Field Agent Tackles 'Pink Branding' in The City Wire
October's color palette used to stress orange, red and yellow, as pumpkins begin to adorn front porches and the vibrant colors of fall foliage begin to reveal themselves.
These days, if October has a color -- at least in popular culture -- then that color is pink.
Breast-cancer awareness pink. And football, as much as any institution, has adopted the cause. Gridirons from the NFL on down sport players accessorized in pink gloves, cleats and towels in a show of support for breast cancer patients, survivors and victims.
Innovate Arkansas client firm Field Agent of Fayetteville talks "pink branding" this week with the City Wire. Field Agent is uniquely positioned to help determine just how much punch pink packs. Or something like that...
A sample:
Consumers have most likely been desensitized to the pink, but that doesn’t mean companies necessarily have anything to lose from promoting awareness. New research from Fayetteville-based Field Agent found 52% of women surveyed this month said they have not made a purchase decision of one brand over another because one of them supported breast cancer awareness. They surveyed 250 moms on that question in mid-October, at the height of “pink” mania.
Rick West, CEO of Field Agent, said the study objective was to engage shoppers at the very moment of decision making. They did so using mobile technology to engage shoppers in various locations in 44 states during the “pink” promotional month.
“It’s a very different way to think about research, it’s real time data with expansive coverage collected at a low cost. At Field Agent we are able to get answers to questions that brands want to know about a myriad of topics, even consumers’ attitudes toward breast cancer awareness campaigns and their effectiveness,” West said.
Field Agent’s research on the power behind “pink” brands began in late August with the first set of respondents who were asked if pink branding made the difference in their product purchase decision. In that first survey of 250 — 175 females and 75 males — they found 58% were not influenced by pink branding.
60% of men in the first survey said they were not influenced by the “pink” designation. The second survey conducted in October included 250 moms, with the average age of and a diverse income criteria. Again, 52% of them were not driven to buy a product because of its “pink” designation. Each of these mobile surveys showed that while pink brands do enjoy influence over consumers, the majority of shoppers remain unswayed when making brand selections, Field Agent noted in the research.
Interesting stuff. Read the whole thing here.