Crimson Hexagon co-founder Gary King still heads IQSS over at Harvard — and some of his innovative research design is getting some interesting press after its publication in The Lancet.
King and his colleagues designed and led a study with about 500,000 people: the largest-ever randomized health policy experiment. The study featured innovative research designs and statistical methods that make best use of available data in a cost-effective way.
What’s next? According to HarvardScience, the approach is now being implemented in, or considered for evaluations of — many other public policy programs around the world. The ability to understand what’s important and moving the public policy needle at a lower cost than other research methods is huge — particularly when you’re talking about delivering healthcare to the world’s poorest populations. As the petabyte age becomes a reality, innovative data-driven analysis becomes a necessity.
With a big chunk of the country getting hammered by snow, it’s definitely sinking in that the holidays have arrived. And along with all the joy and happiness the next few weeks entail, there’s the inevitable sneezing, sniffling, and general misery that more than a few of us will experience with the flu. Luckily, last month researchers at Google, after some testing with the Center for Disease Control, have provided an online tool called Google FluTrends that can quickly and accurately detect flu outbreaks in different geographies.
Traditionally, flu outbreaks have been identified by polling doctors at local clinics and hospitals. This data is then aggregated across the country and analyzed. If there is an unusually high number of people with flu-like symptoms in any one area, then there was probably a flu outbreak … one or two weeks ago. That might be nice to know, but it provides little solace for those of us who wind up suffering.
Google’s novel approach is to monitor real-time search engine queries for people seeking cures for flu-like symptoms. When certain areas have a higher than usual number of queries, it’s likely the first sign of an outbreak. That means we can all wash our hands a little longer, take extra care when sneezing, and even avoid busy areas in hopes of dodging the flu this year.
At Crimson Hexagon, we take a similar approach to brand monitoring. If a product or PR campaign has gone wrong, there’s no sense in waiting until it shows up in your bottom line. Instead, by monitoring the opinion of your brand online, you can act at the earliest signs of a problem. With this type of real-time, actionable information maybe both we and our brands can stay healthy this holiday season. And that’s something we can all celebrate.
We’ve often noticed that people tend toward extremes when assigning online product ratings. For Amazon products with an theoretically average (3 star) rating, more than 65% of all ratings lump into either the best or worst score – a ‘bimodal distribution’ in stats-speak.There are many potential reasons: a lack of clear criteria for different ratings, a desire to influence the displayed score, shameless promotion, spite, and so on. Whatever the reason, the end result is that many rating systems are essentially a thumbs-up, thumbs-down proposition and often give misleading information.
Fortunately, the lack of sophistication doesn’t carry over from quantitative ratings to text-based reviews. From what we’ve seen in the distribution of ratings, we might expect text-based reviews similarly to espouse straightforward points of view. Instead, most text-based product reviews actually contain ‘complex opinion’— writing with at least one observation contrary to the overall argument. (There are some notable exceptions to this trend.)
As an example, in this Amazon listing for a Casio camera, 61% of the 46 English-language reviews mention both a positive and negative aspect of their experience. Considering the average review is only about four lines long, the amount of even-handedness is surprising. Other merchants, such as Best Buy, include designated fields in their review systems for Pros and Cons to encourage more considered opinions.
We find posts with complex opinion to be particularly valuable for three reasons:
The poster has nuanced thinking, and therefore a relatively more insightful perspective
The contrary point is important enough to mention, despite the poster’s overall impression
The poster is engaged enough with the topic to write a complex post
By looking at what draws fire from fans and compliments from critics we can track trends and derive insight into opinion far beyond simple positive/negative assessments. Interestingly, brands are starting to see value in allowing negative reviews as well, believing that permitting the negative lends an air of authenticity more credible than all-positive marketing speak.
It’s been said that, “We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us.” We like it the other way around, too.
There were some great presentations at the ARF Industry Leader Forum in NY this week. One of the themes of interest to me in several ways was one that Joel Rubinson set up in the intro. Social media, he said, allows companies to “observe consumers in the wild”, in their natural habitat for how they use and talk about products.
I believe his point was a good one that free of the Hawthorne effect, you can get a more unbiased view of consumer opinions when they don’t explicitly know that you are observing them. It’s the idea that just by the nature of your asking a question or showing interest in something, you might change how another person acts or responds. I’ve often heard Gary King use an analogy to make a similar point: If I asked you what your opinion is of the National Helium Reserve, you might very well state an opinion, even though prior to being asked you may never have known that such a thing exists (a giant gas station for blimps! My next business plan will clearly be for personal dirigibles). However, online, you aren’t going to express an opinion when you don’t have one (That’s different than expressing an uninformed opinion, which is still an opinion).
That said, the whole reason people write opinions online is so that other people DO read them. They want to be heard, to help, to share. Do peacocks always have their tail feathers fanned? Is that how they naturally look? Do you behave differently if someone might be watching?
I don’t believe this at all discounts the value of listening to online opinion — in fact, I argue that it’s the best possible way (though the Lily Tomlin switchboard operator might disagree) to hear what people really think. Online consumer opinion is far more pervasive, far more representative, and far more influential than any other source of feedback.
My last thought on the analogy is that it seems to reflect an attitude toward consumers that they are another species. It’s Jane Goodall with the gorillas. Yes, we need to listen and watch and understand, and yes, they are in control, and yes, they are using those little stick tools in new ways we never thought possible but in this case, it’s not they. It’s we. The wonderful thing about the web is it’s like a one-way mirror that you can instantly dissolve. You can reach out. Have a conversation, far beyond Koko and her sign language. You can follow up, engage, and make each other better.
According to Universal McCann, we’re all relying a lot more on the kindness and influence of strangers when we make purchase decisions based on information received online. Their September report entitled When did we start trusting strangers? is based on research into 17,000 internet users in 29 countries — and concludes that strangers are trusted:
almost as much as a face-to-face recommendation
more than any paid-for communications (presumably infomercials, advertorials and the like)
more than advertising
far more than a celebrity endorser
Read the full report for some terrific insights into the rise of social media and democratization of influence — and the resulting impact on your business.
This week’s Consumed feature in the Sunday Magazine highlights a startling discovery: if you believe enough in the value of a brand, your performance can actually improve with exposure to the brand. The article cites research showing that people subliminally exposed to the Apple logo perform better on a test of creativity than those shown the IBM logo, or no logo at all.
The findings feel to me like a commercial extension of the placebo effect, which is all about the power of belief. It also underscores the importance of reinforcing your brand attributes with the right marketing placement: the Speedo outfit worn by Michael Phelps has been rushed to mass production at a high price point, as wishful swimmers look to enhance their own personal bests. Now, if only I can convince my family that this Porsche would make me a better driver…
When consumer research giants like P&G and Unilever announce an impending industry shift, it’s time to take notice. It’s no surprise that consumers are tiring of solicited feedback: lately it seems that every online purchase I make from movie tickets on up merits an exhaustive survey. Even a call to a mutual fund company yields an intrusive follow up call to see how the first call went. Phew.
Wouldn’t it be better to minimize the endless questioning, and limit the solicited research to the highest value settings and interactions? That’s the thinking behind this Advertising Research Foundation initiative. ARF is bringing together industry giants to engage with this consumer research crisis.
We’re hearing about the challenges of finding qualified participants on the solicited research side, and on the monitoring side, a concern around sampling vs. statistically significant results. As the barriers to online content fall one Tweet at a time, we’re thinking we’re closing in on the ability for consumer brand discussions to consistently generate statistically significant insights.
According to Universal McCann, we’re all relying a lot more on the kindness and influence of strangers when we make purchase decisions based on information received online. Their September report entitled 
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