Is light the next monochrome wall to fall?

From movies to television sets and from computer monitors to cell phones, black-and-white interfaces are so last century. But, traditionally the light bulbs we use are still primarily on or off, a very binary state that looks like it could be about to break. Light is moving from on-off and some shades of grey to all the colors of the rainbow.

This season has seen the introduction of many new marketing trends for Black Friday. The news has covered the rumors of many stores’ plans for products, hours, and deals. Because of the hype and increased competition surround this single shopping day, it’s important for retailers to create great marketing strategies for Black Friday weekend. It is a mark for the kickoff of holiday shopping, and for many companies, it’s the biggest sales day of the year. Researching what consumers are looking for can make or break a company’s Black Friday success.

Market research, while critical to the overall success of an organization, is viewed by many as a big-ticket item when it comes to budget. But, although quality research doesn't always come cheap, its importance, not just for your marketing department, but for your entire organization is paramount. The benefits far outweigh the cost. You have to look at it from the mindset of an "investment" versus simply money spent. Most organizations understand that a complete lack of market research, or even just an inadequate amount, can put your organization at risk, yet some still struggle to jump the hurdle in allocating the resources necessary to their market research efforts. If we look at it from this perspective, perhaps it is most effective to consider the value market research holds across multiple departments within an organization. In doing so, you can more easily understand the value you are getting for your dollar.

With the busy lives of Americans today, as well as the movement towards Thanksgiving being a consumer-driven holiday, it isn’t surprising that the traditional golden-brown, 20-pound turkeys are not the most important aspect of Thanksgiving dinner anymore. Families are branching out and purchasing new alternatives to the beautiful bird.

There’s no denying the impact digital media has had on the market research realm. While the Internet has resulted in plenty of positive changes and a significantly increased freedom of information, the sheer amount of data available can be overwhelming. However, there are ways to deal with information overload - ranging from the complex to the extremely simple.

Drug development companies across the world have identified biomarkers as the effective solution to new product developments. The field of system biology provides theoretical and statistical tools for evaluating complicated clinical data. It allows access to molecular profiling information and explains facts related to biology in an orderly manner.

Advertising in the United States generated revenues of $39.1 billion in 2013. Companies and organizations of all sizes use advertising to reach their target market and inform them of their products and promotions. However, a specific form of advertising, and a sometimes less popular form, that focuses on the brand rather than highlighting products is corporate advertising.

As a professional in the market research and competitive intelligence industry, there have been many occasions where I would go looking for information requested by a client only to find that it is just not there. In most cases, the request is simply too specific for syndicated research to handle, but sometimes it's more surprising than that. Sometimes, whole industries are not well represented and that can be more puzzling. So, here is a brief list of common reasons you just can’t find syndicated reports about what you are looking for.

It can be very difficult to establish a criteria for measuring and judging brand awareness and, therefore, judging the efficacy of a marketing campaign. Unlike other measurements, such as website traffic, organic searches, or conversion, awareness is a much more intangible measurement, difficult to quantify and evaluate in a meaningful and objective way. Nevertheless, it can be done. One important tool for doing this can be market research.

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report that was made public on October 9, 2014, concluding a two year study of the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) to closely examine how these agencies use market research.  Their findings indicated that the market research guidance of all three agencies studied, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), was consistent with federal regulations but all failed to acceptably collect and analyze market information about vendor capabilities in the three most important phases of a procurement’s life cycle: Presolicitation (before developing new required documents and before soliciting offers), Preaward (during the proposal evaluation process to determine price reasonableness) and Postaward (before awarding task).