BazisResearchTalk

Geneva International Motor Show, one of the major worldwide evens in the car industry, attracts thousands of international visitors every year, and market researchers are not an exception. Bazis IG participated this year in Esomar Automotive research conference in Lausanne, held in conjunction with the yearly event in Geneva.

Russian side was represented by several market research companies. Alexander Bredikhin, head of strategic marketing department of Avtovaz (current market leader in terms of automotive unit sales in Russia), was among the invited speakers. Level of interest from the international community to Russian market is enormous. Two out of ten presentations at the conference were fully devoted to segmentation approaches that help target growing mass of Russian new car buyers. Several other presentations used Russian field work as case studies to present overall research findings. Growing segment of luxury car buyers seems to be of equal interest to European car manufacturers as the low-cost utility segment.

Interestingly enough, Russians treat their automobiles as the primary means of self-expression, a way to show their social status and aesthetic preferences. Ethnographic research, wich seems to be among the buzz topics across all research industries, provided great means of communicating exactly what a new Russia car buyer stands for: large black SUV, dark glasses, aggressive driving manner – with a kind soul. A joke that is not regarded as such by the Russians – “there are no roads in Russia, just directions” – created a wave of excitement among the expert research audience in Lausanne. This expression probably came closest to reveal true feelings of the international researchers who had a chance to experience “the Russian roads” themselves.

In the meanwhile, European community turns to be more and more environmentally-oriented, with low emissions becoming a necessary criterion in the short-listed buying criteria. Hence, the keynote speaker of the conference, Shai Agassi, CEO and Founder of Better PLC, USA, was accepted by the audience with a great interest. His passionate and argumentative presentation was about electric cars – a project that received a green light in

Truly international, with brilliant speakers and attentive organizers –

This time Bazis Team brings to your attention an article about an a new-to-Russia area of marketing communications. Surely, a video toolkit for marketing in business-to-business sphere is applied in Russia with increasing intensity in last 20 years, but, perhaps, namely from the year 2007 the usage of online-video-services for b2b-marketing in Ru.net is going to take its stand as a recognized practice and video hostings would be in demand therein. The release has been generated using materials of the publication “How to Use YouTube to Generate Leads: 7 Video Posting Strategies end Tagging Tips”, published on a site MarketingSherpa.com and the article “It’s a wash-out (Дело — труба)” from the 14th number of “Business-magazine (Бизнес-журнал)” for year 2007, and also own supervisions of one of the co-authors of the release.

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Internet Marketing

Very few companies nowadays can afford off-line existence. Majority, even in Russia, must have at least minimal Internet presence, hence are involved in Internet marketing. But this is such a new and rapidly changing area that very often marketers in the companies simply do not know anything about the correct ways to market their company online. Moreover, there is no “official theory”, no Phillip Kottler on a side of a table to refer to.

The goal of this project, which I intend to make as a series of articles, is to provide a summary of existing Internet marketing methods, with short list of recommendations on the best ways to use each method.

I would like to start today with two terms: Blogging and Professional Bloggers

Blogging

A blog is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) or sexual in nature (Adult blog), and are part of a wider network of social media.

In May 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 71 million blogs.[1]

Naturally, quite a few people now are turning to be professionals in blogging, and provide very useful advises for the beginners. Some of them I am quoting below.

Recommedations for blogging beginners:

“When you write, do so in a style that sounds like a real person might say the words.

Allow some glimpses of your personal life to show through.

Don’t be afraid to go back and correct yourself if it is necessary.”

Bob Sutor’s Open Blog

Professional Bloggers

Nowadays very specialized blogs like TechCrunch or PerezHilton compete directly with mainstream media, and the people behind those ventures arrive to earn tens of thousands of dollars monthly.

I was quite surprised to even find an association of professionl bloggers - PBA. Members include blog copywriters, blog consultants and organizations that support the blogging industry such as blog designers, search engine firms, blog advertising companies, and even software companies.

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[1] Blogosphere sees healthy growth (2006-11-08). Retrieved on 2007-03-15.

Best regards,
Tatiana V. Barakshina

www.bazisgroup.com

Web 2.0 is an attempt to describe recent changes in the form and use of the World Wide Web that seem to emphasize social networking, sharing of content, greater user-based input and creation of web content and more individuated, user-responsive web-sites that make the Internet more like a part of a user’s own computer than a ‘place’ to be visited. Any service involving significant degrees of user-based content production or circulation or management can be considered Web 2.0.

The main term used to describe Web 2.0 is a network, which content (pictures, videos, texts etc.) is created by users themselves; it is called user-generated content. Huge corporations like IBM and BBC are not only sure that Web 2.0 has a great future, but they also announced that Web 3.0 system is already worked out. According to Hitwise research popularity of Web 2.0 websites increases every day. In the last 2 years attendance of these websites increased by 668%.

The main difference between Web 2.0 and traditional websites is the fact that Web 2.0 contains blogs, forums, voting support services. Web 2.0 is a locus of cultural contestation over the relative authority and power of, on the one hand, users of media forms and, on the other, providers of media. Website content is mainly users’ merit. The project itself only reveals opportunities for visitors. Good example is youtube.com website, where videos are added by users themselves.

In marketing research Web 2.0 is used for desk research, data collection. It is a lot more convenient that traditional Web 1.0 system, because only objective information is presented there.
Web 2.0 is a next step in World Wide Web development.

Natalie Kravchenko

We are often asked about Internet penetration rate in Russia. It is still believed to be quite low. Currently it stands at 23%, same as in Brazil (according to Nielsen/NetRatings for 2005). This is over 26 mln users in total, with 4,5 mln users located in Moscow!

9,1 mln use Internet daily, and almost double that use Internet every week. “At home” is most typical location to use Internet, followed by “At Work”. Evaluation of potential desire to use Internet reveals that about 3% of entire Russian populations are planning to get connected in the following year.

Welcome to the open discussion about life and research in Russia. Here we plan to discuss issues and questions about various research methods we use in Russia and abroad. Particularly interesting areas for us are Internet research via panels and via free recruit, focus groups (both online and traditional), and conjoint analysis. Please feel free to share your throughts and experience in these areas.