by Michaela Mora

Posted on February 26, 2010

Packaging research shows that  only 90% of new packaging re-designs fail to drive sales.  Why? Brain plasticity may be one of the culprits.

I recently attended a lecture about  brain plasticity given by Dr. Norman Doidge, author of The Brain that Heal Itself, at the Center for Brain Health in Dallas. He defined neuroplasticiy as the property of the brain to change its function and structure in response to mental experience (perceiving, motor action, imagining) and other forms of stimulation (e.g. electrical), which goes on in many levels in the brain.

Through many case studies, Dr. Doidge illustrated the incredible ability the human brain has for continuous change and great potential for providing cures. This has always been the truth, but it has taken us 400 years to recognize it because of:

1. Lack of technology to observe the changes
2. Notoriously poor prognosis for brain injury
3. The mechanistic model: mankind has had three main analogies for nature – nature as organism, nature as machine, nature as historic process
4. The plasticity paradox: plasticity gives rise to both rigid and flexible behaviors, and our rigid behaviors lead us to assume that the brain is overly rigid

The fact is that neuroplasticity is responsible for not only cures, but also for illnesses, which led me to think that brain plasticity may be one of the reasons new packaging often fail to motivate shoppers to buy. Scott Young, president of Perception Research Services, argues, in an article published in the 2010 January issue of Quirk’s Research Magazine, that the increase in shelf visibility through contrast (via color blocking, unique shapes, and strong brand identity) is the single strongest driver of sales increases.  This explanation makes sense, but only explains it from the stimuli perspective. The question still remains as to why consumers would need a contrast jolt to buy a product because of its packaging.

From the consumer perspective, we may find the answer in the core laws of neuroplasticity, which are:

1. Neurons that fire together wire together, neurons out of synch fail to link
2. Use it or lose it
3. Plasticity is competitive: trained neurons fire faster more efficient signals

When a consumer is exposed to a product in a particular packaging, connections are made in the brain so that the product is associated with that particular packaging structure (its colors, shape, and brand logo). The more exposure she gets to it, the stronger the connections become as neurons get trained, leading to a “rigid” perception of the product. Consumers may not recognize it if presented in a new package or even revolt against it, as it happened when PepsiCo tried to change the image of the Tropicana orange juice in 2009.

In order to succeed, a new packaging needs to be able to create connections by first attracting attention, but then motivating consumers to give it a second look. Through studies conducted in collaboration with Wharton and INSEAD, Young found that reexamination of a product is an even more powerful predictor of purchase.

So in order to succeed with a new packaging re-design, marketers should conduct research to find the right balance between deep rooted aspects of the brand identity and new elements that strengthen positive perceptions of the brand and create new neuronal connections. These new elements should be enticing enough to persuade the consumer to give it a first and a second look and, assuming that the product meets her needs and is affordable, ultimately buy it.

Related Posts:

- Packaging Research Needed to Drive Sales
- Never Underestimate the Need of Branding Research to Avoid Marketing Blunders

by Michaela Mora

Posted on February 9, 2010

I recently came across the new ad from Domino’s Pizza where they show a clip of focus groups they conducted with consumers about their products. I love it! The message was clear: they listened to their customers. Their management and product teams were brave enough to really pay attention to what customers think. I’ll be eternally grateful to Domino’s pizza for the message sent about the value of market research.

This may not sound as a novel idea, but many, many companies go about their business thinking they don’t need to conduct market research in order to improve their products and grow. They believe they know enough about their industry and product category that there is nothing new to learn. Then there are companies that are barely aware of the importance of research, but see it as an expense and not an investment. They prefer to throw spaghetti at the walls and see what sticks.

I don’t know how many focus groups Domino’s did or if they also used other research methods to test their improved pizzas, but the important thing here is that they were willing to listen to their customers.

Now regarding methodology for new product development, I always advise clients to combine qualitative (e.g. focus groups) and quantitative research (e.g. surveys) methods.

Qualitative research is by definition exploratory, and it is used when we don’t know what to expect, to define the problem or develop an approach to the problem. It’s also used to go deeper into issues of interest and explore nuances related to the problem at hand.

Quantitative research is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results to a larger population.

Here are some guidelines to use both types of research in new product development:

Combining both approaches when developing new products will give you a solid foundation to make the right decisions for your business grounded in consumer insights.

by Michaela Mora

Posted on February 4, 2010

Often when I work with a client in developing a questionnaire, I get asked whether we should include a neutral point in rating questions (e.g. Very satisfied, Satisfied, Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied, Very Dissatisfied).  A lot of research has been conducted in this realm, particularly by psychologists concerned with scale development, but not definitive answer has been found and the debate still continues. Some studies find support for excluding it while others for including it depending on the subject, audience and type of question.

Those against a neutral point argue that by including it, we give respondents an easy way out to avoid taking a position on a particular issue.  There is also the argument that equates including a neutral point to wasting research dollars, since this information would not be of much value or at worse it would distort the results. This camp advocates for avoiding the use of a neutral point and forcing respondents to tell us on which side of the issue they are.

However, we as consumers make decisions all day along and many times we find ourselves idling in neutral. A neutral point can reflect any of these scenarios:

1. We feel ambivalent about the issue and could go either way
2. We don’t have an opinion about the issue due to lack of knowledge or experience
3. We  never developed an opinion about the issue  because we find it irrelevant
4. We don’t want to give our real opinion if it is not considered socially desirable
5. We don’t remember a particular experience related to the issue that is being rated

By forcing respondents to take a stand when they don’t have a formed opinion about something, we introduce measurement error in the data since we are not capturing a plausible psychological scenario in which respondents may find themselves. If the goal of the question is to understand the variation in opinion, we should not only use a neutral point but also a “Not sure/Don’t Know/Not Applicable” option. This would allow respondents in scenarios 2 and 3 to provide an answer that is true to their experience.

For example the other day I got a customer satisfaction survey from Blackberry after a call I made to their support desk. The survey had a question in which I was asked to rate the representative, who took my call, on different aspects.  One of them was “Timely Updates: Regular status updates were provided regarding your service request.” I wouldn’t know how to answer this, since the issue I called for didn’t required regular updates. Luckily, they had a “Not applicable” option, otherwise I would have been forced to lie, and one side of the scale would be as good as the other.

An increase in non-responses and survey abandonment can also result from respondents who don’t want to air their opinion because of perceptions of low social desirability. If they are given the “Not sure/Don’t Know/Not Applicable,” they are more likely to use it than the neutral point. This would be preferable since they could be excluded from the analysis for a particular question, but information on other questions would not be lost. A better alternative yet is to provide a “Prefer not to answer” option if the question touches particularly sensitive issues.

Finally, the best antidote against having respondents gravitating towards the neutral point is to make sure that we show the questions to those who can really answer them. With the help of skip logic, we can design surveys that filter out respondents with no experience, knowledge or interest in the subject being rated. In my Blackberry example, they could have asked me first if my request needed regular updates, and if that was the case then ask me to rate my satisfaction with it. Most likely, the researcher that designed the Blackberry survey was trying to make the survey shorter, but I still could have introduced measurement error, if I hadn’t seen the “Not Applicable” option at the end of the scale, which I almost didn’t notice at first.

You may have guessed by now in which camp I am. Survey questions should be as close as possible to the way respondents would naturally answer them in real life. Sometimes we need to get there in several steps by filtering out those who can’t answer, but sometimes we just have to give them the option to be neutral.