“Our spring 2013 survey results suggest teens have a heightened sense of awareness surrounding seasonal spending fluctuations and broader macroeconomic sensitivities,” said Steph Wissink, co-director of research and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, in a press release. “Spending has moderated across discretionary categories for both upper-income and average-income teens when compared to the prior year and prior season. Yet nearly two-thirds of respondents view the economy as consistent to improving and just over half signaled an intent to spend more on key categories of interest, particularly fashion and status brand merchandise.”

As taken from press materials, selected findings from the survey in fashion, beauty and personal care, restaurants, digital media, gaming and wireless communication include the following:

• The fashion category accounts for roughly 40 percent of teen budgets, consistent with prior survey cycles. Spending among upper-income teens was down modestly to the prior year and season while average-income teens indicated a slight increase. Implying the pause in spending may be temporary, approximately 53 percent of upper-income teens plan to spend more on fashion apparel in the coming periods. Parent contribution to teen spending contracted by nearly 10 percentage points in the spring survey, with 55-60 percent of teens indicating their parents contribute more than half of their spending. Within the fashion category specifically, insights into key trend changes include declining demand for fast fashion, the emergence of a refined classic or preppy aesthetic and a preference for fashion athletic wear.

• Teens are exhibiting changes in shopping behaviors that will likely reshape the way brands target this demographic, including shopping less frequently and shopping online instead of in specialty and department stores. Approximately 79 percent of females and 76 percent of males shop online and respondents indicated that roughly 18 percent of their spending is online. Nearly 70 percent of teens indicate they prefer to shop the Web sites of their favorite store-based retailers. In addition, teens prefer labels to logos and seek value in their purchases, as shown by the rise of spending in the outlet and off-price channels. Approximately 70 percent of teen girls and 55 percent of teen boys shop at off-price stores and 55 percent and 42 percent, respectively, indicated it is popular to do so. The shift toward digital is proliferating softlines, hardlines and media purchases. Streaming accounts for 46 percent of movie rentals and online music provider Pandora accounts for 22 percent of preferred music sources.

• Teens have cited “friends” as the strongest influence over their purchase decisions for the duration of the survey’s history, but “Internet” is quickly rising in profile. Approximately 53 percent of females and 52 percent of males indicate that social media impacts their purchases, with Facebook being the most important, followed closely by Twitter and Instagram. But the popularity of Facebook is waning among teens, with 33 percent citing it as the most important, down from 42 percent six months ago.

• Beauty spending among upper-income teens declined 3 percent year-over-year and increased 2 percent sequentially. For average-income teens, beauty spending increased 1 percent year-over-year and 4 percent sequentially. For the second consecutive survey, average-income beauty spend is now at parity with upper-income spending. MAC was cited as the No. 1 cosmetics brand for upper-income teens for the fifth survey in a row and Cover Girl ranks at the top of the list for average-income teens. Teens continue to demand greater diversity of cosmetics offerings, likely spurred by several emerging cosmetics brands coming to market with new and superior innovations.

• Teens are increasingly choosing organic food options, with 42 percent eating organics versus just 33 percent two years ago. This trend is likely to support ongoing demand for natural and organic grocery, as teens age into young adults and establish independent households. When eating out, 57 percent of teens prefer limited-service restaurants, up steadily from 43 percent four years ago. When identifying their preferred dining segment, 41 percent select quick-service, 36 percent casual dining and 15 percent fast-casual options. In addition to classifying by segment, preferred restaurant brands also provide insight into various cuisine profiles. For American cuisine, teens favor Cheesecake Factory; for Italian, teens favor Olive Garden; and for Mexican-inspired fare, teens favor Chipotle Mexican Grill.

• Mobility and connectedness are driving nearly 91 percent of teens to purchase a smartphone for their next wireless device, with approximately 60 percent biased toward Apple and 21 percent likely to buy an Android device, consistent with prior survey cycles. Survey results point to teens prioritizing unlimited data plans as the most important service plan feature when choosing a carrier, with Verizon and AT&T identified as having the “best” networks. Approximately 48 percent of teens own an iPhone, up from 40 percent six months ago. Tablet ownership also continues to grow, with 51 percent of teens owning a tablet computer, up from 44 percent in fall 2012, with 68 percent of teens identifying Apple’s iPad as their owned device.

• Teens represent more than one-third of video game players and gaming accounts for 6 percent of teen spending. Interest in traditional gaming consoles remains strong entering a new console cycle. Awareness of next-generation consoles was 73 percent among teens who play video games at least monthly. Approximately 52 percent of teens intend to purchase a next generation console. Buying and selling used video games remains a critical component of the gaming industry, with 63 percent of gamers buying used games and 29 percent of teens trading in old games to fund new software and hardware purchases.

The Taking Stock With Teens survey is a semi-annual research project based on input from approximately 5,200 teens with an average age of 16.3 years. Teen spending patterns, fashion trends and brand and media preferences were assessed through visits to a geographically diverse subset of high schools in 10 U.S. states and through a national online survey of a wider group of teens from 37 different states. The survey is conducted in partnership with DECA, an international association of high school students. The spring survey was completed March 1–April 3, 2013.

From the April edition:

As reported in the October issue of Breakfast Beat, McDonald’s began testing “Breakfast After Midnight” in 2012, offering a limited breakfast menu from midnight until 4 a.m. A second iteration, “McDonald’s After Midnight,” is now being tested in markets around the country, offering the most popular selections from both the breakfast and lunch/dinner menus between midnight and 4 a.m., at which time the full breakfast menu begins.

Quick-service restaurants enjoy an edge for attracting weekday morning visitors. Speedy drive-thrus and handheld foods offer a perfect solution to those eating on the run, but understanding today’s consumers is paramount to getting guests through the drive-thru. Convenience, speed and portability have always been major requirements for weekday breakfasts but now health and nutrition and a tendency to snack have jumped farther up the list.

Morning patrons agree¹ that healthy breakfasts are important (77 percent); functional foods are attractive (44 percent); a la carte is better than combo meals (35 percent); and restaurants need to offer more for restrictive diets (31 percent).

Although no operator will be able to satisfy everyone, one approach is to offer better-for-you items and smaller portions of core items, allowing patrons to make their own snacks or self-created combo meals. This would please guests wanting a more healthful meal, as well as others wanting to customize their experience.

While younger Americans still flock to restaurants, Baby Boomers are now the ones to court. Possessing plenty of time and 70 percent of U.S. wealth, they have the disposable income and dining habits that make them attractive to marketers.

Recent research³ shows that Millennials’ visits have dropped for five years, while visits from Boomers and older (48+) are on the rise, with Boomers dining more often in every industry segment than before the recession. Boomers tend to be loyal to their favorite restaurants, be well-traveled and have diverse culinary interests. Boomer restaurant desires are simple:⁴ cleanliness; booth seating; and table service and payment.

The research shows that morning meal visits have recovered to pre-recession levels entirely due to the increased visits by older consumers, who are now the most frequent purchasers of restaurant morning meals.

Other notes

• The incidence of breakfast burritos on QSR menus rose 46 percent between Q3 2009 and Q3 2012.¹

• 36 percent of fast-casual guests say they are ordering from the healthy menu more often than they did a year ago.²

• The use of “freshly baked” increased 49 percent on QSR breakfast menus between Q3 2009 and Q3 2012.¹

• Quick-service restaurants’ share of breakfast sales has risen by 8 percent since 2007.⁵

• Boomers and older (48+) have increased their share of restaurant traffic by 6 percentage points since 2008, while Millennials have decreased their share of traffic by the same percentage points.³

• 51 percent of those surveyed say they purchased breakfast from a QSR within the past month.¹

Sources

1. Mintel, Breakfast Restaurant Trends – U.S. – January 2013

2. Technomic, Future of Casual Dining Consumer Trend Report, 2013

3. NPD, Boomers and Beyond – Targeting for Success, 2013

4. 2012 research from Purdue’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management

5. NPD, quoted in Restaurant Hospitality, 1/11/13

The article by Adam Belz, “Minnesota companies and workers cache in on big data,” focuses on the demand for people with skills to take unstructured data and turn it into structured data. I’m glad that big data is getting covered in mainstream media and the article makes me feel pretty optimistic for researchers. The analytic skills that many researchers possess should put them in position to take on the data jobs so many companies need filled.

What the article leaves out is who is going to tell the story of the data once it is structured. In my opinion, this is another skill researchers possess that will be in great demand.

Do you think researchers are prepared to take on big data? Does big data scare or excite you?

In his ‘Dear airline, here’s the problem…’ article, which was the April 4 installment of The Wall Street Journal‘s great “The Middle Seat” column, writer Scott McCartney profiled how several of the major airlines are actually acting on the results of the surveys they conduct.

From simply analyzing the results of their conventional customer surveys to using text-recognition software to look for equipment problems mentioned in surveys, the tools being used are many and varied.

And, refuting another common harbinger of doom for the research industry, the airlines are reporting huge response rates for their surveys, McCartney said. United gets 10 percent of its blast surveys back; JetBlue says between 15 percent to 20 percent of its customers respond; American says its selective surveying gets an 18 percent response rate; and Virgin America claims a 20 percent rate.

Of course, as McCartney noted, and the cynics will no doubt seize on, beyond the obvious benefit of creating satisfied (or potentially less-dissatisfied) customers, showing a responsiveness to passenger complaints also makes the airlines look good to government watchdogs like the Department of Transportation. That may well be, but if it ends up with a better travel experience for everyone involved while showing the public that responding to surveys isn’t a waste of time, I don’t see the downside.

Not knowing the source of data (or knowing it but not seeing the conflicts of interest)

My general rule is that whenever a sponsoring organization has a vested interested in the outcome of the data, the data has a bias. The bias might be in the sample, the wording of the questions or simply the way the data is presented but if the organization is publishing the data for all to see, it is generally going to make sure the findings make it look favorable.

In my home state of Minnesota it recently came out that projections showing that revenues from electronic pull tab sales would explode in Minnesota and immediately start funding a new Minnesota Vikings stadium were based largely on estimates made by gaming businesses that would benefit if the state adopted the new form of gambling. Those in charge of supplying the data claim that they never hid the source. That may be, but they certainly don’t seem to have been forthcoming either.

Lesson: Know thy source. If the data sponsors stand to gain from the results of a study, the results may be biased, no matter how loudly they protest to the contrary.

Blindly believing the data that works best for you

The data error isn’t always based on an intention to manipulate. Sometimes I see instances where companies, organizations or people want to will away data. This seems to have been the case with the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. Every time a poll showed Obama ahead, Romney’s team would attack it. At first I thought this might just be political posturing but based on comments they’ve made in the months following the election, it seems the campaign team simply refused to believe independent data that showed Obama winning – despite the fact that the numbers were coming from numerous sources.

Lesson: Ignoring data does not make it less true.

Surveying your customers only

In a third example of survey bias, a local company recently profiled in the media noted that, based on research among its customers, it had a 98 percent satisfaction rating. The news story, however, went on to state that the company was losing market share. The problem seems to be that the firm is surveying the wrong people, if it wants to continue growing. After all, it isn’t just your customers you need to understand but your entire market. For example, I have no doubt that those who rent videos from their local video store are very happy with their service. But what about everyone else? If a video store only surveyed its own customers, it would miss a large segment of its potential audience (and in this case be unaware of a major threat at its doorstep).

Lesson: It isn’t enough to just know your customers. You need to know your competitors’ customers as well. 

When reviewing studies or news articles involving survey findings, what else do you look for to determine if the research is believable? Perhaps we can compile a list like “The 10 Commandments of Reading About Research in the News.”

In my house, the March Madness tradition is on par with Christmas, where my husband and his friends take two full days off from work to drink Bloody Marys, eat junk food and try to keep tabs on four different TV channels simultaneously. Even for those who don’t follow regular-season play, March Madness is like three weeks of Super Bowls – you don’t need to have already invested to get invested.

And speaking of investments, marketers have been getting creative in trying to capture their piece of the tourney pie without breaking the bank. This year, a 30-second ad spot during the championship game on CBS could reach a record $1.4 million. Buffalo Wild Wings may have had the funds to pony up and become “The Official Hangout of March Madness,” but unfortunately, the exorbitant price tag required for using terms like “March Madness” and “Final Four” in marketing makes getting in the fray impossible for most.

Well, at least getting in the official fray.

There’s a whole culture surrounding the tournament that marketers want to capitalize on and where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Enter: the marketing ambush.

According to Bruce Horovitz’s March 18 USA Today article, “March Madness marketers run the ambush route,” an ambush means finding low-budget ways to digitally link brands with the tournament without paying huge ad or sponsorship fees by sidestepping the trademarked terms.

Horovitz uses Pizza Hut, Spam and Hooters as examples:

• Giving away pizzas. Pizza Hut is offering college basketball fans, who sign up in advance, the chance to win a coupon for a free medium pizza with one topping ($8 value) if all four No. 1 seeds in the tournament advance to the semi-finals in Atlanta.

Never mind that Pizza Hut is not a sponsor or in-game advertiser. “We are not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes,” says Caroline Masullo, director of digital marketing. “We consider this to be smart marketing.”

• Trying to go viral. Spam has posted on YouTube a video of a goofy character, “Sir Can A Lot,” who runs around screaming that he can’t get over “the madness of March.” It’s using the video to target fans on social media.

“The ‘madness of March’ video was created because we looked at March and figured that would be trending,” says Nicole Behne, senior brand manager.

• Creating buzz. Hooters is offering downloadable deals during the tournament that it’s dubbed Hooters Hooky basketball coupons. Among the offerings: free fried pickles. “We decided to be the official sponsor,” says marketing chief Dave Henninger, “for the passion of watching college basketball tournaments.”

The NCAA isn’t happy with ambush marketing infringing on its trademark but hasn’t publicly acknowledged the offenders.

This type of workaround campaign is becoming more common as ad costs continue to rise (witness all of the talk of “the big game” around Super Bowl time as well) but what do you think? Is it unethical to piggyback on the popularity of big sporting events like this? Or is it, as Masullo said, just smart marketing? Would you ever consider ambush marketing? Do you think differently about brands that do?

• “Traditional” methods appear to have some surprising resilience, according to data presented by SSI’s Kristin Cavallaro and Jay Meyers. In a research-on-research study, SSI asked consumers how they wanted to be surveyed and 55 percent preferred online; 18 percent chose phone; 16 percent said mail surveys; 6 percent said mobile and 5 percent said in-person. While acknowledging that mobile certainly is growing and will become more acceptable to respondents, they noted that the industry’s level of excitement about it appears to be out of synch with that of consumers.

• In a talk on the use of social media for marketing, J. Walker Smith, executive chairman of The Futures Company, said that brands and companies have it all wrong. Their job is not to use social media and other tools to engage with consumers. Rather, they should employ social media to foster and facilitate the relationships that people have with each other. Under what he called the kinship economy, brands should give consumers social currency (in the form of information) that they can use to interact and share with other consumers. He cited as an example a Lowe’s Facebook app that helped consumers trade tips with each other, not the brand.

• At a morning session called “Embracing Change Before Change ‘Embraces’ You,” panelists offered some advice for how to survive in our rapidly-changing industry.

In terms of having the right mind-set to stay ahead of the pack, Kathy McGettrick, vice president of market development, sales and distribution, IBM, talked about viewing the research process as requiring what she called a new trinity, made up of primary research, analytics and a social media component. To capitalize on big data, every researcher doesn’t need to become an analytics expert, as long as you can find the analytics guru in your organization and make friends with them. She also said one of her demands of her research team is for “no more naked research” – that is, all research studies must have, or be able to be tied to, a solid and defined business context. “Nice-to-know” isn’t an option anymore.

Nielsen’s EVP and CRO Paul Donato said that research today requires a range of new skill sets but that one of the ways for MR to have its place is to serve as a kind of general contractor who can bring together all the disparate parts into a useful and cohesive whole.

The Wharton School’s Jerry Wind echoed that idea, saying that researchers have two options: become a specialist in one area or become an integrator and bring them together.

McGettrick offered another hopeful and helpful way to view the researcher’s role when she likened it to alchemy, playing off the idea of researchers as insights alchemists who can take the raw materials of various types of data and bring them together to create a precious metal: the useful insight. But the insight itself isn’t enough, she hastened to add. Along with saying “Here is what we learned” researchers must also say “Here is what we should do.”

After all, Moss paints an unsavory picture of Big Food. The article offers up four vignettes, involving a range of food industry execs, scientists and researchers (including veteran marketing researcher Howard Moskowitz) and their work on seminal products from Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper to Oscar Mayer’s Lunchables.

Granted, the revelations in the article aren’t all that, well, revelatory. We know that food makers have long taken the “give ‘em what they want” approach and have loaded their products with the delicious-but-debilitating trio referred to in the title of Moss’s book. And we know that a lot of their impetus for doing so –  beyond the profit motive – is based on talking with and observing consumers.

That’s the source of my concern. As I read the article, I wondered what, if any, blowback the marketing research industry might face as a result of the book. In the Times excerpt, a host of research techniques from taste-tests to focus groups are cited as the vehicles through which the food industry gathers the data it needs to develop the products that will satisfy (or exacerbate) our cravings.

Will the book gin up a wave of concern/outrage over marketing research and its use as a tool to pick our brains? Especially in light of the interest in neuromarketing research techniques and the dark activities their critics say they supposedly make possible (manipulation! mind control!), will MR have to mount a fresh campaign to (re)assure the public that we’re actually the good guys and not the agents of corporate greed?

More importantly, the article makes you concerned for those of us in the Western world. We consumers are funny creatures. We all know the role that nutrition plays in our health. There are more sources than ever of information on what to eat and what not to eat. We know when we’re eating healthfully and when we are not.

But for many people, the act of eating is so much more than a mere biological imperative. Those binges on ice cream or chips or cheeseburgers or Little Debbies are all about filling an emotional need (certainly a bottomless pit, for some). I’m not trying to absolve the food industry of its role in the process. I don’t buy the whole “Hey, we’re just giving them what they want!” argument but consumers certainly bear their share of the blame for their choices.

Still, when you read about the precision with which scientists and researchers are calibrating foods and beverages to help us reach our “bliss point,” it’s hard not to feel a bit taken advantage of. For example, though I am immune to the lure of Cheetos – the Virgo in me hates any foodstuff that requires a vigorous hand-washing after consumption –  thanks to Moss I now know the reason certain friends and relatives are powerless before them: vanishing caloric density. As food scientist Steven Witherly says in the article, “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it … you can just keep eating it forever.”

Lest we think that all the angst about junk food is something new, I also found fascinating the insights on chip-eating that Moss quotes from a 1957 report by Ernest Dichter. The famed psychologist listed seven “fears and resistances” to chips: you can’t stop eating them; they’re fattening; they’re not good for you; they’re greasy and messy to eat; they’re too expensive; it’s hard to store the leftovers; and they’re bad for children.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now, after almost a year of trying to make Fair and Square happen and taking an over-25-percent hit in same-store sales, it seems JCPenney is abandoning ship altogether. According to Jeff Macke’s January 29 article, “Sales Are Back: JCPenney Continues to Confound,” the retailer is reintroducing many of the promotions it discontinued in 2012 and launching new price tags that will include information on what competing retailers charge for the same merchandise.

On the one hand, I feel a little sorry for JCPenney. In theory, I think Fair and Square pricing makes sense. Instead of making us all hunt around for bargains and promotions and using oodles of coupons lest we end up feeling we’re being taken for a ride, just give us the bottom-dollar price upfront. Enough with the “fake” prices. Target, Walmart, JCPenney, Macy’s: I know this down-alternative pillow isn’t really worth $60 and I’d be willing to bet it hasn’t been sold at $60 since it first entered the store so why keep the inflated MSRP on the tag? There’s no way I’d pay more than $40 – you and I both know this!

On the other hand, it’s undeniably satisfying when I look at the bottom of the receipt and see that at the end of a particularly good shopping trip I “saved” more than I spent. (Even though it’s not actual savings since the original price on the tag is, well, fake.) It’s simply going to take more than a year and more than one retailer’s efforts to change the way I – and most likely the rest of America – think about promotions, pricing and what constitutes a good deal.

JCPenney customers have spoken. With their wallets. And JCPenney is now forced to listen. The real question is, can it bounce back after its travails over the past few years?

According to Evan Ramstad’s January 30^th article, “Google Fills In North Korea Map, From Subways to Gulags,” in the Wall Street Journal, last week Google revised its Maps application to include geographical data covering North Korea, which is notoriously closed-off and hostile to outside – especially Western – intrusion.

To accomplish this feat, Google called upon North Koreans to participate as “citizen cartographers” to submit site names via Map Maker, a Google development program. Maps of the region now include “the names of many streets, schools, subway stations and landmarks” and, incredibly, outlines and names of North Korean work/prison camps, rumored to be among the world’s largest and most inhumane.

Despite the dubious reputation crowdsourcing may have earned over the past few years, it would be unwise for marketers and researchers to underestimate the power of masses. If crowdsourcing can help Google get a look past the shroud of one of the most mysterious countries in the world, what can’t it do?