Agency, Marketing, Consumer – More of the same | Advantage Brands

First, a byte from Adage on the ‘wired’ [not mispelt] creative-approver nexus.  We all go thru the pangs of the creative getting us exactly and wondering if we need a second ‘discontinuous’ check for the go to market..or if we could do it in-house..what the research says is that the creative likes the same assertive punches or digs such as the brand manager and 4 out of 5 consumers might actually think differently

WORD NERDS: Xyte’s model relies on factors including learning styles and reliance on thinking vs. feeling to classify people into 16 groups.
When Xyte, a unit of online-sampling firm StartSampling, last year branched into the new area of research, it started having prospects in the marketing, agency, media and market-research community take the test. The company found people throughout the marketing industry tend to fall into the “word” category — people who prefer to work with words and have a longer-term focus.

That’s no surprise, given the nature of the work, said StartSampling CEO Larry Burns, a veteran of Information Resources Inc. (now SymphonyIRI), who himself falls into that quadrant. But word people account for only 18.5% of the population, and the ads that appeal to them often don’t work so well with the other 81.5% of people.

Testing TV spots

As part of its “Xyting Insights” service, which applies the behavioral segmentation to members of Knowledge Networks’ consumer panel, StartSampling also has been testing TV commercials. And it found ads also tend to do disproportionately well with word people.

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Xyte’s “hand” category — people who prefer working with their hands and have a shorter-term focus in their work — make up 30% of the population, a bigger portion than word folks.

“They like touching things, tangible things, practical jokes and wisecracks,” Mr. Burns said, and they often don’t like ads that appeal to word people. “If you’re communicating with them from an emotional advertising standpoint, it’s not going to work terribly well,” he said. “They like products [backed by] facts.”

To take a rain check however, those ‘wild’ consumer driven Doritos and GM ads have got themselves a big thumbs down too..apparently all the green brainstorming produces is nasty vitriol that does not do the brand much good.