In a career that is quickly, too quickly, approaching 30 years in length, I have stumbled upon a series of general principles that have been proven, usually by my not employing them, to successfully guide the earnest analyst as he or she tentatively picks his or her way through that dark and tangled forest that we often refer to as…
We seem, as a culture and society, to have walked through a door. A door, I believe that we may never be able to return through again. We celebrate celebrity. It no longer seems to matter how you became famous. It just matters that you are famous. Party girls, mistresses to the already famous, self-destructive entertainers. No matter how negative…
George W. Bush and Al Gore, Jr. ran for president of the United States. They virtually ran a dead heat. And it took the system an agonizing month and a half to sort it all out, globally showcasing a substantial amount of dirty laundry in the process. What went wrong? Who really won? How can we keep it from happening…
When online surveys were first introduced to the marketing research community, there was justifiably great excitement and optimism. Online surveys promised numerous and substantive advantages over both phone and mall-intercept interviews: shorter field times, lower costs per interview, virtually complete elimination of interviewer bias, infinitely greater interview process control (e.g., randomizations, customizations, complex yet flawlessly executed skip patterns, logic checks…
In 1911, Charles Coolidge Parlin became the first “real” marketing researcher when he was appointed manager of the commercial research division of the advertising department of the Curtis Publishing Company, thus birthing an industry. Why did this one minor adjustment to the corporate structure of Curtis Publishing spawn an entire industry? Because, in 1911, in its infantile innocence and ignorance,…
Jonathan Weiner objects to my column on storytelling precisely because he’s a good researcher. He is aware of the pitfalls I cite and works hard to avoid them. But my criticisms are general, based on years of observing dozens of client/supplier relationships. Just because Weiner doesn’t see these problems in his practice does not imply they are not widespread and…
Once upon a time there were three little suits: Respond, Meddle and Please. These three little suits had very strange, entangled relationships with one another. But mostly they lived together peacefully. Which was good because, without these strange, entangled relationships, they each would have starved. Respond was a good-hearted soul, a bit simple perhaps, but he always meant well and…
What do Che Guevara, Thomas Jefferson and Mao Tse-tung all have in common? The most powerful instrument of social change has always been information (the pen is mightier than the sword). The Web is poised to deliver more information to more people, regardless of their place in the power structure, than has ever been delivered in the history of the…
Introduction Like all other true sources of knowledge, i.e., hard sciences (vis-a-vis the faux sciences, such as psychology and sociology), there are certain First Principles that guide the intrepid statistician in his holy quest. This article serves to summarize these First Principles in much the same way as Moses summarized the laws of organized society over 6,000 years ago last…
Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.” I first heard that phrase when a friend of mineˡ used it to describe the dilemma that faces every researcher when designing or purchasing a marketing research project. But Web-based marketing research studies are fundamentally and permanently changing the role marketing research will play in future businesses. Good, fast, cheap. Pick two? Not any more….
Prior to founding MACRO, Mr. McCullough was the senior vice president for a leading international strategic consulting and design research firm. Before that, he was market research manager for a $300 million division of Levi Strauss & Company.
Mr. McCullough has spoken before the American Marketing Association, the Marketing Research Association and various universities on a wide range of marketing topics. He is a past board member of the American Marketing Association, San Francisco chapter, and has been quoted in Canadian Packaging Magazine. He has chaired and lectured at applied multivariate statistics seminars for several years and is a member of numerous professional associations.