by david allan van nostrand | Jun 26, 2017 | Items in the News
We’ve seen the stories about Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods and the many speculations for the reasons behind this decision. The big ones are customer data, distribution, logistics, and more consumer touchpoints, but there are others. Physical Contact. There are...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 19, 2017 | Items in the News, Status, Unintended Consequences
In her excellent WSJ article, A Test of Loyalty at Macy’s, Miriam Gottfried says that 9% of Macy’s customers account for nearly half of all sales. This led to Macy’s decision to develop ways to reward these high-end customers with more brands available exclusively at...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 13, 2017 | Human Behavior, Status
In the 8th century BC, a Greek shepherd found his goats behaving strangely. Nearby was a chasm, with vapors coming out of the ground. When the shepherd got close, he inhaled the fumes and began to have strange visions of the future. Word got around, as you would...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 5, 2017 | Human Behavior, Research
For those companies that bother with advertising testing research (fewer than you think), there are three basic ways they go about it. The most common is the Disaster Check. Here companies do one or two quick focus groups after creating an ad. They only want to see if...