10 June 2011

ESOMAR - Future Talent Meets the Industry - Eduardo Oliveira

FUTURE TALENT MEETS THE INDUSTRY

ESOMAR CONGRESS 2009

Name: Eduardo Henrique da Silva Oliveira

Nationality: Portuguese

University: University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

Title of course/programme: Master in Marketing

How do you see the market research industry evolving and how can you contribute to it?

The market research industry needs to be at the front of information and communication technologies. One of its major challenges is to understand consumer latent needs for new products and services which, ultimately, aim at improving the life quality of consumers in general. As we can read from ESOMAR web page “research provides ethical, responsible and creative to lead the way for better decisions, better results and a better world". I believe that a large part of the market research industry will be absorbed into the open-source, like internet, and other technologies to know consumers in a variety of consumers’ contexts. The application of new technologies can help researchers to collect reliable and update data in a non-intrusive way.
In my opinion, the market research industry is becoming competitive, particularly in a context in which markets are increasingly globalised. Today, most people have a PDA, mobile or desktop computer with more competing power then thought possible few years ago. These devices are crucial to manage knowledge, the complexity and large amount of information.
Another characteristic is the way how information is easily spread. New patterns of consumer behaviour and the new tendencies in shopping around the globe are constantly in progress and pose completely different new challenges.

My background is in the geography, tourism, regional economy, and marketing. My main goal is to understand the social network and special events in cities and tourism destinations. Social network geographies have a crucial role in this process. With my academic experience, I can bring a different perspective to marketing research and give may contribution to an ethical, responsible and creative market research.

What are in your opinion the necessary skills for market researchers in the present environment?

The main skills of market research analysts comprises collecting, organising and interpreting data from local, regional, national or other global areas in order identify potential customers with different psychographic and sociographic profiles. They need to combine expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods in order to understand a complex and diverse reality.
The most relevant tasks are related with collection and analysis of market information, identification of market trends and market segmentation. No one doubts that this field is one of the most challenging tasks available today.

How do you see your career unfolding and what are your aspirations?

I have many aspirations for the years to come. I like quite a lot to learn new things, and to work with strong leading institutions in order to contribute for a better world. My desire is to continue my academic experience, either in Portugal or in an European University, in a PhD Marketing programme. The subject of my research project is to study consumer behaviour in cities. Therefore, I want to investigate the new tendencies of global cities and discover what are the residents’ and the consumers’ needs. I like marketing place, city branding, building a brand for the city. Understanding the importance of the social networks in order to improve the cities’ attraction is a must. This topic is important because it involves the cooperation among diverse entities, such as universities, public services, and the tourism industry. I am a graduate in Geography and Regional Planning from the University of Minho. I have an advanced-graduation in MSc in Tourism and Regional Development from the Portuguese Catholic University and I am now finishing my first year of the MSc programme in Marketing and Strategic Management from the University of Minho. I have been working in the School of Economics and Management of University of Minho, since 2006, and have carried out many projects and research on regional economy, public policies and investment in local industry. I expect to make good friends in the ESOMAR Congress that will help me in the future, as well as enlarging my social network and opening my perspective of what has been done in other countries with regard the specific field of market research.

8 June 2011

Google Music, the Future of Cloud and You - SocialTimes.com

3 June 2011

South Africa is Africa’s most valuable country brand, study says

South Africa is Africa’s most valuable country brand, study says:

"South Africa was named Africa’s most valuable nation brand last Wednesday (May 25th, 2011)

at the announcement of the fourth BrandFinance Global Nation Brands League.

The BrandFinance Global Nation Brands League’s valuation is conducted every year by Brand Finance,

an independent brand valuation consultancy. Now in their fourth year, the league covers a global sample [...]"

Beyond MROCs and Community Panels

Beyond MROCs and Community Panels: "

As part of an article I am writing I have recently posted blogs on MROCs and Community Panels. This is the final post in that part of the draft that relates to puroposed communities, online communities set up for a purpose and and which can be utilised by market research. Again, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Brand Communities, Natural Communities, and Social Networks

Just a couple of years ago it looked as though brand communities were going to be one of the biggest things in marketing and an essential component of market research. Most conference presentations on the topic talked about MyStarbucksIdea, Dells IdeaStorm, and of course Lego’s communities. However, the growth in major brand communities seems to have stalled, perhaps showing one of the truths about social media, in general, brands have to go where the people are, the people do not go where the brands are. There will still be developments in brand communities, perhaps the entire customer base for a brand will be a ‘community’, but in the short-term they are not having a big impact on market research at the macro level.

By contrast, one area that has been showing rapid development is the growth of branded Facebook pages. Although most brands have a fairly weak presence in Facebook (in April Bright Edge estimated that 70% of the Fortune 200 brands did not have a Facebook page [http://www.brightedge.com/2011-04-18-brightedge-study-social-media-seo-optimization]), a growing of leading brands are starting to attract millions of followers. According to the list compiled by SocialBakers [http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/173-top-brands-on-facebook-disney-moving-up-to-2nd-playstation-with-100-growth/], at June 1^st Coca-Cola had 29 million Facebook fans, followed by Disney with 25 million, and Starbucks with 23 million. But it is not just high involvement major/trendy brands who can do well, Oreo were fourth with 20 million and candy brand Skittles were eighth with 17 million. What sets most of these brands apart from those with a more limited Facebook presence is that they have made the effort.

Brands are at the early stages of looking at what they can achieve with their Facebook pages, some, such as UK retailer Next have used them as a sample source for research conducted away from Facebook, while others engage with fans in Facebook itself, for example in May 2011 Oreo asked “How would you describe Oreo cookies to someone who never tasted them?”, in six days they received 3,660 replies.

A growing number of organisations are looking at how they can utilise Facebook presences, with apps, marketing approaches, and some market research tools being developed specifically with Facebook pages. In terms of market research brand communities, natural communities, and Facebook communities are much less significant than MROCs and community panels, but they are growing and may become more important over the next couple of years.

In addition, organisations such as Peanut Labs (now part of Research Now) have been using social networks as a source of sample for some time and the perennial question about social networks tends to be what would happen if Facebook opened up a broad and accessible market research service? However, predictions a couple of years ago that LinkedIn would become a major player in B2B research appeared to be overstated, and were followed by LinkedIn removing its main market research service – could the same be true of Facebook?

'Marketing Doctor' John Tantillo's Winner and Loser of the Week: Ronald McDonald and 3-D

'Marketing Doctor' John Tantillo's Winner and Loser of the Week: Ronald McDonald and 3-D: "

WINNER:

Tantillo%20Blog%20Pic%20053111%20Ronald%20McDonald.jpg

You’d think with 550 health professionals signing a letter to get rid of Ronald McDonald, McDonald’s longtime clown/spokesperson, we’d have to shift the yellow and orange icon into the loser column.

As they say in my neighborhood: fuggedaboutit.