Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile. Just click and read!

Artificial Intelligence Is Great, but Won't Tell You How Consumers Feel

CMOs' Changing Role Toward Consumers: Less Talk, More Listening

Invitation To Hack: How Bad Passwords Resemble Bad Data

And here's a Friday music video to get you feeling funky for your weekend.

Here’s a thought: consumer-facing businesses are like families, with the company as parent and consumers as children who need to be listened to, understood, and influenced.

This analogy is inspired by a column in MediaPost’s MarketingDaily newsletter that argues the traditional role of Chief Marketing Officer has evolved, or should evolve, so that CMOs listen to consumers and then represent them at corporate tables where decisions are made. Instead of fashioning “one way communications from company to customer, marketers now often represent the voice of the customer,” writes Brooke Niemiec, Chief Marketing Officer for the Elicit marketing agency. Here's how she defines the evolved marketing role: “By deeply understanding all available customer insight, [CMOs] can evangelize everything they know about their customers to influence decision-making in any capacity.”

It sounds like what deeply-involved parents typically do: listen and observe to gain a full understanding of the child, then make decisions on how to influence the child to make desirable decisions. Of course, the analogy can’t be carried too far: good businesses value their customers enough to give them good consumer experiences, while good parents value their children enough to put their hearts and souls into preparing them for a good life. But in both cases, good listening, good understanding, and good thinking are crucial to getting good results.  

You can read the MediaPost column by clicking here. Another thought to keep in mind: in the Smartphone Era, you can’t understand, let alone represent, the voice of the customer without hearing from them on the mobile devices that absorb, delight and inform them throughout their day – and on which their individual and collective voices gain expression. For a productive conversation about how advanced mobile-app research can help you get in touch with today’s consumers to generate the data your specific projects require, just click here.

If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution you can really keep, put making your passwords more secure on your to-do list. 

To help you see what NOT to do, SplashData, a provider of personal password security apps, publishes an annual list of the year’s 25 worst passwords, based on how many successful hacks have been detected during the previous year. The SplashData lists have real resonance for market research, where data security is crucial. Online panels are vulnerable to scammers who collect rewards by supplying bogus or duplicated survey responses. Bots that take online surveys and disguise themselves by cleverly mimicking human consumers are leading causes of data-distortion.

When it comes to the most vulnerable passwords, as reported by Gizmodo, “123456” topped the list in 2017 -- the fifth straight year it earned that dubious distinction. In fact, consecutive number series starting with “1” accounted for five of the eight most-stolen passwords. “Password” ranked #2 on SplashData’s list for the fifth straight year, and at #19 was its uncapitalized cousin, "password." 

Certain oft-purloined passwords reflect what’s on the collective mind. In 2017 they included “football” (#9), “starwars” (#16), and “dragon,” presumably inspired by "Game of Thrones," at #18. Another popular password was “monkey” (#13), which reclaimed a place in the Top 25 after falling off the list in 2016. Using your pets' names would probably be a better idea.

Some members of the worst-passwords list for 2016 failed to repeat in 2017: “hottie,” “master,” “sunshine” “princess,” and “loveme.” In their place rose “freedom,” “iloveyou” and, in a delicious irony, “trustno1,” which made its debut on the untrustworthy passwords list at #25.

Insights professionals have to trust someone to deliver the fraud-free data they need to help businesses make properly-informed decisions. Instead of accepting online survey fraud as an unavoidable pollutant in their data stream, researchers who think it's important to defend against tainted completes have an alternative in mobile-app survey technology. Smartphones’ unique IDs eliminate duplication and  thwart bots. Other phone features provide ironclad validation: location functions confirm respondents' whereabouts, and a phone's camera lets you request photos of receipts or videos that respondents submit to confirm their whereabouts and their identity as actual human beings. On the back end, be sure to ask your panel providers whether they have in-house experts eyeball each complete as a standard feature of the data-cleaning process.

For a productive conversation about mobile data security, and of all the ways in which mobile-app research can meet your specific project needs, just get in touch by clicking here.

As we begin a new year, perhaps the most certain prediction for the insights industry is that Artificial Intelligence will command a great deal of attention and cause a great deal of anxiety. Nearly every move today's connected consumers make is being tracked and recorded by computers, creating data trails of incredible scale and complexity. Artificial Intelligence sorts and sifts through it all at speeds far beyond the reach of mere human intelligence. 

To get a grasp on the power of Artificial Intelligence to assimilate masses of data and make predictions about human behaviors, consider what happened when AI took on the reigning human champions in the ancient Chinese game of Go.

In 2016, an AI program called AlphaGo played five games each against the world champion, Lee Sedol, and the European champion, Fan Hui. The score was nine wins for AlphaGo, and one for the humans, with Lee notching the lone victory. AlphaGo, which was created by Google's DeepMind division, had mastered the game by assimilating a mass of data representing a specific human behavior -- it had delved into an archive that housed records of all the moves made in thousands of games of Go played by humans. 

But AlphaGo's victory gave it no satisfaction. Algorithms don't feel. Lee, on the other hand, expressed some surprising emotions in defeat: "I have questioned at some points in my life whether I truly enjoy the game of Go, but I admit that I enjoyed all five games against AlphaGo.” 

Artificial Intelligence never stands still, and In 2017, AlphaGo had its comeuppance. It faced off in a 100-game match against AlphaGo Zero, a new Go-playing algorithm designed by Google. The new, improved algorithm won every game, and the online publication Gizmodo cited the shellacking as one of the most significant technological achievements of 2017. That's because, except for being fed the rules of Go, AlphaGo Zero had received zero input from human beings. In three days, it had deduced from the rules alone how the game could best be played. It hadn't needed to crunch a single move made by any other Go player, human or computer.

Do AI's encounters with Go have implications for how we can understand and predict consumer behavior? Artificial Intelligence already can suggest products of interest based on shoppers' past purchases and searches. Could it some day make the very act of shopping obsolete by becoming so expert at interpreting consumers' preferences that they'll simply hand over their purchasing decisions to algorithms they trust to produce more satisfactory outcomes than they could achieve themselves?

Or are the uniquely human capacities for emotion and intuition too fundamental to human satisfaction, including satisfaction with shopping and buying, for a machine to decide rather than merely suggest? It’s significant, and offers a spark of hope for those who value human agency and will, that Lee, the human world champion, had enjoyed playing AlphaGo even though he lost. AlphaGo could not say the same. Nor were the subsequent matches between AlphaGo and AlphaGo Zero anything but technological experiments. Those games were devoid of exhilaration and tension and fun for anyone but the algorithms' designers. The loser felt no frustration, the winner felt no pride, and neither took the slightest bit of pleasure from the experience. Artificial Intelligence can dominate a game of Go, but it fails to comprehend the intrinsic qualities that have engaged the game's human players for more than 3,000 years.

The human quirk of being able to enjoy even a losing experience illustrates the complexity of our emotions. Our true humanity lies in our unpredictability, our need for newness and surprise in some things, and for reliability and constancy in others. It’s the role of the insights professional to delve into how these slippery qualities drive consumer behavior. Can Artificial Intelligence model human emotions well enough to provide insights that inform business decisions better than surveys that ask real consumers about their motivations and how they felt about an experience? Will market research remain a job for people who can interpret people? Or is it primed for a complete takeover by extremely intelligent and fast-acting machines?

Perhaps we'll know more by the end of 2018. Meanwhile, start your year with a productive conversation with a real human being about how mobile GeoLocation technology can put you in touch with real consumers at the moment they're shopping or just after they've left a store. You'll get the most vivid data possible at the Point of Emotion® where buying decisions are made. Artificial Intelligence tracks data that's recorded after-the-fact. Data from surveys fielded through a mobile app gives you a window on what a consumer experience was like in-the-moment. Why did a shopper go to that particular store? What motivated the decision to buy or not to buy? What do shoppers say they feel about their experiences, when asked while those feelings are freshest in their hearts and minds? For answers on how to understand the consumer experience all along the path to purchase, and beyond, just get in touch by clicking here.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile. Just click and read!

Change Is Always Hard, but Getting Mobile Right Is Worth It

How Mobile GeoLocation Takes Research Where You Need It To Be

How Retailers Can Take Shopper Satisfaction Tips from Santa

And here's a Christmas video sung by a chorus of little angels. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

  “Voice of the consumer” is no longer just a market research metaphor, but an audible fact for more than 100 million Americans.

•  A newly-published study by Pew Research Center found that 46% of U.S. adults use voice-control technology to accomplish tasks on various devices.

•  Smartphones were by far the most common tools that consumers command with their voices, according to the study – 42% of adults use voice capabilities on their phones.

•  Talking to other devices was far less common: 14% for computers or tablets, and 8% for stand-alone voice-activated tools such as Amazon Echo and Google Home.

•  The leading “major reason” for talking to machines was keeping hands free, cited by 55% of voice-control users. 23% said it’s simply fun, and 22% cited voice as feeling more natural than typing. Among non-users, 61% said they just weren’t interested in their devices’ voice control features.

•   Only 39% of users said their voice controlled devices responded accurately “most of the time,” so the technology has room for improvement.

 So what does this mean for market researchers who are professionally obsessed with any manifestation of the consumer's voice? It’s especially revealing that nearly a quarter of voice control users like talking to their devices because it’s fun. There’s lots of chatter in the insights industry about the need to reverse declining response rates for online surveys by exploiting consumers’ instincts for fun, via gamification and other cosmetic add-ons to questionnaires. But, as Pew's study shows, when the right device meets the right application, the fun comes naturally. It’s impressive that nearly half of U.S. adults talk to their smartphones. It’s also impressive that if you push a state-of-the-art mobile survey to 1,000 panelists, 500 will begin to take it – a 50% response rate. And of those 500, 475 will stick with the survey until they’ve either completed it or been terminated.

 You may be surprised at how much you can accomplish by seeking the voice of the consumer on the devices that consumers trust as indispensable appendages to their lives. For a productive conversation about how mobile-app research can provide unique approaches to meeting your projects’ specific needs, just get in touch by clicking here.

Q: What’s the world’s most inviolable deadline?

A: December 25, local family wakeup time.

And according to the National Retail Federation, more than half of U.S. Christmas shoppers will be frantically trying to meet it in the next few days. Among the findings:

– As of Dec. 12, with 12 shopping days left, only 12% of respondents said they’d finished their holiday shopping.

– Among respondents who hadn’t completed their shopping before Dec. 12, 51% expected they’d still be at it during the last five shopping days before Christmas.

– Of the shoppers who still had gifts to buy, 51% said they’d be shopping online, 41% were headed to department stores, 26% were looking to discount stores and 21% to clothing and accessories stores.

– Among those who already had made all or some of their gift purchases, the most popular categories were clothing and accessories (54%), toys (39%), gift cards (39%), books, movies and other media (35%), consumer electronics and computer accessories (25%), food or candy (25%) and experiences, such as tickets to an event or admission to a spa or a class (23%).

– More than a fifth of consumers said they wouldn’t complete their shopping until the last two days before Christmas – with 16% looking to get the job done by Saturday, Dec. 23, and 6% on Christmas Eve.

– And 5% said they’d simply blow the big deadline and give belatedly.

Emotion plays a role in any purchase decision, and for hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers, the feelings peak with their holiday gift decisions. The best way to understand what’s feeding those emotions, and how they translate into purchasing decisions, is to talk to shoppers all along the path to purchase – but especially in the moments when their choices are made, or are freshest in mind. Researchers in the Smartphone Era are able to home in on that Point of Emotion®  by harnessing advanced mobile geolocation technology that tracks shoppers into a store, where they’ll receive push notifications to take a survey while they’re still shopping, or to take an after-visit survey within a day or two after they’ve left. Expect same-day response rates of 50%, thanks to the particular engagement that a smooth-functioning mobile interchange commands. For a productive conversation about how advanced, mobile-app research can meet your projects’ specific needs, just get in touch by clicking here.

Do you believe in Santa Claus? Retail executives and managers whose companies need to maximize sales during the Christmas season can’t afford not to, because they are Santa Claus. Or at least they must act like Santa Claus by spreading good cheer in their stores, and whatever else it takes to ensure that shoppers leave satisfied.

America’s retail-executive Santas collectively depend on a U.S. labor force of some five million retail workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In lieu of a workshop full of elves, decision-makers in charge of the nation’s stores must secure the right strategies and support for the workforce they depend, while stocking the right kinds and quantities of products. It’s no easy task, especially under the pressures and high stakes of the holiday season. The Santas of the business world can be forgiven if they’re not always exuding jollity and ho-ho-ho-hos. But if they succeed, their CEOs or board members likely will.

Being a good retail Santa takes smart planning, nimble execution, and good communication – especially with the consumers the nation’s stores need to please. That means establishing reliable and effective lines of communication to connect with consumers to obtain timely, accurate and emotionally vivid feedback about their holiday shopping expectations and experiences. 

What if you could identify holiday shoppers who are looking at a particular product category, and question them in the very moment and the very aisle where they’re deciding whether and what to purchase?

What if you could survey shoppers on their smartphones just as they leave a retail location? You could get straight, fresh-in-mind and therefore emotionally revealing answers about what they’d just experienced, from the store’s cleanliness to the friendliness and helpfulness of its personnel to the way it handled long checkout lines. And, of course, you could ask them about what they’d bought and why.

What if a brand's insights professionals could identify and validate its buyers (or its competitors’ buyers) in a retail location, then follow up with a survey within a week or two, to learn how well they and their family had enjoyed the special holiday gifts and treats they'd bought for themselves and immediate household members? 

These aren't "what-ifs." They're real and present capabilities of advanced mobile solutions, made possible by marrying innovative location research technology to an engaged and representative panel that enjoys taking consumer surveys. MFour’s satisfied panelists include many of your shoppers. To get in touch with them, get in touch with us. Just click here – right now, if you're still looking for last-minute holiday shopper insights, or in the new year.

Happy holidays and best wishes to all. May the season and the year to come bring you many experiences that deserve a rich and hearty ho-ho-ho.

What makes an ad click with consumers on social media? The usefulness of $20 billion a year in U.S. ad spending depends on the answer -- and now there’s a reliable way to get it. A recent GreenBook webinar explored how a new technique called Social Ad Testing helps advertisers take the guesswork out of developing the right creative content and choosing the right platform for a campaign. The key is to do your testing in the actual personal news feeds of panelists who match the ad’s target audience. Not a simulation, but test occurring n the same ecosystem where the social campaign must succeed. 

If you didn’t attend the webinar, “Mobile Ad Testing On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube Feeds,” no problem. It’s been archived on GreenBook’s website, and to watch and listen, just click here.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile. Just click and read!

Change Is Hard, but Getting Mobile Right Is Worth It

How Mobile GeoLocation Takes Research Where You Need It To Be

Watch Webinar: The $20 Billion Answer to Social Media Ad-Effectiveness 

And here's a Friday video to give your holidays a big, happy bounce.