Interview with David Rabjohns: WOM Measurement & Motivation

David Rabjons is leading a Workshop at WOMMA’s School of WOM conference, May 9-11, on Measuring Consumer Motivations: The Key to Brand Connection

School of WOM: womma.org/schoolofwom

 

I recently spoke with David Rabjohns, Founder and CEO of MotiveQuest, about WOM measurement and his workshop at WOMMA’s School of WOM conference, May 9-11.

 

WOMMA: What has changed about brands using measurement in the last few years?

David Rabjohns: Measurement on its own is a very broad term. There are many things you can measure. And so the answer to the question, “what do brands care about measuring?”, really depends on what they are trying to do.

 

For example if you want to measure:

 

- What opportunities exist in a category, the metrics you want to look at are: where is whitespace in the category?

- If you’re trying to measure what the most successful communication strategy is, you’ll look at what areas of passion could be lassoed.

- If you’re measuring how well you’re turning dollars into profit, you might want to measure the relationship between brand advocacy and sales.

 

A lot of the time, when people say measure, they think ROI. But measurement is so much broader than that. It’s really about measuring things that you can affect based on the objectives that you have.

 

Finally rather than answer “What has changed?” I prefer to say what has not. What has not changed is that people consistently underestimate what they mean by measurement. Everyone means something different so there’s a huge confusion. We need change the way people think of the word.

 

WOMMA: Could you explain the difference between data, such as demographics and volume, against sentiment, which is more about motivation and action?

David Rabjohns: Yes. Let me try to do it by way of a story. In the old world of demographics, you divide people up by their age and gender. You’d say a 24 year old woman would feel and think differently than a 54 year old woman. Research is then separated into those different buckets to understand how you could market to those different people.

 

What we find in the listening world is actually the same person can have different points of view and motivations depending on where they are and what context they are in. For example, a mom may love cheese when she’s cooking dinner for her children because it will cover broccoli and get the kids to eat it; it’s also nutritious and full of protein. The same mom will hate cheese when she’s in a health forum and trying to figure out how to lose weight. In that context, she might like yogurt.

 

In the online world, people cluster by passion, not by demographic. So in that example, mothers are trying to work out what to feed their kids clustering in one online location. And then there are people trying to lose weight clustering together elsewhere online. It makes more sense to look through the lens of motivation than through the lens of demographics.

 

WOMMA: What do you want the students of your session at School of WOM to learn?

David Rabjohns: It’s very simple. I want them to learn that there are many different things you can measure. What we will help them do is work out the right thing to be measuring for the business problem they have and how to measure that thing so you can do a better job of solving your business problem.

 

Bio:

David Rabjohns is the founder and CEO of MotiveQuest, a leading social listening company. MotiveQuest uses their unique “Online Anthropology” approach to measure consumer emotion and loyalty for companies like Microsoft, Nike, Audi, Kraft and Novartis.

Done