Consumer Research

Imagine if you could identify your business's most profitable customers, craft a better marketing strategy to communicate with them, and inspire them to buy more? Well now you can. And the best part is that you can do it using the data you already have. Today, everything we do creates data, and the volumes are enormous. Virtually every time someone views something online, enters search on Google, or even surfs the web on a smart phone, another chunk gets added to the trove of data.

Money Anxiety is a behavioral economics book exploring how financial anxiety impacts consumer behavior. The book explains why we make instinctive financial decisions, why we are more risk averse when stressed, and why we hate to lose more than we love to win.

In this book, Eric von Hippel, author of the influential Democratizing Innovation, integrates new theory and research findings into the framework of a "free innovation paradigm." Free innovation, as he defines it, involves innovations developed by consumers who are self-rewarded for their efforts, and who give their designs away "for free." It is an inherently simple grassroots innovation process, unencumbered by compensated transactions and intellectual property rights.

Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress retells the epic stories of the decade that addicted all of us to the shopping experience. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Or something in between? Listen and choose for yourself.

You've been getting ripped off. The rules that have protected consumers for decades are failing. Companies are spying on us. Many of the products we once trusted are dangerous and failing at alarming rates. Whether we are buying a crib, a small appliance, an iPhone app, or shopping for car insurance, it's become harder than ever to know whether the choices we make in the marketplace are putting us at risk—either from physical harm or the abuse of our personal data by hackers or corporations. This is intolerable. It's wrong. And we don't have to put up with it anymore.

As humans, we are greatly influenced by our relationships. We each enjoy being members of loyalty programs and networking groups that align with our goals. We have selected and continue to go to the same supermarkets, gas stations, banks, and purchase from only select companies. This happens because of an unspoken relationship that exists with these businesses and brands. They make us happy, we trust them, and their consistency is calming in a chaotic world with too many choices.

Wilber Winkle was called a "national treasure" by no less than TV's Larry King, and his book was dubbed the funniest in decades by American Bookseller. What does Mr. Winkle do? Without fear, he writes letters to the massive corporations responsible for popular consumer products, demanding satisfaction and complaining about even the most minor of flaws. And miraculously, the corporations answer.

Big data - the enormous amount of data that is created as virtually every movement, transaction, and choice we make becomes digitized - is revolutionizing business. Offering real-world insight and explanations, this audiobook provides a roadmap for organizations looking to develop a profitable big data strategy...and reveals why it's not something they can leave to the I.T. department. Think Bigger is an essential resource for anyone who wants to ensure that their company isn't left in the dust.

Bestselling author and trend watcher Marc Ostrofsky is here to help. In this groundbreaking new audiobook, Ostrofsky reveals the ways that new technologies implant themselves in our daily lives and how we can easily take advantage of them to live, learn, buy, sell, work, play, communicate, and socialize better. Covering diverse topics from how the Internet affects our health to how we can become bargain-hunting pros, Ostrofsky's audiobook could come at no better time.

This newly launched report argues that development policies based on new insights into how people actually think and make decisions will help governments and civil society more readily tackle such challenges as increasing productivity, breaking the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next, and acting on climate change.

From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt---and almost everywhere in between---America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time---the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world.

Cheap. It's a dirty word laden with negative meanings. It is also the story of Lauren Weber's life. As a child, she resented her father for keeping the heat at 50 degrees through the frigid winters and rarely using his car's turn signals - to keep them from burning out. But as an adult, she found herself walking 30 blocks to save $2 on subway fare. In Cheap We Trust teases out the meanings of cheapness and examines the wisdom and pleasures of not spending every last penny.

The greatest threat to privacy today is not the NSA, but good-old American companies. Internet giants, leading retailers, and other firms are voraciously gathering data with little oversight from anyone. In Las Vegas, no company knows the value of data better than Caesars Entertainment. Many thousands of enthusiastic clients pour through the ever-open doors of their casinos. The secret to the company’s success lies in their one unrivaled asset: they know their clients intimately by tracking the activities of the overwhelming majority of gamblers.

In Demand, Adrian Slywotzky provides a radically new way to think about demand, with a big idea and a host of practical applications - not just for people in business but also for social activists, government leaders, non-profit managers, and other would-be innovators. To succeed in their various missions, all these groups need to master such ground-breaking concepts as the hassle map (and the secrets of fixing it); the curse of the incomplete product (and how to avoid it); why “very good” does not equal “magnetic”....

In Cool, the neuroscientist and philosopher Steven Quartz and the political scientist Anette Asp bring together the latest findings in brain science, economics, and evolutionary biology to form a provocative theory of consumerism, revealing how the brain's "social calculator" and an instinct to rebel are the crucial missing links in understanding the motivations behind our spending habits.

Lee Eisenberg's The Number hit the New York Times best-seller list and became an instant classic with those wanting to learn more about retiring comfortably. Here he investigates the forces that compel Americans to shop till they drop. A timely exploration, Shoptimism takes a critical look at an often downplayed aspect of American economic prosperity.

On the ten-year anniversary of the release of Joe Public Doesn't Care About Your Hospital, Chris Bevolo and Revive have set their sights a decade in the future with Joe Public 2030: Five Potent Predictions Reshaping How Consumers Engage Healthcare. The book explores five key ways consumer health engagement may change over the coming decade, covering everything from AI and personal monitoring to consumerism, new competition, the politicization of healthcare, and growing health disparities. The purpose of the book is to spark conversation about the future of healthcare.

It’s a new era of business and consumerism - and you play a role in defining it.

Today’s biggest trends - the mobile web, social media, real time - have produced a new consumer landscape. The End of Business As Usual explores this complex information revolution, how it has changed the future of business, media, and culture, and what you can do about it. This is the end of business as usual and the beginning of a new era of relevance.

Laddering explains how to better understand your customers' core values. Learn to ask the right questions from your customers, use it to analyze your data, and unlock the true potential of your product or service. Use Laddering techniques to map your customer's DNA and understand why consumers buy from you; help you look at your customers in a new way and as a result maximize your profits and reduce your support costs; and provide a framework for evaluating what marketing messages, campaigns and experiences are appropriate.

Online shopping continues to grow at an astounding rate. In 2012 more than $1 trillion were spent in online retailers alone. The nature of shopping is drastically changing - but with so little information on how best to interact with online customers, how are businesses to succeed?