Vivian Hernandez, Moderator/Consultant

Chicago Tribune — Tempo (10/8/1998)

By Terry McManus

On one side of the observation mirror at a Chicago market-research firm, everyone has a bowl of Lucky Charms. The first person to fling a handful of cereal across the room, hitting people in the face, sparks a food fight. Some get doused with milk.

On the opposite side of the glass, meanwhile, another group is brainstorming about product ideas. They sketch concepts on sheets of paper and offer critiques of existing product lines.

Afterward, the adults scrape the cereal from their faces. It's time for them to begin analyzing the ideas developed by the eight kids they were just watching.

By: Michelle Taufmann

If your company is looking for the next breakthrough idea to help expand your marketing opportunities, the answer might be closer than you think! Consider conducting internal creativity sessions among your own staff members. With an internal ideation session, led by an experienced facilitator, you can take advantage of the creative talents and unique perspectives already at your fingertips to generate hundreds of fresh ideas — for barely a dent in the department pocketbook.

Contrary to popular belief, innovation is not necessarily born from the creative or marketing departments alone. Truly novel ideas can come from a wide range of individuals offering diverse perspectives from their own unique views of the world. After all, take off our work hats and we are all customers and consumers. By simply tapping into the creativity of a diverse range of staff members throughout the organization, from research and development, to public relations, human resources, and production — and even the number crunchers, you are expanding the breadth and diversity of ideas generated. The key is getting participants from outside the project staff.

By Linda Mae Carlstone

Employees at Doyle Research Associates, Inc admit they have closely scrutinized people sorting their laundry and cleaning their bathrooms.

But they’re not stalking or spying—they’re market researchers, and they’re using a technique they developed called ShopTalk®, which observes people selecting and using a product.

Watching people do what they do in a real-life setting can reveal a lot of unconscious behavior and details participants forget to bring up in a focus group discussion, said senior research associate Tom McGee.

Quirk's Marketing Review (12/2001)

By Tom McGee
Vice President
Doyle Research Associates

Nine-year-old Amanda was having a hard time containing herself. She was asked to jot down a couple of ideas for new types of ketchup. But rather than just put her ideas on paper, this ambitious young lady spent hours in the kitchen at home concocting a special recipe. She was just itching to share her new creation with the rest of the group — "Just wait until everybody checks out my new colored ketchup."

• Have you ever experienced deja vu while working on a new product or R&D initiative?
• Ever wonder how many great ideas or insights are hidden in your firm’s files, or stuck in the company pipeline, but you have neither the time nor staff to seek them out?
• Do you think potentially great innovations may have been killed prematurely by those who came before you?
• Do you sometimes feel you are being asked to re-invent what has already been invented?
• Think your company may have unknowingly walked away from some excellent ideas, or failed to fully integrate research findings into its marketing efforts due to budget cuts, downsizing, management turnover, a rotating door of consultants and research suppliers, or outsourcing?

Focus groups are fine, but they usually occur well after the customer makes a purchase, uses a product or visits a store--when memories aren't nearly as sharp. Here's an alternative that may yield deeper insight into the factors affecting customers' purchasing decisions: on-site group interviews that provide immediate feedback and reveal customers' true feelings about products, the environment where they were purchased and how they are used.

As has become evident over the past few years, manufacturers of products ranging from candy bars to computers and cars, and businesses from quick service restaurants to four-star resorts have recognized the dollar power of the youth market…kids, tweens and teens. Whether it’s kids spending their own money on chips and soda or swaying parents’ decisions on where to vacation, their impact on the corporate bottom line continues to grow.

MRA Alert! (3/00)

by Kathy Doyle, Doyle Research Associates

A considerable amount of research is being conducted among the youth population today, a population that creates a unique set of responsibilities for the researcher. According to ESOMAR’s Guidelines on Interviewing Children and Young People, “The welfare of the children and young people themselves is the overriding consideration-they must not be disturbed or harmed by the experience of being interviewed.” This is the point of view we take when approaching a project involving children.

by Tom McGee

In the history of man, childhood as a distinct stage of life is a relatively recent notion. Children as a distinct consumer market is an even more recent concept. Before the baby boom came along, there was no market for children's products and services to speak of. Today, children aged 4 to 12 influence more than $165 billion in spending in the U.S., and some say this is a conservative estimate.