Save the best for last…

Through the Insight/Experience Audit & Prototype group project, I learned that assumptions made at the beginning of a research can be completely wrong. Therefore, it’s incredibly important to keep an open mind throughout the research process, especially when collecting data, to ensure that preconceived notions will not bias the final interpretation of the data and the resulting insight. For example, before I began working on this project with my team, we sat down to brainstorm what our target segment, do-it-all moms, would want in a home office. We quickly all agreed that the home office was a section where moms could stay separate from the rest of her house, where the walls are decorated, room is spacious and organized, and our do-it-all mom would spend most of her working time within this office. As we began interviewing the respondents for our research, it was clear that this segment moved around the house throughout the day and worked in several different kinds of areas within the house. Some even left the house for periods of time and worked in coffee shops for a change of scenery. It was clear that our moms are mobile. It was this exact insight that drove our next round of investigation and interviews, which resulted in our mobile desk prototype. This group project has taught me that although assumptions are a good way to start research, researchers should not be reluctant to accept change as they collect data because it just might drive the ultimate prototype.

Another concept I learned is that although segmentation is an important tool for creating products and marketing programs, it is important to develop a persona that goes beyond demographics to understand the consumer’s life, value, habits, interests, etc. In doing so, researchers can segment their target creatively rather than relying on tangible characteristics such as sex, age, gender, education level, etc. By empathizing with consumers and developing a deeper understanding, marketers can design products that truly cater to their wants and needs and create value for consumers. For instance, our do-it-all mom is more than just a woman with kids who work at home and play tennis on the weekends. For her, there is an inner struggle between taking care of the house and working. Both tasks are simultaneously on her mind and not mutually exclusive. This important insight is a key part of her persona that we uncovered as we tried to empathize with her complex life and asked questions that gave us a deeper understanding into her daily routines. If we were looking for physical traits or two-dimensional behaviors, we would have missed this insight, which led to the development of our multi-layer desk surface that allowed our moms to be able to look at their to-do list for the house at the same time as their work material. From our feedback, we realized that our moms appreciated this aspect to our product.

In the beginning of the project, I was extremely excited at the prospect of creating a prototype. I was also nervous about actually interviewing the respondents. During the project, at times I was frustrated and stressed. For example, when respondents didn’t complete their assignments on time or when the group found it hard to meet. But as the project came to an end, I felt a sense of accomplishment and was proud of our prototype that we so painstakingly built together over several afternoons. Our group was unique in that we had two Spanish students. The language barrier made it hard to understand each other most of the time. Wordreference.com became our friend quickly. However, the language barrier also created many laughter throughout the project and ultimately, due to our teammates’ diverse background, we were able to brainstorm more creatively as they came up with suggestions that we would’ve never thought of. We checked in with our professor regularly to make sure that we were moving along towards the right direction in our project. This helped us refine our presentation and prototype and was overall a positive experience. I appreciated the process of the project which allowed us to create a prototype, gather feedback, and then refine our prototype. The feedback was crucial to some of the changes we made to our final prototype. Working with my group has definitely contributed to my learning experience. As mentioned before, diversity makes brainstorming a lot more interesting and I believe that you can always learn a lot from people of different backgrounds, whether it’s about the project or life in general. My teammates were passionate about life and vivacious throughout the project. This made the material a lot more enjoyable as well. We celebrated the end of our project by going to Austin Karaoke and singing the night away!

Tweet Tweet for Fashion…

Social media can be used to bring people who are passionate about a brand together to chat about their mutual love. Companies can use social media to create customer experiences by giving the brand a real personality and voice and by offering exclusive opportunities to award loyal customers.

For example, I follow Forever21 through their twitter, “Forever21_tweet.” I love this clothing store and have been a passionate shopper for years. When I discovered that F21 had its own twitter, I was more than ecstatic. Although I’ve shopped at this store since I was in my teens, I’ve never thought of the store as having a particular brand personality or voice. However, after following its tweets, it’s clear that F21 is just another young girl who’s a fashion-lover and trend-setter. She follows celebrity gossip and stays at the forefront of fashion while being on a tight budget. She loves sharing great finds and giving tips and hints that she’s gathered over the years. She sounds very much like me. Through its twitter, F21 is able to form a voice that resonate with its core shoppers—women in their teens to mid-20s. Secondly, F21 frequently tweets promotions and contests exclusively for its twitter-following community. This not only thrills me but also makes me feel like I’m getting the exclusive treatment that no “ordinary Forever21 shopper” is getting, which in turn makes me even more loyal to the brand. It’s no doubt the promotions and contests bring additional sales to the store as well. Twitter is always in real-time. This allows Forever21 to quickly comment on users’ tweets about the brand, its products, or promotions as well as offers a way to keep customers up-to-date on new offerings the moment they launch.



Since the launch of the fashion-filled TV Show, “Gossip Girl,” headbands have been all the rage. I decided to search for “headbands” on Google Trends to get a broad look at the popularity of the search term over the past couple of years. “Headbands” has seen a steady increase in popularity since 2007, the year when Gossip Girl started airing. I also learned that the search term is the most popular in Salt Lake City, UT. It makes sense to me that the Mormons would want to go for the preppy look! Searching through Insights for Search on Google showed that the search term “hippie headband” has experienced significant growth since 2004. Perhaps this is due to the trend to look hippie in all occasions. I also learned that “baby headbands” is one of the top searches over the last 12 months, even more than “wedding headbands” and “hair accessories.” This search tool doesn’t offer specific information as much as a broad view of trends and their popularity, which can come in handy if one wants to do a quick search.



In order to see how many people blog about “headbands” and what they say about the fashion accessory, I decided to try out blogsearch.google.com. In the past 12 hours, nine blogs mentioned headbands! These blogs range from raves about certain brand of headbands, tutorials on DIY projects, and advertisements for personally headband shops. This search tool can be used for doing marketing research on a certain topic or brand because it offers a spectrum of perspectives on the same subject from a number of audiences. The best part about this tool is that there are no annoying banner ads on the page. I can feel like the search results are truly authentic opinions from regular people who are not set out to earn profit off of customers but rather are opinionated about a product, brand, or issue. The only downside to this search tool is that it does not offer mini screenshots of the blogs. I would’ve liked to see what the blogs looked like before visiting the different sites.

The Big, Bad, and Clever Wolf Known as Walmart

1. Walmart captures an enormous amount of data and in my opinion, has done a fairly good job at leveraging the data as a competitive advantage by providing experiences unique to Walmart. For example, the data Walmart collected helped provide consumers with needed products during Hurricane Frances. By providing suppliers with some of its collected information, Walmart fosters better retailer-supplier relationship and more importantly, ensures that a consumer never walks into a store in times of need to purchase an essential product and find it is sold out. At the same time, this also gives Walmart an advantage over its competitors because it can predict the needs of consumers and better serve them. This kind of information is not only powerful at times of national disaster but even during seasonal times such as Black Friday or Christmas, when specific items have higher demands over others.

The article touched on the fact that “Walmart doesn’t use loyalty cards and rarely offers promotions based on past purchases.” This strategy actually makes sense with the company’s brand equity, which is “Save money. Live better.” Walmart always allow the consumers to save money with their consistent low prices. Promotions and loyalty cards are used for stores that are usually priced a little higher than Walmart and want to increase sales temporarily. Although, Walmart should take into consideration the power of occasional deals on certain items that can drive a consumer to complete his or her entire shopping list in one store. HEB does a great job printing out coupons for consumers based on their current purchases. The pro of this is that people can use these individualized coupons and be drawn back into the store. The con to this strategy is that it reminds consumers that their purchases are being analyzed and sometimes the coupons being printed are for sensitive products like tampons or condoms. This can turn off consumers and remind them of their lack of privacy. Clearly, Walmart’s choice to not use its data this way has its reasons.

2. It is a little alarming that Walmart, if it so chooses, can access people’s mortgage, driver’s license, social security numbers, etc. That is a lot of power. Although I personally do not shop at Walmart whatsoever, I am still concerned about the rise of technology and what retailers can capture. Consumers should be given a choice to opt in or out of giving their personal information that’s unrelated to the purchase transaction. I think capturing people’s info without informing them of this action is deceitful. Furthermore, since Walmart offers no loyalty program or promotions related to previous purchases, there is no giveback for giving out your information as a consumer. As a retailer, this is great for profits. As a consumer, I feel a little angry about this. Why should my private information be collected by an ominous corporate giant when I don’t have a say in whether or not this is acceptable? I acknowledge that security is great at Walmart, and no ordinary hacker can access my information. However, I distrust the reason Walmart has this tight security. It is not because Walmart truly cares about the consumers’ safety and well being but rather a form of prevention for possible bad PR if someone does hack into the system and steal their customers’ information.

The right way to go about collecting data would be to give consumers the option at check out to allow their purchase and information to go into the system. If so, Walmart should offer givebacks like coupons, discounts, or even a donation made to the charity of their choice. However, the main point here is to alert the consumers so they are aware of Walmart’s data collection.

4. Walmart’s data collecting ability can benefit the suppliers as well as harm their profitability. For instance, large suppliers like P&G are striving for scale – getting their brands of different products all into one basket. If P&G can figure out that people who buy Febreze always buys Mr. Clean, it can pay procurement and advise Walmart (because no one tells Walmart what to do) to put out merchandise support for Febreze through trade promotions and can increase the price of Mr. Clean. This is a simplified example, but it is clear that both P&G and Walmart can benefit from the price increase of certain items if it drives consumers into the store with other items’ promotions. However, P&G will have to pay for that information if it wants to better allocate its procurement and it’s up to Walmart to decide whether or not it wants to sell the information.

Furthermore, Walmart’s technology allows suppliers to provide products to consumers at the right time. If consumer demands extra amounts of toilet paper at one time during the year versus another, suppliers can make sure that Walmart’s shelves are stocked with toilet paper and sell more during that time. Walmart looks great in front of consumers as the retailer that they can always count on to fulfill their needs and the supplier gets to sell more of its goods.

Walmart’s technology may also hurt suppliers if it decides to implement scan-based trading. As mentioned in the article, manufacturers would have to own each product until it is sold, allowing Walmart to never take products onto its books and shed billions of inventory. As great as this is for Walmart, it can harm suppliers if its products aren’t sold and inventory build-up occurs. Also, if a delivery truck malfunctions and products are lost, suppliers will have to carry that cost. However, “Walmart lives in a world of supply and command, instead of a world of supply and demand." Suppliers have little to no negotiation room if Walmart decides to implement such plan.

Dancing the Night Away!

One of the most creative and innovative product is the Rollasole – ballet flats that are dispensed from vending machines in nightclubs. These vending machines are placed in nightclubs all across the UK. The ballet flats come in difference sizes and colors and costs £5 a pair. Its flexible sole allows the wearer to roll it up and carry it in a small bag.


Rollasole is innovative because it truly satisfies a currently unmet need: comfortable shoes for women to change into after a night of dancing without sacrificing the style of the wearer. Innovation is the act of introducing something new. Before Rollasole came on the market, no company has explored with the idea of offering cheap alternatives to high heels for women who partied late into the night. However, the problem has been around for quite a while. The age-old saying, “beauty is pain,” holds true to this day. Women all over the world gladly sacrifice their comfort for skyscraper heels in order to accentuate their legs and boost their confidence. Sure, ballet flats don’t make fashion news anymore. But how many ballet flats have the ability to be rolled into a tiny ball and tucked away? Furthermore, how many nightclubs offered a solution to the aching feet of millions of women around the world? That’s what makes Rollasole so innovative. It revolutionizes the post-partying experience and offers a new solution to an old problem.

Rollasole is also creative because it fulfills this unmet need in an unconventional and relevant way. Traditionally, vending machines have been used as the vehicle to sell quick snacks and beverages. Over the years, the “vending industry” has even expanded to hot foods.

Who could’ve ever thought vending machines could be used to sell shoes? However, in the context of Rollasole, it makes perfect sense. Vending machines offer convenience, portability, and value. In the case of Rollasole, these machines appear at numerous nightclubs. They produce shoes that are portable and have the ability to be rolled up. These shoes are also sold at a reasonable price (around $8). Furthermore, the machines are placed at locations where the items are needed the most. For example, vending machines are on every floor of the business school on the way to class, where students who are running late can grab a quick snack. In this case, these ballet flats are needed the most at night in the clubs. Creativity can be defined as the generation of new associations between existing ideas. Rollasole associates vending machines with ballet flats to provide a product and service that solves an unmet need.

The idea of Rollasole was inspired by the creator’s girlfriend, who loves wearing heels but doesn’t like the pain they cause after hours of dancing. As mentioned in the article, “The New, Faster Face of Innovation,” anyone can have or inspire innovative ideas, and it is up to the company to be open to trying new things. The shoes originally were tested in six Oceana and Liquid nightclubs in the UK. It is with the help of information technology that Rollasole was able to test this idea and track the results quickly in order to rollout to new markets. For example, Rollasole tracked the pairs of shoes sold in the first year at 60,000 and can now start the plans to expand his distribution to the U.S., starting with New York and L.A. The article mentions that people no longer think of experiments as running months into the future but rather encourages the speed with which ideas are tested. In addition, this new age of innovation believes that “some of the best experiments come from outside the chain of command.” In the case of Rollasole, the girlfriend had no relations to the company yet came up with the idea for this innovation.

Personally, I cannot wait for Rollasole to arrive in the U.S. As someone who is only 5’3”, heels are a necessity when I go out dancing. However, a night of standing around really takes a toll on my feet. I can think of several times when I thought I would give anything to have a pair of flats to wear home. I have tried wearing flats out but it just doesn’t make the outfit. However, carrying around a pair of flats all night is also unappealing. Rollasole vending machines will allow me to purchase a pair of shoes at the end of the night for a reasonable price while remaining stylish. I can also see this business expanding from the nightclubs to prom, the workplace, weddings, etc.

The Art of Withholding Information

Primary Lesson:

The most important lesson from the reading is that information isn’t just simply information. Information given before an actual experience can alter a person’s perception of the experience completely. Knowledge does not merely inform, but actually reshapes a consumer’s sensory perceptions to align with that knowledge. Plainly put, previously held impressions can affect our experience of a product or service. Using this lesson as a guide, we as marketers can design valuable experiences for consumers by allowing certain information to reach the consumer and keep other information from consumers before they experience our products.

For example, in the article the students who knew about the vinegar in the beer after tasting the beer liked the beer better than those who were told about the vinegar up front. In order to get consumers to try new things that they might be hesitant to try due to unfamiliarity with the product, we can keep certain knowledge hidden until afterwards. A French restaurant who cooks the best escargot dish in the world wants to impress its American patrons and expand their horizon in food. However, these patrons are a little put off by the idea of eating escargot. The restaurant can hold an open tasting event in which patrons try dishes without knowing the ingredients first. This lack of knowledge allows consumers to try the dish and decide for themselves the quality and taste without allowing cultural perceptions and mental blockage to stand in the way. Who knows, an American patron can become a regular at the restaurant and orders the escargot every time. In this case, the restaurant gains a loyal customer and the customer expands his “food horizon.”

Another example of how marketers can use the power of information in their quest to gain valuable insights about consumers is to test purchase intent given different information on a product’s packaging before the consumer actually uses the product. If a shoe brand company wants to know whether to include “Made in China” on its shoe’s packaging, the company can create two prototypes, one with the label and one without. The marketer can ask for consumes’ purchase intent of the two prototypes. If the consumer who sees the label before trying out the shoes decides its lower quality and therefore has lower purchase intent, the marketer will gain the insight that the label as a form of prior information does not convey quality and therefore, should not be available to consumers when consumers first see the shoes on shelf.

Main Example:

The main example that Ariely provides in his explanation is a study he conducted with colleagues regarding beer tasting. They tested a “MIT Brew,” their own generic beer, in two ways with students. First, they told participants about the presence of vinegar in the beer before they tasted the brew. Second, they did so by not telling the participants anything about the vinegar content before the tasting, but revealed the presence of the vinegar after the tasting. The students’ reactions were taken as measurements of whether or not the knowledge placed before the experience actually evoked a different response than knowledge coming after the experience. The students who found out about the vinegar after drinking the beer liked the beer much better than those who were told about the ingredient up front. The ones who knew about the vinegar after the tasting liked the beer just as much as those who never found out about the vinegar. Given the choice to make their own beer, the students who knew about the vinegar afterwards who added vinegar to their beer according to the MIT Brew recipe outnumbered those who knew beforehand and still added vinegar afterwards. This example illustrated how pre-knowledge affects an experience. Two years ago, I was completely against vegan food. I thought that all vegans were crazy to cut out dairy products and that any food with no real meat, real dairy products must taste disgusting and refused to eat any of them. One of my best friends decided to be a vegan. The problem was that I would not go out to eat with him at vegan restaurants. In order to get me to try vegan food, he ordered veggie burgers and a vegan chocolate cake from Mother’s and brought it over to me masking it as takeout from another “normal” restaurant. I ate the burger without really paying attention to it and ate what I thought was a brownie. Afterwards, he told me that the entire meal was from a vegan restaurant. Although I was shocked, it didn’t really change my liking towards the food I had just consumed. I was a lot more accepting of his choice of restaurants after that experience. Had I known the burger and chocolate cake were vegan, I would’ve never taken a bite! Good thing he withheld that information until later.

Ten Things a Marketer Should Know to Create “JOY”

Although I am a poor college student with minimal disposable income, there are certain things about me a marketer could use to attract people like me. Get us when we’re young, and you just might have us for life!

Ten Things a Marketer Should Know to Create “JOY”

1. I am a sucker for good visuals in advertisements. This goes for all categories of products, including makeup and food. For example, when I see a Maybelline commercial claiming the newest mascara can increase lash length by 5x, and this claim is followed by a quick shot of Adriana’s long, sexy lashes (clearly fake), I want to run out and buy that mascara. Similarly, when I see the Pillsbury Doughboy dancing next to a steaming hot bun, my mouth waters, and I walk to the refrigerator looking for something warm to eat. You’d think I wouldn’t fall victim to the digitally-enhanced visuals being a marketing and advertising major, but I do every time!

2. I pay a lot more attention to ads that showcase an Asian model rather than a model of another race or ethnicity. I believe Asian women have different types of hair, skin, etc. and therefore, require products that are tailored to their specific need. Since the difference isn’t very big, usually a product that works well for Caucasian women can work just as well for Asians. However, when I see an Asian model, I pay attention to the product to see if it is specifically tailored for me. After all, if the product works for the model, it will probably work for me.

3. I am an impulse buyer. It is extremely easy for retailers to get me to purchase things at check-out. Some of the random things I’ve purchased are Vaseline, gum, pez dispensers (I don’t even eat pez), and a Nemo disposable camera.

4. Packaging is key for me. From a cute compact to a simple lunch box, I’m always drawn to the packaging first. As we talked about in class, design is an extremely important element. I think Febreze Air Effects do a great job of packaging. Compared to Glade spray, Febreze takes design into account and produces product packaging that is aesthetically appealing. Even if no one will ever see me using a specific product (who watches me spray the air?), I still value an innovative, modern packaging.

5. While lots of consumers are attracted to the new trend of organic products, that stuff freaks me out. No disrespect to mother nature, the thought of having herbs in every aspect of my life is unappealing. For example, smoothies that look like a glob of foreign green goo is not appealing. Shampoos that mention anything more “natural” than aloe confuse me. I’m uncomfortable in Whole Foods and would much rather prefer a fat hamburger than a non-fat chai any day.

6. I love to try things before buying them. I will never buy a shirt without putting it on first. If there is a food stand in H-E-B, I will be more likely to buy whatever is being promoted if I’m allowed to sample the food first. Products that do not have merchandising support tend to be overlooked by me.

7. I hate sales people in retail stores. Aside from a greeting when I walk in, I would prefer to be left alone to make my purchase decisions. If a sales person follows me throughout the store asking me if I need a different size, color, or have any questions, I would more than likely walk out of the store. This also goes for store clerks who may just be restocking the items next to me while I ponder about a possible purchase. I walk away from that aisle if they stand too close, even if the product was on my shopping list. I need my bubble and any invasion is unwanted. Chinese sales people do a horrible job of leaving their customers alone. During a trip to China, the sales people forced me to step out of a dressing room and made comments about my outfit such as going a size up or trying a different color. Naturally I did not buy anything from that store. Shopping is therapeutic for me and I would much rather do it in silence than be force-fed extra information let alone personal opinion.

8. I take forever to make a purchase decision when there are too many choices. The item can be as simple as bobby pins, but if there are too many choices, I will stand in the accessories aisle pondering for a long time. However, when I do make a decision, I have gathered so much support for that choice in my mind that I rarely regret my choice. For me, cognitive dissonance does not exist. I also find ways to justify my choice over other alternatives.

9. I am an obsessive-compulsive to-do list maker and lover of post-its. I love post-its and have a special relationship with it. The colors, shapes, and the feeling of peeling off a post-it one by one are unlike any other organizer. I love making to-do lists on my post-its and drawing tiny squares next to the things I have to do. As I accomplish those things, I check off the little squares. I think the post-it serves as a marker of my accomplishments and/or reminds me of how far I’ve come since that first post-it in the stack. If a marketer’s product or service can make it on my post-it, he can be sure it will be purchased/done.

10. I love to be the first one to try a product before it becomes mainstream. Being able to say “oh, I knew them before they were out on the radio” or “let me show you this new website” is important to me. I love telling friends about a product or service if I enjoy it myself. For example, Maria’s Taco Express is a hidden gem in Austin that not a lot of people know about. I enjoy introducing friends to their first “El Pastor” taco and watching their face glow with pleasure. Recently, I learned about grooveshark.com from a friend in Iowa, and started introducing the website to friends here in Austin. So far, more than ten friends of mine have switched from Pandora.com to GrooveShark.com. Who knows how many more people they told! Give me a product, and if I like it, I’m your word-of-mouth girl.