Market Research

Idea Generation, Finding Trends, Advanced Research Methods

Marketing is all about coming up with new ideas and adjustments to marketing efforts in order to respond to a changing target market and to competitive pressures. In this section we offer resources that may be used to help spur innovative thinking including spoting trends in the market. This topic area also includes state-of-the art marketing research methods and techniques used for idea development and other purposes.

Marketing Stories for Topic Area

What You Really Want to Buy (neuromarketing research using customer brain scanning) BusinessWeek
This Is Your Brain on Advertising (the science of neuromarketing market research) BusinessWeek
Ears Wide Open (more evidence of open source marketing) Fast Company
Want Fresh Ideas? Try Crowdcasting (open source marketing research) Business 2.0
Big Blue Brainstorm (online brainstorming) Business Week
Eight Tips for Better Brainstorming BusinessWeek

Click Here to See All 16 Stories for Topic Area

The Weblinks Collection

Google Search Trends *The power of Google's database is put to work with this tool that offers a look at trends for search terms going back several years. By entering a search term it presents a graphical representation of searches by month. Also allows for analysis by region and even cities in a region. Could be very useful for determining the location of new markets or test markets, seeing what's hot and what's not, and for identifying when sales of cyclical products may be changing.
Perfect Brainstorming *It will take a few minutes to get a feel for the information on this site but it does contain the key elements that explains a widely used idea generation research technique.
Trendwatching *Interesting site that offers a monthly newsletter examining a consumer trend that appears to be occurring somewhere in the world. Also provides access to all previously reported trends.
Wordspy *The creation of new words are often the sign of a trend and this site provides a regular updated list of new words including examples of usage. Site includes a subject index to quickly locate terms.