Posts tagged as:

market-research

Review: “Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation”

01.08.2010

If a company truly wishes to satisfy its customers’ needs and does its due diligence in market research, social and cultural factors will emerge as critical. To say that a company’s success is tethered to its ability to detect and adapt to changes in broader culture may seem redundant. Yet that’s part of the argument [...]

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Sustainable Brands Boot Camp report: The changing consumer marketplace

12.07.2009

Last Friday’s third session of Sustainable Life Media’s Sustainable Brands Boot Camp* revolved around the green consumer. Amy Hebard, Chief Research Officer at EarthSense, and Gwynne Rogers, LOHAS Business Director at Natural Marketing Institute, discussed, in their respective presentations, trends, consumer segments, and consumer preferences and behaviors in the green/sustainable marketplace. While I’ll use stuff [...]

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Book review: “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community”

11.06.2009

Robert Putnam’s bestseller Bowling Alone needs little introduction, not to mention another review. Yet despite its publication a decade ago, the volume remains highly relevant for thinking about community as the social aspect of sustainability.
In the 20th century’s final four decades, the vast majority of civic engagement indicators – political, civic, and religious participation, workplace [...]

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What’s really going on at the store? Understanding the mind of today’s consumer

08.31.2009

Guest post by Jim Jubelirer. All views in the post are the author’s alone.

If you’re interested in guest posting on the Sustainable Marketing Blog, please read the guidelines, and let’s take it from there. Thanks!
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Hardly a day goes by without another consumer research study coming out pronouncing record growth in green markets. You could spend [...]

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Book review: “Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business”

08.28.2009

I read Joel Makower’s Strategies for the Green Economy a while ago, and since I’ve been returning to it every now and then, I might as well write a review.
After a great historic overview of the green movement, Makower takes a look at the green consumer. That consumers say one thing – we want green [...]

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Brubaker, Matthias Corvinus, and market research

07.13.2009

How do I find out what my customers need? That’s a frequent question in my Mercy Corps Northwest marketing seminars on market research. Answering the question, I recall two stories.
1. One of the most emotionally powerful movies of my teenagehood was Brubaker. In this 1980 production, Robert Redford is a new prison warden who disguises [...]

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Target (and love) your nerds

06.05.2009

Nerds. You are one. Everyone’s nerd about something. Alternative energy. Chickens. Graphic design. Hybrids. Ninjas. Organic food. Programming. Skin care. Twitter. Unsigned bands. Wine. Whatever you’re nerd about you know best. It’s what you’re most passionate about, it’s what moves you. You’re on its cutting edge. You’ll do anything, you’ll try anything to promote it [...]

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Everyone is a story

12.16.2008

We communicate with stories. Trivial or profound, everything we do and everything that happens translates into a story. “Guess what happened at work today.” “She took a trip to Europe and fell in love.” “How about those Sharks?” As the heroes of our lives, we each are a story. The same goes for your customers. [...]

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People-centric market segmentation

10.20.2008

The process of niche development culminates with segmentation and understanding of target audiences. Market segmentation can take two basic forms:

Top-down (outside-in, centripetal) segmentation entails dividing up the total population into segments based on select variables (geographic and demographic first, then psychographic and behavioral).
Bottom-up (inside-out, centrifugal) segmentation takes the individual as the starting point and groups [...]

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