Market Research Daily

Measuring Online Video Advertising Effectivenes

Online video advertising is perhaps the brightest spot in the entire advertising universe right now.  It is being fueled by a lot of investment dollars as well as ad dollars which are migrating away from traditional media.

Soon curiosity about the platform and experimentation will not, however, be enough to continue to drive growth.  In order to for the growth in online advertising to sustain itself or accelerate, accountability and measurement will be crucial.  Big digital video innovators like MTV and smaller ones like Blip.tv will drive this change and will ultimately need to come together around a standard for online video ad measurement.

Dan Beltramo, CEO of Vizu Corporation, an online brand advertising measurement firm, discussed the state of online video ad measurement and where the industry needs to go with Andy Plesser of Beet.tv.

Vanna Bonta Has Novel-istic Fashion Style

Vanna Bonta, author of the Flight cosmic heroine with no belly button, made an appearance at NASA to support "Yuri's Night" space rave and talked about smart fashion of the future.

Despite Vanna's confession that she is fashion-challenged and uses paper clips as hair barrettes, nearly 50% of respondents to a recent public opinion poll on the Vizu Answers online research network thought the adventuresome novelist is Geek Chic, with another 21% weighing in on Novelistic Couture.

What's a person to do when exploring the urban universe without much time to fuss with a lot of  fashion froo froo?  Functional multitasking fashion, such as Vanna's shoe invention of flats that eject heels, may be the new util-lit-hairian trend  -- whether orbiting planets or urban metropoplexes ... or floating with a honey in a zero gravity 2suit.

Related Article: Vanna Bonta and the Future of Fashion

A Favorite Mexican Food?

Most Mexican food is made out of the same ingredients.  What's a taco?  Tortilla with meat, beans, rice, cheese, maybe salsa and guacamole.  What's a burrito?  What's an enchilada?  You get my point.  It's all just a matter of packaging.  Don't get me wrong, it's all great, and I myself am particularly fond of the burrito.  However, this presents its own curiosity to me, as I generally prefer burritos, I imagine that most people have a favorite.  Vizu set out to discover if there is a majority favorite amongst the many different combinations of these tasty ingredients.

In an online market research poll, Vizu discovered that preferences are pretty much even across the board.  Tacos are technically the winner with the majority vote of 24.4%.

Research Finds Online Product Reviews Drive Sales

Amazon, as well as many nimble online retailers, have been including online customer based product reviews and ratings for many years.  Now, however, the king of retailing, Walmart, has finally decided to include customer product reviews as well.

Walmart decision is strongly supported by the data.  AdAge reports, "Wal-Mart executives said reviews and ratings were the feature most requested by customers, bearing out other indications of the importance of peer-to-peer approval."

BazaarVoice, the company hired by Walmart to power product reviews on it site, as been conducting research on the value that consumers place on product reviews as well.  In August, BazaarVoice released data showing that consumers are increasingly more likely to buy from websites that have product ratings and reviews.  In 2007 69% of respondents said that they would be more likely to buy from sites with ratings and reviews versus 63% in 2006.

More recently BazaarVoice released research conducted with Vizu Answers that shows that 80% of US shoppers put more trust in brands that offer consumer reviews.  Three out of four shoppers additionally indicate that customer reviews are extremely or very important when making purchases online.

The research also showed that consumers are embracing user generated content.  In fact, peer reviews are preferred to expert reviews by a six to one ratio.  The Bazaarvoice and Vizu study went on to show that US shoppers consider ratings and reviews to be the most helpful eCommerce site feature (44 percent) versus product comparisons (15 percent), product navigation (12 percent), and privacy information (11 percent).

UK consumers also actively seek out consumer reviews and ratings, though not yet to the same degree that US shoppers do, suggesting an opportunity for some UK based e-tailers to capitalize on this trend.

Vote Maps and Geographic Voting Patterns in Online Polling

Have you ever wondered if response patterns to your online research differed geographically?  Or, even where the participants in your research come from?

While analyzing data across geographies is nothing new, it is now possible to gain some geographic insight into responses for simple online polls that you conduct on your website or blog.

Now Vizu's free poll widget not only aggregates results for your web poll, it shows you were each of the votes came from.  Each answer is color coded to make it easier to identify regional differences in voting patterns.  The results are displayed on a Google Map that you can use to look at the data from a world perspective all the way down to a local level.

Here is a sample poll which will know if you are telling the truth.  Once you say were you are located, click the comment button beneath the poll results to see a demonstration of the associated vote map.

 

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Online Market Research and Customer Feedback

An article in the July issue of Entrepreneur magazine offered some tips to entrepreneurs on conducting market research and gathering customer feedback quickly and easily using online polls.  As Louise Garnett, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell Inc., a firm that specializes in the information services industry, put it, "Polls are fast and easy."

Entrepreneur, Alyssa Rapp, who is founder and CEO of BottleNotes, an online wine club, regularly uses polls for market research and obtaining customer feedback.  Of her polling and research provider, Vizu, Ms. Rapp said "It enables quick market research."

The article in Entrepreneur concludes with some tips for conducting online market research:

1. Poll multiple audiences to understand different perspectives.

2. Run the same poll on a regular basis to identify and track trends.

3. Think of new ways to use polls--they can help you learn about product design, purchase behavior, copy testing, trends, consumer preferences and more.

4. Keep in mind that it might take multiple polls to really understand an issue.