Discovering business opportunities

 Howard R. Moskowitz is president and CEO of  MOSKOWITZ JACOBS INC. . Dr. Moskowitz is both a well-known experimental psychologist in the field of psychophysics (the study of perception and its relation to physical stimuli), and an inventor of world-class market research technology. Among his important contributions to market research is his 1975 introduction of psychophysical scaling and product optimization for consumer product development. Whereas these methods are standard and well accepted today, they required a massive culture change in the 1975 business community. In the 1980’s his contributions in sensory analysis were extended to health and beauty aids. He has also developed and refined procedures which enable research to interrelate products, concepts, consumers, experts and physical test instruments, in order to accomplish product optimization and reverse engineering. Finally, his research and technology developments have led to concept and package optimization (IdeaMap), integrated and accelerated development (DesignLab)), and the globalization and democratization of concept development for small and large companies alike, in an affordable, transaction-oriented approach (IdeaMap Wizard; IdeaMap.Net).
Dr. Moskowitz developed the notion of RDE or research developing experimentation. RDE comprises easy-to-use Internet-enhanced experimental designs (similar to conjoint analysis), coupled with high-level, automatic analyses. RDE reveals what messages synergize to produce exceptionally strong performance, and what messages either work with each other or do not work with each other. RDE further segments people by their mind-sets, using direct responses to messaging, thus making segmentation immediately actionable.

He is autor of the book Selling Blue Elephants, awarded with Best 30 Business Books of 2007 Excellence Award by Executive Book Summaries.

1. How to understand the mind of the consumer?  What are the major tendencies in this area?

The big problem here is the drift of market research towards two areas. The first is tracking studies. These studies don’t tell you much. The second is observational research or ethnography. These are in-depth, but too expensive.

I favor experimental design of ideas, where you mix and match ideas, present these as test concepts to consumers, get ratings, and identify what works. If you do this properly you learn a great deal about the algebra of the mind. I have written books on this (see my website www.SellingBlueElephants.com – go to ‘about the authors’, and see the ‘books’. You have a table of contents. The books and chapters dealing with concepts go into this area of understanding the customer’s mind.

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 Mark Tungate, aged 40, is a Paris-based British journalist specialising in media, advertising and branding. He is the author of the book Branded Male: Marketing to Men, published by Kogan Page this year. He is also the author of the books Adland: A Global History of Advertising and Fashion Brands: Branding Style from Armani to Zara. On the journalistic front he is the Paris correspondent of the advertising journal Campaign and a columnist for French marketing magazine Stratégies, as well as a contributor to the trend forecasting service Worth Global Style Network (WGSN). His articles about advertising and popular culture have appeared in The Times, The Independent, The Guardian and The Telegraph newspapers. He also co-presents a weekly French TV show about advertising. In 2005 he was invited by Renzo Rosso, the founder of cult jeans brand Diesel, to collaborate on a book called FIFTY, the story of Rosso’s life and work.

1. The fashion brands such as Gucci, D&G, Bvlgari, Zara, Nike even though they are so different may be they have something in common?

There are two main components of a fashion brand. The first, and the most important, is that it is always changing. That is the very definition of “fashion”: it must constantly evolve in order to create desire. A brand that remains static is not a fashion brand – it is simply a clothing brand. This is not a fault: many of the brand I personally admire are not “fashionable”, but stylish, classic and relatively unchanging.
The second important component of a fashion brand is that it must have “added value”. This is the part of the brand that is invisible and ephemeral. It must make us daydream in some way; perhaps aspiring to be better looking, richer, sexier, more artistic or more intellectual. Without added value, a sweater is just a sweater, and we will only pay what we feel it is worth as an item of clothing. But when we buy an Armani sweater, we are buying into an imaginary universe and system of values that has been created by marketing. This is the very essence of branding. (Read the article)

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Lydia Sugarman, CEO/Founder of Private Label InterActive, seminar speaker, specialised in providing marketing managers with an effective and measurable marketing platform that facilitates intelligent, segmented/interactive outgoing email communications with CRM tools; generate/manage lead generation; identify hot prospects keep the pipeline filled; demonstrate quantifiable ROI; website assessments, database management, online marketing strategy consulting.

1. What is the role of Interactive marketing nowadays? How do you see its future?

Interactive marketing is still in its infancy. Media will be more intimately integrated and, as devices and their users become more sophisticated, transactions will be more immediate. The millennial will have a profound influence on how they are reached, influenced, and how they react. As their disposable income grows, interactive marketing will have to respond.

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