Sentient Insight: the business blog for consumer psychology and consumer marketing

We’re gearing up for the annual MRA conference being held in Boston this week! Aaron will be presenting a session, In Defense of Marketing: The Peacock’s Plume and Dancing Birds of Paradise Thursday at 11:00AM, and I’ll be working various stations, from hospitality booth to door monitoring some events. In addition, we’re sponsoring a wine and cheese reception Thursday from 4-6PM – planned so you don’t have to choose between the many after-hours events on Thursday including a Boston meet-up and the chapter event being held at the Aquarium.

Over the past few months, Toyota has recalled a number of its vehicles. Given all the negative press coverage from announcement after announcement of recalls, it is not a stretch to think that Toyota’s brand has taken a hit. Specifically, one could imagine that the Toyota brand – historically perceived as very reliable – is now suffering in the area of reliability. Assuming Totyota has been tracking consumers’ emotional reactions to the Toyota brand, they probably saw a drop in the Brand’s equity, and in a specific area such as reliability, soonafter its very first falter a few years ago. But how impactful the drop was, may have been colored by tracking consumers’ conscious associations with the brand.

Sentient collaborated with Schneider Associates and Zeo Inc. – purveyors of the first personal sleep coach system – to find out what’s keeping Americans up at night. Not surprisingly, job-related stress is the #1 sleep stealer, followed by nighttime noises (e.g., a snoring spouse) and caffeine. Regionally, just over one-half of Californians (51%) are kept up at night by job-related stress, 43 percent of New Yorkers are kept up at night by nighttime noises and 42 percent of New Englanders blamed caffeine as their sleep stealer. Check out our latest research reported in the Boston Globe: Joe overload a menace to New Englanders

Our goals in life can be activated without our awareness. This unconscious activation of goals results in subsequent behavior aimed at achieving those goals (Uleman & Bargh, 2004). This means that we often are pursuing goals that are important to us, without knowing whether or why we are pursuing them. Marketing, since it’s inception with the advent of sexual reproduction (Reid & Halgren, 2009), has been using the recipe of unconscious goal activation to great success. Today, our lives are inundated with elegant creative executions of advertising stimuli that tap into our most fundamental human needs to stir our emotional associations with brands.

Fill in the blanks: Blizzard of ___? ‘78 Sprinkles or Jimmies ___? Jimmies 5 inches of snow ___? Dusting Manhattan chowder ___? Never heard of it If you know the answers to these questions, you’re a “true New Englander” according to McDonald’s in their new ad campaign for their Newman’s Own coffee. Newman’s Own New England Blend Ad #1 Newman’s Own New England Blend Ad #2

Paranormal Activity. Everyone has heard of it, most people have seen it, but how has it been so successful? It started as a low budget horror film, shot for only $15,000, and has turned into the most profitable film of all time, grossing more than 100 million dollars in the US and Canada alone. Oren Peli, the writer and director, initially got the idea for the film after he moved into a suburban house with his “then” girlfriend, Toni Taylor. When they began hearing noises at night, Peli got the idea to set up a camera at night to see if they caught anything interesting on film—this, then, turned into Paranormal Activity.

Sentient recently partnered with Schneider Associates and Information Resources, INC. (IRI) to conduct the eighth annual Most Memorable New Product Launch Survey. This year’s results found KFC’s grilled chicken at the top of the list, with 40 percent of consumers remembering this product launch. In fact, five of the top 10 most remembered new product launches this year were fast food brands – KFC Grilled Chicken, McDonald’s McCafe, Quiznos Torpedo sandwiches, McDonald’s Angus Deluxe and Taco Bell Volcano Nachos. This reversed a trend of technology product launches being most remembered in the 2007 and 2008 surveys. Notably, KFC’s top spot could partially be due to a brand “blunder.”

The new Idaho Potato commercials featuring Denise Austin, health and fitness expert, attempt to cram a lot of brand messages into one ad. I counted at least 5 in one: 1) the origins of Idaho Potatoes; 2) the health benefits of Idaho Potatoes; 3) the taste of Idaho Potatoes; 4) the value of Idaho Potatoes; and 5) the Idaho Potatoes brand name itself. For each theme, a variety of support points is given: 1) Origins – “rich, volcanic soil” “pure water” “from the best earth on earth” 2) Healthy – no cholesterol, no fat, 110 calories, rich in nutrients, part of a well-balanced diet, a complex carbohydrate, high in vitamin C, more potassium than a banana, “great source of energy” 3) Tasty – tasty, delicious, “kids love them”

Nearly 40% larger than the next largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas left the shipyard in Finland this week en route for its new home in Florida. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. It has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members. Too large for existing cruise ship terminals, a $75 million terminal in Port Everglades had to be built to accommodate the new ship. What awful timing to launch such a display of decadence!

In the continued quest to find the marketing “silver bullet” in these recessionary times, there’s been a lot of talk about branding. And while marketers continue to discover that branding is not simply about logos, colors and visual cues, some pause at strategy and don’t get to the heart of the matter.  The heart of course is the interaction people have with your brand; it’s  interaction that creates the experience that makes emotional connections between brand and customer. We were reminded of this recently at a panel discussion with several prominent CEOs in Boston.