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09.08.2005

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on CONSUMER INSIGHTS, click here...

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01.12.2004 "The Death of Generational Marketing"

11.22.2002 "A Rational Explanation for Irrational Patterns of Consumption: The Self of Many Selves"

05.10.2002 "Will the New Wellness Consumer Please Stand Up"

10.30.1999 "You Say 'd-alpha tocopherol' and I Say 'vitamin E': Researching the Natural Products Consumer"

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Reality Marketing ^TM

What It Ss... and How To Get It

From the boardroom to the concert stage to a deserted island, and everywhere in between, people are caught up in the wave of reality television. Like it or not, watch it or not, "reality" is in; people can't seem to get enough of it. For all practical purposes, however, "the real" is really the unreal; reality TV is anything but real - it is mere entertainment, albeit, of a cultural kind. Reality TV is a villain who has distorted the essence of what is real beyond recognition.

Everyday life, however, is not a game show. There is no substitute for the genuine article. A lesson in reality was delivered this past summer as an unlikely hero emerged at the box office among moviegoers, as highlighted in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, A Reprieve for Reality in New Crop of Films. The extraordinary documentary film, March of the Penguins, about the life cycle of Antarctica's emperor penguins, captured imaginations, won over Americans' hearts and taught us a thing or two about the consumer's taste for reality.

This is a lesson marketers would be well to heed. For it is only "real" real life, played out in the context of consumers' households that can provide the answers required to develop innovative, effective marketing strategies. And, this is exactly what The Hartman Group does with Reality Marketing^TM, the new genre in market research.

Just as March of the Penguins gives viewers an up close and personal look into the world of the emperor penguin, Reality Marketing brings marketers the "real" face of the consumer. Reality Marketing is the ability to see people as they really are and how they really behave in terms of how the world within which they live affects their shopping and consumption habits. In other words, The Hartman Group's Reality Marketing gives marketers an up close and personal look into the "real world" of consumers - unedited and unscripted.

Marketers, in their quest for innovation and answers, are perched at the precipice of a precarious tipping point. Today's marketplace is characterized by a proliferation of choice, unpredictable change and complex consumers. As companies search for new, innovative products and services, or ways to reinvent and re-energize brands for tomorrow's consumers today, they face the reality that, in effect, they are knowledge bankrupt as it relates to what is actually known about how consumer consumption behavior is formed or what factors actually influence shopping/buying behavior.

To erase that uncertainty, The Hartman Group is introducing its latest innovation in consumer market research with its Household Immersion Lab^TM. The consumer-centric, ethnography-based Household Immersion Lab is Reality Marketing in action. The Household Immersion Lab creates realistic portrayals of the cultural context of shopping and using products and services as they connect directly to the routines of everyday life.

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Household Immersion Lab^TM: The Hartman Group introduces the Household Immersion Lab^TM, the cutting-edge genre in Reality Marketing^TM that casts new light on brands at the convergence of consumer lifestyles

For companies aspiring to be a lifestyle brand, it only makes good sense to truly understand how their brand is "integrated" in consumers' lives. To best understand consumer behavior, including the larger context within which such behavior takes place, companies need to first understand how consumers live, shop and use products and services. The Household Immersion Lab examines these three "theaters" of consumer behavior in the contexts of lifestyle, shopping behavior, and product and brand integration among many others from an inside out perspective: the consumers' point of view. This is the essence of Reality Marketing.

A class of one

We believe that no one else does Reality Marketing like we do. The continuing fragmentation of consumers, retail channels, and a host of other factors in the marketplace, combined with constantly changing consumer dynamics and the convergence of technology have caused companies to place greater emphasis than ever before on marketing strategy. As the adage dictates: it's not the quantity but the quality of marketing strategy that matters.

The Household Immersion Lab is The Hartman Group's unmatched protocol in which clients can effectively collaborate - immerse, integrate - to test how consumers respond, learn about, purchase, use and interact with their brands to improve their overall marketing effectiveness. In terms of the Household Immersion Lab, the following table illustrates exactly what Reality Marketing is (and is NOT):

THE REALITIES OF REALITY MARKETING
What it is NOT:		What it IS:
Cheesy entertainment		Serious, scientific market research
Staged, fabricated, manipulated		Very real consumers, humans, at the convergence with brands and their lifestyles
Voice of the company (manufacturer, retailer, product, service, etc.)		Voice and actions of the consumer
A specific data point - a historical context; a benchmark		Real time - life as it happens
A traditional methodology - tired, old, out of style		A cutting-edge genre in market research offering rich, robust, actionable insights
Static, numbers on a page, words in a report		Visual captures of the dynamic consumer
Scripted by a marketing or advertising organization		Spontaneous response to goods and services (brands) as played out in the multiple contexts of real life (e.g., eating, personal care, apparel, shopping, dining out, reading, entertainment, work, school, Internet, events, communication, etc.)
Singular focus: products and services, attitudes, etc.		Study of consumer behavior as human behavior

Setting the bar higher than ever

This fall, The Hartman Group's team of ethnographers begins the initial phase of the Household Immersion Lab. This pioneering effort opens up an entire new window onto understanding the consumption behavior of mainstream America. The initial 6-9 month Household Immersion Lab research effort is focused on eating patterns and will reveal the messy dynamics of Everyday Food Culture in America in surprising detail. While this first immersion centers on food, the Household Immersion Lab is perfectly suited to marketing and branding initiatives across a broad industry spectrum: apparel, technology, travel and leisure, hospitality, restaurant, consumer packaged goods, home improvement, telecommunications, retailing, etc.

The Household Immersion Lab is about having close encounters with consumers on their own turf. It is about reconciling the differences between what consumers say and what they do. For example, while this initial phase is built around two families (one empty nester Boomer and one family of four with children), companies can sponsor their own families and interact with them on any number of marketing initiatives, such as putting products into the family to see how they are adopted, accepted, consumed, used, shopped for, etc. Other applications may be to test messaging, labeling, packaging or if we know the families are going to stores, observe specific behaviors or look for certain shopping/buying cues, etc.

The following table illustrates how the Household Immersion Lab differs from traditional market research methods and practices in several important ways:

KEY POINTS OF DIFFERENCE
Traditional Market Research		Household Immersion Lab^TM
Passive; removed		Interactive, involved, engaged
Researcher directed		Consumer directed
Data driven findings; conclusions		Rich, actionable insights from insider/outsider perspective
Researcher as spectator		Researcher immersed alongside consumer; participant but removed
A scheduled event; specific "date on a calendar"		Ongoing, over long periods of time; months
Interviews; discussion guides: telephone surveys and focus groups (formal/informal)		Natural flow of life; consumer stream of consciousness and commentary
Specific objective		Multiple contexts within consumer's lifestyle
Statistical playback based on demographics and segmentation		Analysis and insights by qualified team with PhD's in cultural anthropology and sociology
A number; data-point; respondent		Relationship building - long-term partnership
Everything happens in the marketplace		What happens in the marketplace begins at home

With the Household Immersion Lab, companies "spend time" with their consumers as The Hartman Group's researchers provide an in-depth look at consumers and their behavior, capturing the telling moments that reveal what consumers actually do with products. The Household Immersion Lab helps marketers and brand managers understand how people define and perceive these products in their own cultural worlds. This research approach allows a more intimate portrait of emerging cultural trends as they play out at the household level.

HOUSEHOLD IMMERSION LAB: FRAMEWORK FOR MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS
Traditional Market Research		Household Immersion Lab^TM
The "how": how many, how much, how often, how likely, etc.		The "WHY" behind the buy - root causes underlying decisions made long before consumers go shopping
Timeframe: date on a calendar Narrow in scope: one-time snapshot; pre-determined regularly scheduled routine intervals		Timeframe: open window; broad view Longitudinal - ongoing over 6 to 9 month timeframe
External perspective Company directed - manipulated Detached from consumer Narrow focus on specific psychological and physical behavioral aspects of consumer consumption		Inside out - from consumer point of view Consumer directed - "no strings attached" Involved - immersed alongside consumer families Contexts - multiple and diverse Encompass the full range of consumer attitudes and behaviors
Traditional market research Singular focus on products and services Human behavior is rational and predictable		Reality Marketing^TM Humans are complex, messy and therefore behavior is irrational and unpredictable Theaters of consumer consumption: Live - lifestyle-oriented research Shop - cultural occasions Use - consuming; practices
Staff Understands numbers and segmentation Market research analysts Statistician Part-time university students or contract		Team Understands people and behavior getting at the why of what consumers say and what they do, and at why they don't always do what they say Fulltime staff of PhD's in cultural anthropology and sociology
Tools Telephone surveys and focus groups Retail intercept surveys Online quantitative surveys		Toolkit Anthropology Ethnography Video Neurolinguistic mapping (language maps)

With data so rich in findings, these close encounters with consumers will give companies the firsthand experience they need to do better marketing. The Hartman Group's Household Immersion Lab gives marketers the substance - gets at the why - required to drive real change. Better marketing; real change. Isn't that the reality you want?

Survivor: The Focus Group Edition

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Reality Marketing TM

What It Ss... and How To Get It

Reality Marketing ^TM