Knows a Healthy [Insert Unhealthy Behavior]

2012-06-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

When talking about the topic of health, young people's opinions can be surprising irrational. What constitutes healthy behavior, will often have more to do with subjective experience and bias than objective evidence. So how can cognitive bias influence the topic of human health? The Availability Heuristic According to researchers, the Availability Heuristic is a cognitive bias in the

The Future of Digital is Mobile

2012-06-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, whilst foraging for knowledge berries on the internet, you stumble upon a patch of tasty information. This was the case on Sunday when I read an article by John Naughton titled, "Real cost of the smartphone revolution: The smartphone market is expanding at an astonishing rate, but is it damaging creativity and innovation on the web?" The article referenced a May 2012 conference

Why Do People Photograph Their Food?

2012-05-31T14:53:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been at a restaurant and noticed someone taking a photograph of their food? I have. In fact, having observed many instances of food photography I decided to discuss the topic with some friends and colleagues. A great deal of work already exists on the complexity and underlying motivations of meals. In general the findings from studies on food and meal behavior have shown that, "

Design the New Business

2012-05-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I watched an interesting video titled, 'Design the New Business.' The documentary explored antecedents and outcomes of design thinking in business, from the perspective of industry and academic experts. According to the TU Delft students who created the video: "Old ways of thinking are being replaced by open minds and creativity. Design is playing a central role in helping

How to Harness Nostalgia in Marketing

2012-05-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

"I'm thinking about when I was a child and there were no cares and no worries... You didn't worry about the calories in a cookie, you'd just go for it.” - Respondent (2012) There's something special about hearing people re-connect with their childhood. Like unearthing a treasure chest of emotion, the first years of life can represent a source of comfort and nostalgia. While the

Creating Physical Experiences for Digital Brands

2012-05-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

Back in February Concerto Marketing participated as a sponsor of the Transmission Summit - a global creative content and technology conference held in British Columbia. During the conference, one of the sessions I found most interesting involved Nora Young (CBC technology journalist) interviewing Angel Gambino (Wired Top 100) on her experiences building physical and digital spaces. During

Foraging for Social Facts: How humans forage for information like animals forage for food

2012-02-07T14:48:00.000-08:00

Last week I spent some time chatting with marketing students at a university networking event. Watching the students slowly consume advice from marketing professionals was a lot like watching cattle graze in a pasture; when one student found a tasty source of information, others would follow and cluster around the source. This observation reminded me of some great research on how human

Defining Community at TEDx

2012-02-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

Back in November 2011, I had the opportunity to present on the topic of community at TEDxSFU. Community is an abstract concept, and as an audience member I found it interesting to observe the way in which different speakers attempted to define it. The Definition of Community During the event, some speakers expressed a more traditional perspective on community; while others described

The Five Stages of Travel

2011-12-12T22:14:00.000-08:00

Heading into the annual holiday and travel season, I thought you may appreciate a study undertaken by Google on 'The Five Stages of Travel.' While the data itself is relatively bland, the use of infographics managed to engage me in the experience. Happy Holidays. Stage One - Dreaming: Stage Two - Planning: Stage Three - Booking:

The Community Trust Report

2011-12-06T12:18:00.001-08:00

Over the last month, I’ve been involved in a study that explored the topic of community trust in public institutions and political leaders. The Concerto Marketing and Research Now study involved online surveys with 1500 people from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and used a proprietary model (HuTrust) to measure the psychological drivers of trust. Last week, The Community Trust Report was

Digital Moms: The Drivers of Digital E-motion

2011-10-31T13:26:00.000-07:00

Back in March 2011, I was involved in a proactive study that explored the online motivations of digital mothers. The Concerto Marketing study involved in-depth interviews and online surveys with 500 North American Moms, and was designed to coincide with a keynote presentation we made at the 2nd Annual Marketing to Digital Moms Conference. While there’s no shortage of metrics and

Think Quarterly: Dedicated to Data

2011-03-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

Thought you may appreciate a new online magazine launched by Google, called Think Quarterly. Designed to communicate with Google's partners and advertisers, this first issue has been, “dedicated to data – amongst a morass of information, how can you find the magic metrics that will help transform your business?”

Masculinity in American Culture

2011-03-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the United States – both for business and pleasure. In contrast to many European and Asian countries, one aspect of American culture that always surprises me is the degree to which they embrace ‘masculinity’ in their everyday lives. From the way that meetings are conducted, to the car brands that people prefer,

Three interesting things on the interweb

2011-03-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

In this edition of interesting things on the interweb, you’ll find three different forms of thinking from one source - Strawberry Frog. For those of you who don’t keep up-to-date with the advertising industry, Strawberry Frog is an independent agency which has been described as “waging war against the dinosaurs of advertising - monolithic global networks and their holding companies.”

The NGMR Top-5-Hot vs. Top-5-Not

2011-03-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

As part of the Next Gen Market Research group, bloggers from around the world were invited to participate in a group post on the ‘Top 5-Hot vs. Top-5-Not’ topics in market research. The following is a collection of topics and trends that I feel are important to our industry; it may not add up to ten, but that’s what happens when you ask a qualitative researcher to count.Hot topic 1: Research

Transmission Global Summit 2011

2011-02-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

Last week our team had an opportunity to participate in Transmission Global, one of the most unique and engaging conferences I’ve attended in a while. In my opinion, there were two aspects to this conference that were particularly engaging: the attendees, and the experience design. From an attendee perspective, there was an incredible mix of musicians, gadgeteers and executives who were

The Contagious Report

2011-02-07T14:05:00.000-08:00

This week I wrote a post for the Canadian Marketing Association titled, 'The Contagious Report.' The post shared findings from some recent research we conducted at the 2010 BCAIM conference. If you'd like to read the original post you can view it here; or alternatively you can find a copy below. I'm interested to hear if your opinions mirror those of our research participants... Spending time

Marketing to Digital Moms

2011-02-06T16:52:00.000-08:00

"My life is the virtual world. If I don't have access [I feel] I'm missing something. I'm a single mom; I don't get out a lot. It's not like I can just get out." - Digital Mom (2009)Making the assumption that any demographic group thinks, feels and acts homogeneously is a mistake. Within any person, or group of people, there exists a repertoire of motivations that can influence their behavior.

The Incompetence Paradox

2010-12-21T16:12:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had the experience where someone around you is clearly incompetent but appears totally oblivious to their deficiencies? Perhaps it’s a work colleague who consistently makes mistakes on tasks but refuses to change their behavior. Or perhaps it’s a restaurant server who makes mistakes on your order but refuses to acknowledge any error. Not only are these people seemingly incompetent