Re:think 2009: The ARF Annual Convention + Expo

There’s a rule in creative problem solving, “never accept the first right answer”. The second right answer is hard to come by. It requires a good BS detector, perseverance at amassing facts, ferreting out case histories and then distilling all that into synthesized learning. It m...

In March, the ARF completed executive interviews among 19 research leaders representing large marketers and media companies. Overall, Research got a passing grade, but certainly didn’t make honor roll. ...

On Tuesday, the ARF Online Research Quality Council presented detailed findings from an unprecedented US R&D project regarding online data quality, called “Foundations of Quality” (FoQ). Be...

Here is an interview with Michael Perman, Senior Director of Consumer Insights, Levi Strauss & Co. who has trained over 7,000 on storytelling and who is conducting, with Pat Hanlon, the ARF Workshop, “Stories Inspire” on June 22nd in NY. The interview with Pat Hanlon can be found here. Jo...

I came across a really interesting exchange of comments on Flickr (not Facebook or My Space or Twitter) from an irate person who joined an online research panel...

Patrick Hanlon My interview with Pat Hanlon, author of Primal Branding on the role of stories at creating great brands. Joel Rubinson: You have said that a great brand needs a great creation story. What do you mean by that and why is it so important...

A Klingon is one of the bad guys in Star Trek; a Marketing “Cling-on” is also dangerous…someone who clings on to rules of thumb from the past, believing the world is really not so different after all. Trek...

This is part two of a blog series on marketing in a recession. for part one, click here. In my last blog posting, I made the case that there will be “no normal” to return to, once the recession is over. Pe...

The Research profession has perennially sought a “seat at the table”. Last Tuesday, I had a seat at a (different kind of) table. I was part of a keynote morning panel on innovation at Ad:Tech in San Francisco. I ...

This is the first of a two-part blog on marketing in a recession. Our economy has taken a triple hit. First, we were buffeted by rising gas prices, then a wave of inflation that hadn’t been seen in 30 years, and then the current recession. ...

Marketing organizations need to ask the question of themselves, “Who owns social media?” Social media is at the intersection of PR, advertising, customer care, and consumer insights, so who owns it? I mean that both in the sense of within the marketing organization and also in the ecosystem. F...

Markets seem to evolve in one of two ways that imply very different strategies for launching new offerings: • Market entrenchment • Market reinvention Market entrenchment looks like this. Someone creates an innovation that establishes a new market. T...

We at the ARF want to thank the thousands who were part of the ARF Re:Think2009 annual conference. The fact that this year’s attendance was in the thousands and approached last year’s record high meant attendees would be particularly demanding about value received in this very tough year. An...