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<p>Founded in 2010, Alter Agents is a full-service strategic market research consultancy reimagining research in an era of shifting decision making. Deep creative thinking and innovative solutions help Alter Agents’ clients understand consumer needs. The Alter Agents team believes that research must adapt to help brands overcome challenges brought by trends like shopper promiscuity and brand narcissism. </p><p><br></p><p> The company’s immersive approach and unique methodology has helped brands such Snapchat, YouTube, Audacy, Viking Cruises, Pinterest, and more gain powerful, actionable insights. A book detailing the company’s approach, “Influencing Shopper Decisions: Unleash the Power of Your Brand to Win Customers,” is available from booksellers worldwide. More at www.alteragents.com. @Alter_Agents</p>

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Alter Agents is a full-service, strategic market research consultancy reimagining research in an era of shifting decision making.

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<p>Why are we still measuring brand loyalty? It isn’t something that naturally comes up with consumers, who rarely think about brand first, if at all. Market research and marketing nomenclature has long centered around brand awareness, consideration and NPS, but customers don’t think along these lines. There’s a big disconnect here that is negatively affecting consumer understanding, and successful business decision making.</p>
<p>It’s well past time to shift the conversation. It’s a hard move. Brands want to know about themselves, but the consumer doesn’t care about the brand &#8211; they care about their own needs. We’ve talked about this approach to market research as Brand Narcissism, something we cover in our book and describe like “being on a date with someone who is wracked with insecurities” who is asking questions like “Why did you first decide to go out with me?”, “How would you describe me to your friends?” or “How do I compare to the other people you know about?”</p>

        <div class="post-related-post">
            <h3>Related</h3>
            <h4><a href="https://www.greenbook.org/insights/market-research-trends/neuroscience-in-market-research-beyond-the-hype">Neuroscience in Market Research: Beyond the Hype</a></h4>
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<p>While marketers probably do have these types of questions, related to their brand, that is not the way a consumer thinks when they are making a purchase decision. Researchers can easily corrupt their insights by continuing to pursue these navel-gazing questions. The purchase funnel we’ve relied on for so long, bears little resemblance to the way consumers are behaving and thinking about shopping in today’s world.</p>
<p>While the consumer landscape has been changing for decades, brought on by technology, category disruption, socioeconomics and more, the evolution of the past three years is impossible to ignore. Digital behaviors of all kinds were accelerated, and the way we shop and consume was permanently altered by the pandemic. One of the most prominent changes was a move toward what we call “Shopper Promiscuity”, or the willingness to try new brands, new products, and new categories. In this new state of mind, shoppers prefer to explore and try new things. Nothing loyal about that.</p>
<p>For brands, this means that they are now operating in an era of constant acquisition. While our research shows that susceptibility to the whims of promiscuous shoppers varies by category, the forces &#8211; such as innovation, unlimited access to information, the need for personal expression and reprioritization &#8211; that are driving the behavior are universal.</p>
<div class="su-pullquote su-pullquote-align-right gb23-iiex-pullquote-01">&#8220;Every customer must be courted and wooed away from competitors, even if they have bought a brand many times before.&#8221;</div>
<p>At a basic level, this reality means we need to revisit how we ask questions in our research is vital to collecting good insights. We won&#8217;t find out anything new that drives good business strategy by asking the same questions or by using the same approaches that we always have. There are a few things you can do to overcome these hurdles, including utilizing multimodal research techniques and newer methodologies, like <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/insights/market-research-trends/neuroscience-in-market-research-beyond-the-hype">neuroscience</a>, that can help answer tough questions in new ways. For example, if you need complex answers for a study, you could include both <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/grit">quantitative stated data</a> and neuroscience or qualitative interviews. New technologies allow us to do this more efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before.</p>
<p>There are many other things you can do to rethink research. We suggest shaking up the way you approach brand trackers, evaluate audience understanding, bring together data streams and much more. First and foremost, put Brand Narcissism in the rearview mirror. It is a barrier to smarter thinking about shoppers and risks delivering outdated metrics. Brands that think like their shoppers do, and don’t take them for granted, are the ones who stand the best chance of being successful.</p>


Moving Away from a Narcissistic Market Research Model

<p>The questions clients are asking market research firms to answer about their audiences seem to be more complex than ever. In the past, researchers could be pigeonholed into either the quantitative or qualitative fields, uncovering what consumers were doing and feeling in relative siloes and leaving the analysis up to the companies and brands that serve them. This approach doesn’t work well in our modern, fast-paced economy &#8211; an economy inhabited by an ever-more-complicated consumer.</p>
<p>Today’s landscape requires brands to develop a comprehensive, 360-degree view of what exactly their target customers are doing, feeling, and thinking. Market researchers are being asked to do more of that development, providing insights and strategy in addition to data. We’re helping clients to stitch more pieces together because we live in a reality where the questions themselves have become more complex. To do this well, we need to break open the silos and adopt a layered research strategy.</p>
<p>Implementing a multi-modal approach where insights from various methodologies complement and inform one another can provide a foundation for success. For example, a quantitative questionnaire can serve as the structural framework to help us understand what respondents are doing, while qualitative approaches add color to those responses, giving us the “why” behind the “what.” But consumers can &#8211; or will &#8211; only tell us so much about their past behavior and motivations.</p>

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            <h4><a href="https://www.greenbook.org/insights/insights/covid-19-making-esports-mainstream">COVID-19: Making Esports Mainstream</a></h4>
        </div>
    
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>We’ve found that adding a third layer based in neuroscience can deepen insights even further by uncovering what the conscious mind is unable to reveal &#8211; the things that people can’t actually tell us outright. Our preferred approach measures a key metric called “immersion”: a scientific measure of emotional connection and attention. It reveals what audiences truly love and predicts their future actions. It can help create a multidimensional picture of audiences.</p>
<p>We put this layered approach to the test in a recent study with Activision Blizzard. As a leader in the esports space, the company wanted a deeper understanding of this particular audience, specifically as it related to emotional response and ad effectiveness.</p>
<p>In order to gauge the audience’s emotional responses and brand perceptions, we used a trimodal research strategy that included:</p>
<ul>
<li>An online quantitative survey to provide a base of more traditional stated metrics surrounding respondent perceptions;</li>
<li>A series of qualitative in-depth interviews to provide context and color to the findings; and</li>
<li>Emotional response sessions using <a href="https://www.getimmersion.com/">Immersion’s neuroscience platform</a> to reveal advertising’s emotional impact at a physiological level.</li>
</ul>
<p>This layered approach allowed us to provide rich, multi-faceted insights into Activision Blizzard’s esports audiences. Especially in this uncertain period, <a href="https://alteragents.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Facing-Fear-III-full-res.pdf">riddled with fear and anxiety</a>, consumers can be more guarded with their thoughts, behaviors, and data. Understanding emotions and engagement remains vital and the right combination of methodologies helps us deliver these deeper insights and inform strategy.</p>
<p>Brands don’t just want a pretty narrative or a set of numbers to crunch themselves. They need all the data brought together in a cohesive story so they know what they are up against and where their opportunities lie. As digital transformation continues to march ahead, and COVID changes perceptions for decades to come, a comprehensive understanding of the evolving consumer mindset and journey requires a new and deeper approach to insights.</p>


Brands don’t just want a pretty narrative or a set of numbers to crunch themselves. They want a 360-degree view of their target customers. Here is how to give it to them.

Complex Brand Questions Require Multi-Modal Market Research Approaches

Alter Agents is a full-service, strategic market research consultancy
reimagining research in an era of shifting decision making. Pasadena, California, United States of America.

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