Monthly Archives: April 2014

Why Discount Supermarkets aren’t All They Seem

Why Discount Supermarkets aren’t All They Seem

The news today has been dominated by the announcement from the UK’s biggest supermarket chain that their profit fell by 6% to £3.3bn. Having just been invited to participate in a discussion on national radio about this news, what intrigued me was the psychology of the debate. The results create a negative prime and most of the callers into the radio show started their ‘reaction’ with a stinging indictment of Tesco’s customer service, products or prices.  In fact, had a Martian been listening to the vehement critique of the retailer he would surely have assumed that the company was down to it’s last store and that tumbleweed was blowing down the aisles where shoppers used to be! In reality, Tesco still meets the supermarket shopping needs of more customers than any other company. Undoubtedly they have struggled under the competitive pressure from both sides of the economic spectrum: Waitrose has […]

Using Morphine to Improve Survey Results

Using Morphine to Improve Survey Results

Back when I was a market research manager at Pizza Hut I sat through several research debriefs where a shot of morphine might well have made the experience more bearable. Invariably it was having tracking study results that caused me the greatest pain: hearing about how the globally-bestowed brand metrics had meandered in the past six months was never my favourite way to pass the time.  I never could find a link between what we heard and what the real business figures told us was going on, beyond the blindingly obvious changes in awareness when we had an ad campaign on air. However, to the best of my knowledge, doctors won’t prescribe opiates for such situations.  It’s another domain entirely where survey results and pain avoidance have recently coincided in a fascinating way. Research by doctors at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, examined the correlation between […]