Chuck Bean

Innovation: Ideation + Iteration

Innovation Research, Automotive & Mobility, Building & Construction, Chemicals, Consumer & B2B2C, Food & Beverage, Franchising, Healthcare & Human Factors

Concept testing is a pivotal stage in the product development process. After an initial idea or concept has been developed, brands must validate its potential in the market. This process involves assessing whether the concept is understood, appealing, and viable from a consumer perspective. What’s more, concept testing, as a function of quantitative and qualitative market research, can insulate the innovator from wasted resources and unnecessary capital expenditures. 

The Art and Science of Identifying and Engaging Difficult-to-Reach Audiences

Brand Research, Competitive Intelligence, Innovation Research

A “difficult-to-reach” audience is one that, by virtue of its specificity, authority level, scarcity, or privacy, is not easily found nor convinced to participate in research studies. At Martec, we’ve built a reputation over decades for reaching precisely these types of respondents — not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.

Case Study: Automotive Aftermarket Manufacturer Makes Difficult Decision with Confidence Using Price-Value Mapping

Customer Experience & Journey Mapping, Pricing Research, Automotive & Mobility

Price-Value Mapping analyzes the relationship between what customers value about your brand or product and the price they are willing to pay. In this case, a category-leading automotive aftermarket parts manufacturer was faced with a crossroads: Continue to support multiple sub-brands that competed in the same market and at similar price points, or make the difficult decision to discontinue one of the brands?

Understanding Your Company’s Future as ESG Proliferates

Private Equity

Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is no longer merely an emerging trend, confined mostly to the investment world and the purview of private equity firms. On the contrary: it is far more likely that your company, product and corporate mission are already coming under the scrutiny of a more discerning public than what would’ve been the case just a decade ago. 

The Art and Science Behind Injecting Emotion into Business-to-Business Marketing

One area of the marketing research discipline that cannot be emphasized enough is a certain power perhaps upstream of provocation, and that’s the power of emotions. We have studied the role emotions play in purchases of all kinds of purchases and strategic decisions — B2B and B2C alike — and the research shows that emotions are powerful drivers of action.

How to Understand Your Brand’s “Emotional Value”

The difficulty lies in transcending the understanding of whether a brand’s emotional value is “good enough,” as it’s much more complex than that. The question of, “Does the data suggest our brand’s emotional value is good?” simplifies the equation. What’s considered good for one brand, category, or product might be detrimental to another. What’s required to truly understand the emotional nuances that drive purchase decisions, brand affinity, customer loyalty, and even market share acquisition is deep analysis of not only which emotions a brand does evoke for a given market, but also which emotions that brand should evoke.

DEI Hiring Trends

B2B Research: In a Digital World, How Do You Protect the Integrity of the Data Set?

How To Get Nostalgia Marketing Right

Why ESG Due Diligence Is Important

Commercial Due Diligence, Private Equity

Building Brand Loyalty Through CX

Brand Research, Customer Experience & Journey Mapping

Brand loyalty is driven by customers’ positive feelings toward a brand, their dedication to purchasing the brand’s products or services repeatedly, and their promotion of the brand, whether online or in-person. Customer experience (CX) focuses on the relationship between a business and its customers.

Emotions Are Complex, Analyzing Them Doesn’t Have to Be

Customers have distinct feelings about products, services, and brands. How can their emotions be captured and analyzed easily? The process of analyzing emotions can be tricky, but it doesn’t need to be…let’s dive in. Research shows that being competitive on rational factors, while essential, will only achieve parity. Most leading products or services end up in this parity position because short-term advantages, based solely on rational factors, quickly are matched by competitors. To combat this issue, marketers need to connect with customers on an emotional level for lasting advantage. This is why, in most highly competitive categories, advertising often has very little to do with conscious, rational benefits, features, or performance.

Understanding True Voice of Customer Research

To find the true voice of the customer, VoC research should encourage people to share their thoughts and answer “why.” Examining a customer’s full response (in any open-ended context) is critical to understanding the decision-making process. Finding the true voice of the customer requires researchers and executives to be objective, open, and active listeners.

Introducing a Scalable Approach to Business Innovation and Brand Success

The Future of UX Research: Uncovering Users’ True Emotions with Mixed Methodologies

Customer Experience & Journey Mapping, Voice of Customer, Healthcare & Human Factors

Where Middle Market ESG Due Diligence Is Heading

Commercial Due Diligence, Private Equity

Industry Disruptors: Using Foresight to Outmaneuver Minnows

Innovation Research, Market Sizing & Opportunity Assessment

What are industry disruptors? They are all concepts that started as ideas that challenged traditional business models, solved problems differently, reduced costs, or introduced an innovative approach – all while winning customers.

Growth Strategy Framework: Putting Disruptive Innovation in Its Place

Innovation Research

When a leadership team determines it is time to diversify and innovate to drive long-term growth, where do they start? Having a growth strategy framework helps advance the front-end of the innovation process and is critical to the successful development of a new product or service.

Franchisor Advantages and Disadvantages: What’s New

Dissecting the Science Behind Gut Feelings

How Knowing Your Customers’ Emotional Drivers Can Increase Sales

The Martec Emotion Score: Quantifying Your Customers’ Emotions

Brand Research, Voice of Customer

How to Enhance the Value of Customer Satisfaction Ratings Using Martec Emotion Score

Using Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions in Market Research

Many approaches to linguistic emotion-analysis exist, but Martec has found the most success with tools that approach emotion research through the lens of Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. The basis of Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions is to pare down a vast number of emotions into a smaller, more manageable set of emotion “channels” that focus on what type of emotion is present. This allows for a simpler conceptualization of human feelings.

Targeting Specific Emotions in Your Customers

Voice of Customer

A Scalable Approach to Emotion Research

Voice of Customer

A Simple Approach to Emotion Research

A Seamless Approach to Emotion Research

A Practical Approach to Emotion Intelligence

The Next Step in Customer Satisfaction: Martec Emotion Score

Brand Research, Customer Experience & Journey Mapping, Voice of Customer