Folks, I’m
pleased to be able to spend some time with
Carol Fitzgerald, President of BuzzBack, a
full service online market research company
which has developed several really
innovative ways to do research. BuzzBack
helps a company to understand the likes,
dislikes, passions, interests and attitudes
of their customer base for a number of
purposes which include, but not are not
limited to; optimization of the website for
improved end-user stickiness and increased
conversion rates, introducing new content,
products/services based on what
customers/clients want and what they’d find
compelling and memorable. There are many
ways that BuzzBack’s market research can be
used, but the long and short of it is this;
the research the company provides helps
companies become more efficient, which in
turn lowers operating costs and enhances ROI.
Tom Polanski: Hi Carol, how are you today?
Carol Fitzgerald: Great, thanks. I
appreciate your having me here.
Tom Polanski: You were an English and French
major in college. When did you discover a
passion for technology?
Carol Fitzgerald: Dartmouth was a beta site
for the Macintosh when it was first
introduced. I have one of the original Mac’s
and used it in college. When I attended my
first MacWorld Expo for work, I fell in love
with technology — from there I wanted to
work for a software company.
Tom Polanski: Carol, before we discuss
BuzzBack in further detail, I think it would
be of great service if we could maybe
discuss what it’s like to be a woman, a mom,
who’s President of a company. You have
twins, right?
Carol Fitzgerald: Yes, that’s right. They’re
11 years old now, so it’s a bit easier than
the early days. But life is a constant
juggle and balance. Finding the balance is
tough for any Mom, working or non, as time
to yourself becomes non-existent. For me,
our exciting growth as a company makes it
more stressful, but it’s super-motivating
also.
Tom Polanski: Would you mind giving us a
sketch of what your typical day is like?
Carol Fitzgerald: I wake up at 5:30, catch
up on email from Europe, and then work out.
I am obsessive about everything so it’s the
same even on weekends. (laughs) When the
family wakes up, we have breakfast and
prepare for the day. Everyone has busy
schedules, with school and lots of
activities and sports. It keeps us all going
but also is time-consuming.
After I drop the kids at school, I head for
the train to the office. A typical day in
the office (when I am not visiting clients)
consists of phone conferences, meetings to
discuss technology/development and helping
employees address issues related to our
products and services.
Tom Polanski: Wow. How do you manage to keep
a work/personal life balance?
Carol Fitzgerald: I am not sure I have one
(grin), I was brought up learning to ‘give
back’ and to participate in community
activities and events. Being rounded is
really important for everyone I think, and I
look for that in employees. It brings fresh
perspective and adds to idea generation,
team building and growth contributions. For
myself personally, I try to have that, but
people would probably tell you I skew to
being work-centric. Having children forces
balance if you want to participate in their
lives.
Tom Polanski: What are a few of the
challenges that you’ve faced and had to
overcome in business?
Carol Fitzgerald: I am a control freak. It’s
what makes me granular about the details.
But in business you can’t control all. Stuff
happens – you know what I mean? You have to
allow for the unplanned, to allocate time in
your day to deal with minor or major crises.
Having my own business makes me feel greater
responsibility in the well-being of my
employees – not only are they paid well but
are they deriving any enjoyment from what
they do? Are they learning? It also makes me
obsessive (remember that’s me) about making
sure clients are happy and that we’re doing
the best we can. It’s really hard to grow
fast, most entrepreneurs will tell you it’s
a rollercoaster ride, not a stroll in the
park.
Tom Polanski: What risks have you taken?
Carol Fitzgerald: In the beginning we were
very conservative in hiring, then as we
started to grow faster, we had to hire more
quickly. Some of the biggest risks have felt
like the more senior people – the higher
salaries and you don’t know if they will pay
off.
Tom Polanski: Good answer. I hadn’t thought
of that. Do you have any advice you’d like
to share with women who are in business or
thinking of going into business?
Carol Fitzgerald: Trust your gut. If you
think you have an idea, go for it. There are
actually new articles and studies on how gut
decisions are often the best ones you can
make. I wouldn’t wish failure on anyone, but
failure is a learning experience. And so
long as it doesn’t set you back in a major
financial way or negatively change your
life, you should pursue your idea. Better to
have tried and failed than never to have
tried.
Tom Polanski: I think one of the
through-lines I’ve seen in eight years of
online marketing, is how little my clients
understand about the interests, attitudes
and opinions of their client-base and
audience. We can agree, I think, on a couple
of things; one, it’s more profitable to keep
a customer than it is to find new ones and
secondly, understanding what makes a shopper
tick, click and stick, mitigates lost
revenue through testing by enabling
companies to deliver products and media
messages that are tailored before the fact
rather after the fact. In general how does
BuzzBack help companies to do this?
Carol Fitzgerald: BuzzBack helps clients,
specifically marketers, understand how
consumers think. Our whole approach and
development of online research solutions is
designed to go beneath the surface. Most
marketers have purchase data, clicks, etc.,
but we don’t know how consumers think. Do
their actions match their thoughts or even
what they say?
Tom Polanski: BuzzBack is a full service
online marketing solution, what are the
solutions offered specifically, Carol?
Carol Fitzgerald: We design custom research
studies to address marketers’ problems. We
are all about the WHY. There are lots of
numbers but the numbers don’t tell the whole
story - here are a few examples: what is the
profile of my heavy user? What does he/she
do? What motivates him/her? How do I talk to
him/her in my messages? Or is this idea a
good one? How does my target react to this
new idea? Why?
Tom Polanski: For those new to online
marketing solutions, what separates BuzzBack
from other online marketing companies?
Carol Fitzgerald: First we are focused on
solving client problems, in a very specific
way that addresses their needs. Second our
solutions are different, award-winning, and
they uniquely deliver richer insights to
help marketers make better decisions. In
short, we are focused on going beneath the
surface to understand how consumers think.
Tom Polanski: What new tools and
technologies does BuzzBack offer?
Carol Fitzgerald: BuzzBack’s has a growing
portfolio of research solutions that bring
Web-based practices, developments and ideas
to online research. eCollage is just one
example of our innovative research
techniques – and just one of the tools
driving our business growth. We also
recently introduced Verbatim Viewer, a
faster and more effective way to navigate
open-ended insights. Both eCollage and
Verbatim Viewer were awarded the 2007 MRS/ASC
for Technology Effectiveness in Research
Techniques, a prestigious industry award. In
addition, our vision of where online
research is headed was recently published in
ADMAP, a leading industry journal on Market
Research.
Tom Polanski: eCollage is unique, fun way
for end-users to take a survey. Could you
describe it?
Carol Fitzgerald: With eCollage, respondents
literally build an online collage on a blank
canvas. They are asked a question – such as
what does this name represent to you? What
does this brand represent? How do you feel
about this product? What would the
experience of drinking this product be like?
– They then drag and drop images to the
canvas to build a collage. They can even add
a background color to personalize their
expression.
The images are custom to the question.
BuzzBack works with its clients to select
100+ images that are specific to the study
and the question itself in order to yield
richer, more personal responses. After
building their collage, respondents are
asked to describe it.
Tom Polanski: If I understand correctly,
eCollage is a tool that elicits non-verbal,
nonintellectual right-hemispheric responses,
and these are translated into left
hemispheric, intellectually apprehended
data. It seems that there is a chance for
meaning, insight and pertinent behavioral
data to be lost or confused in the
translation. Have you been able to
standardize interpretation of the responses,
based on accumulated historical data, so
that there is a high probability of veracity
in the findings?
Carol Fitzgerald: Zaltman and other
academics have shown that more than 85% of
human expression, and decision making in
particular, happens in the subconscious.
Consumers think in images, sounds, and use
words to express their feelings. As
marketers, we typically seek responses and
insights using verbal cues – we ask
questions to learn about our brand, or our
ad. But what if we don’t use the right
words? Will we get the same answers?
By using non-verbal cues, such as images in
eCollage, we can get beneath the surface –
go beyond the rational to the non-rational.
The images are catalysts to the words. They
lead us to the insights and the words linked
to emotions. With eCollage we don’t try to
standardize on the interpretation - -
instead we lean to the qualitative, more
personal experience and insight. We learn
more.
Tom Polanski: Please tell us little about
Configurator?
Carol Fitzgerald: Configurator allows you to
create concepts, explore new product names,
and test packaging ideas by engaging
consumers in new, idea building ways. We
start with the elements of an ad, a website,
or some other concept. Respondents build and
literally configure their own concepts and
describe what they’ve developed.
For clients, Configurator helps you quantify
both the individual elements selected as
independent variables, as well as
combinations and frequencies for other
permutations. Follow-up probes give more
insight into the “whys” as respondents
describe their designs and creations.
Tom Polanski: IDQ sounds like a really
exciting tool. Could you tell us a little
bit about that?
Carol Fitzgerald: Based on the Delphi
technique, BuzzBack IDQ™ (Interactive Delphi
Query) is a new online technology that
enables you to generate ideas and evaluate
them simultaneously. Most of the early
stages of marketing and ideation are about
generating new ideas – the more ideas, the
higher the chance for good or better ideas.
With IDQ, we engage consumers to build and
develop on-the-fly. Participants dynamically
“vote” on each others’ responses, producing
a result that is a “real-time” stratified
list of the best (and worst) ideas. Simply
speaking, IDQ can be thought of as an
interactive open end.
Tom Polanski: How is the end-user presented
with the survey?
Carol Fitzgerald: An IDQ survey includes
several different elements:
1. First respondents view a stimulus (a
visual, a concept idea, etc.)
2. Next, they view a question – what is your
reaction to this idea? What would you call
this product?
3. Below the question, the respondent views
a response from a previous participant. They
rate that response on 2 measures that are
custom to the question. For instance, in a
naming study – how much do you like this
name? How well does this name fit with the
product?
4. After viewing 4-6 responses and rating
each, respondents can add their own ideas.
About two out of three respondents will add
something to the pool. That means the list
grows quickly. Using a proprietary
algorithm, the IDQ engine determines which
ideas are shown to subsequent respondents
based on their overall ratings and the
number of exposures each has.
The result is a broadened, stratified list
of the best and worst ideas.
Tom Polanski: Are there any new BuzzBack
products that you’d like to let us in on?
Carol Fitzgerald: We have a few more
interactive question types planned for the
third and fourth quarter. These are in line
with eCollage, Configurator and IDQ – all of
which are projective techniques to get at
richer and more personal insights. Our goal
is to understand what consumers think, and
our tools will be created with a goal of
yielding those kinds of responses.
Tom Polanski: In closing is there anything
you’d like to say to decision makers that
are not utilizing market research in a
meaningful way yet?
Carol Fitzgerald: One of the inherent
benefits of the Internet is that it offers
more efficient ways of doing traditional
marketing, and also research. But the
Internet has also changed traditional means
and forced marketers to think and act in
ways that leverage the ways consumers use
the Internet. Research is the same.
Marketers need to think differently about
market research – perhaps change their
perceptions of what market research used to
be, and what it is today. Instead, we need
to think about how every “transaction” on
the web is data collection. Data that can be
used to learn more about consumers, how they
act/behave, and even how they think.
Tom Polanski: Finally, Carol, is there
anything you’d like to add that we didn’t
cover?
Carol Fitzgerald: This may sound silly, but
one of BuzzBack’s core assets is that we’re
highly efficient —- we have an orientation
toward technology, and our team is very
responsive and reliable. You’d be surprised
how many marketers were and are “let down”
by their research partners or agencies
because they don’t deliver on time, and
sometimes don’t deliver at all. I am always
surprised when I hear “wow, you sent the
data when you said you would” – it seems
such a no-brainer, but many companies don’t
do the basics.
Tom Polanski: Carol thanks for your time
today. It was a pleasure.
Carol Fitzgerald: Thank you, Tom. I
appreciate you doing your homework and
asking great questions.
Tom Polanski: Please feel free to visit the
BuzzBack site to learn more. Thank you.
