Articles by Advocate Market Research

Kalinda Fisher founded Advocate Market Research Bureau in an effort to combine the emerging methodologies of Ethnographic Market Research with her strong desire to provide personalized attention. This served to help businesses and organizations achieve a deeper understanding into the attitudes and behaviors of today’s consumers.

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Advocate Market Research has written 19 articles for AdTalk

Advocate Market Research

Techniques – Honor Diversity (#3 of 3)

by Advocate Market Research

Suggestion Three – honor the diversity Groups are as different as the folks who sit around those oblong tables.  Don’t jump to conclusions just because you’re sitting around the table with a group of teachers (typically more friendly than others), anesthesiologists (typically more guarded than most), or banking customers (typically more hostile than others) because even though [...]

Techniques #2 of 3

by Advocate Market Research

Suggestion Two – Wear MANY hats No group is a cakewalk, but they are fun, challenging and productive if you know how best to proceed.  So, as to what technique(s) I employ, I guess I’d have to say I’m part moderator (adhering to the needs of my client), part therapist (gathering insight into my respondents’ [...]

Focus Group Techniques – #1 of 3

by Advocate Market Research

Suggestion One – Start a conversation by identifying the nature of your groups I can almost hear you ask … A conversation?  How do you do that?  Well, assess your group.   Do you have a friendly group?  They could get a bit chatty so tread carefully on the whole bonding thing.  Perhaps they are a [...]

FOCUS GROUPS: The ‘Technique’ Question

by Advocate Market Research

I’ve been doing focus groups for over a dozen years now so it’s fair…it’s fair that people ask me ‘what technique do you use?’  I actually take it as a great compliment but, truth be told, I don’t use ‘A’ technique’.  Nope, not a one!  Okay, so now I’m digging a hole I fear I [...]

Welcome Back to the previous discussion (foot traffic): Here we are at THE NEXT LEVEL

by Advocate Market Research

  SHE continues to say (can’t quite shut her up on this one…SHE has passion for this level), get them in and do it using all of the newest greatest technological gadgets, widgets, blogs, posts, and blasts that you can.  Why not?  Everyone else is and if you don’t, your competition will (sorry, but someone [...]

It’s not just about getting them in the door…

by Advocate Market Research

Foot traffic is good.  No, foot traffic is GREAT!  Who wouldn’t agree with this?  You’ve probably said these very words: My business couldn’t exist without it.  I need people through my doors.   Ah…all absolutely valid comments, but if that’s the end of our business plan, then I disagree. Now, don’t get mad – I [...]

Contrary Customers – Let them go…

by Advocate Market Research

This is a hard one to swallow but…let them go! Really, some customers are fantastic, lots of them are better, but difficult ones, or maybe best to say those without your vision, need to be let go. There’s a rather well-known business book which gives you the authority and the okay to let them go, [...]

Voice your opinion…how do you feel about the current state of airport security?

by Advocate Market Research

Do the body scans at airports seriously offend you? http://polls.linkedin.com/p/111062/xbrsx

More Mars vs Venus in Marketing? Imagine That!

by Advocate Market Research

Men (Consumers) and Women (Consumers), are, in a word…DIFFERENT! Oh goodness, did I really say the “D” word? Yes, I did…and I’ll say it again, DIFFERENT! It’s not really all that scary a word and, frankly, it’s one that marketers/retailers need to embrace, especially if it’s the key that reveals the formula to reach consumers [...]

Don’t Hesitate … Triangulate

by Advocate Market Research

So, you ask someone … “what do you like, ice cream or cookies?” and you get your answer, right?  But wait, not so fast!  Consider this:  they may say “ice cream” but that might be because it’s a beautiful sunny day and the ice cream truck has just passed.   Yet, quite honestly, they much prefer [...]

BULLETIN!!!!! Sociologist Turns Market Researcher…and why that’s important to you

by Advocate Market Research

It’s wild out there!  Enticements for consumers are everywhere in the form of promos, TV ads, radio sound bites, billboards, magazine slicks, newspaper announcements, etc.  Trouble is there is so much out there that today’s consumers are not listening.  They are tired of the clamor.  They are tired of too many pages of advertising in [...]

Change…It’s a Good Thing (as long as you see it coming)

by Advocate Market Research

Let’s say you have a small business.  You have a retail shop where you sell baskets from all over the world.  You’d been successfully established for over ten years when you notice that basket sales are down compared to previous years.  Interestingly, a few years back you brought in stuffed bears of every shape and [...]

Do you want monkeys?

by Advocate Market Research

 Imagine yourself as a contestant in a game show where you can actually choose your prize, then design a plan to capture it.  You are given a limited bankroll to finance the venture and a group of people to whom you must answer.  With each decision you make you must convince them that you are [...]

When the Jungle Meets Main Street – Anthropology in Market Research

by Advocate Market Research

If it sounds like this essay refers to opposing worlds … it does, and it doesn’t.  While the word ‘Jungle’ may turn your thoughts to famous anthropologists studying apes and aboriginal people, the Main Street investigator considers societal sub-sets within today’s culture, i.e., professionals, workers, homemakers, using socio-cultural anthropology or ethnographic research.  Whether the researcher [...]

Progress – It’s a process.

by Advocate Market Research

Progress and innovation – ordinary expressions loaded with extraordinary potential.  The trick is to bring them back into our everyday business vernacular. Since the beginning of 2009 many of us have put innovation (hence, progress) on the back burner for the sake of “the bottom line.”  When the pinch came, the first things to go [...]

Are you planning on buying the new iPad in 2010?

by Advocate Market Research

 http://polls.linkedin.com/p/75929/ctfdh

Tweet Tweet

by Advocate Market Research

It’s sweet, simple and succinct to tweet…do you do twitter? If so let me know. I’d love to be in the loop… http://kalindafisher/twitter.com

Are you putting your money under your mattress?

by Advocate Market Research

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/72893/xrbne

How does your holiday spending stack up?

by Advocate Market Research

Click below to answer my latest poll… http://polls.linkedin.com/p/70746/emkis