Tag: Research

91. Before pitching a client

Posted on by Neha Goyal

If we start counting the number of brands we have at present, we will probably end up losing the calculation. This is exactly how the world is becoming because of the innumerable brands around us. Every product has got a fair amount of competitors in the market that is making it difficult for them to stand out in the eyes of the consumers/audience. Marketing and advertising help these brands to grab the eyeballs of the target audience but it is public relations that help them majorly in retaining them. Positive perception is created by brands through reputation management and hence they are hiring consultancies for the same.

While brands are looking for consultancies, the consultancies need to pitch them with a correct and strong research work of the sector/industry. It should have proper facts to impress and gain the confidence of the potential client. Following are some of the crucial research that a brand does before pitching to a client:

  • Basic Research– The process starts with the secondary research about a brand. The information encloses every single detail about the brand extracted from their websites. Articles, where they have been mentioned, are also used as it helps to know how the brand is perceived in the market. 
  • Consumer Dipstick- It helps to know the current positioning of the brand in the minds of the target audience. It helps the consultancies in ideation and what they can do to make the brand better and expand its audience base.
  • Social Media Analysis- It helps to know the honest opinion of consumers for the brand/company. It assists in analyzing what are the users talking about the brand and its competitors. It also aids to understand how the brands are communicating their message and if it is reaching the right audience or not. This also helps to understand what are they trying to communicate and whether it is working at the moment.
  • Media Dipstick- It is important to know which is the media covering the beat and seek an expert opinion. Media knows the industry and that particular brand in and out. Conducting the correct measures with the right media helps to churn out the right information and show the correct indulgence of research work to convince the potential client.  

Research is the key to seek accurate inferences and to keep forward more planned and creative ideas for the brands to stand out in the market.

63. Think-Tanks

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Think tank is a research bank that performs as advocacy on topics like economics, political strategy, technology, social policy, and culture. It aims to fill the gap between policymaking and academia by publishing that are easily accessible. They are reports that are like academic research which is filled with a lot of information done with intense research work.

They can be conducted for governments to do planning for the economy, defense or social policy and commercial organisations for testing a new product or for new technology. There is a huge demand for policy expertise because of the way the government is expanding. The people started getting more updated because of 24-hour news due to which think-tanks started trending.

The objective of think-tank is to give knowledge and make policy together by informing and influencing the policy process. They conduct and recycle the research which is aimed to solve policy problems that come in the form of seminars, publications, conferences, and workshops.

According to a survey conducted by Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program of the University of Pennsylvania, Brookings Institution was ranked the top think tank in the world. The Centre for Civil Society (CCS) of India was ranked fifty globally.

It’s not easy to make think tanks and they face a lot of challenges. To start with, getting funding is not an easy task for all the research and work projects, the competition is increasing, not all information on the internet is accurate. It has increased the demand for policy advice and think tanks are alternative policies to study from across the globe and then adapt it.

While making think tanks, one should take advantage of digital tools and resources available and also follow old school methods to stand-out in this competitive world. It is important to decide what kind of organization one wants to set up, find a correct good leader for it, decide the scope of a think tank that covers all aspects, define the governance required for it.

Knowing the value of your action is really helpful which need not have to be specific as it helps to draw the attention of the researchers. The think tank will need board members who will handle various aspects of work, researchers who will do all the necessary research work and funders. Finding your approach, your funder to give funds to plan and deliver huge research projects that will be credential.

A new think thank team should be initially flexible and not limit themselves to personal contacts only. The market of think tanks is increasing globally and they should also help people in growing their knowledge.     

Reference: https://ccs.in/5-indian-think-tanks-world-s-top-150-surveyhttps://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/01/05/what-do-think-tanks-do

41. Space Tourism

Posted on by Neha Goyal

What lies beyond this world which we call it space? Well, the idea of visiting space is no longer unrealistic. A girl just doesn’t have to dream to be an astronaut to know about the outer world and experience the whole feeling about it. Space tourism is not a dream or a joke anymore, it is becoming a reality. In a decade or so it can become a mainstream holiday destination.

Space tourism is different from being an astronaut. Ordinary people are going to buy tickets to travel to space and back. It is like leisure or recreational travelling in space where people can go which doesn’t include scientific research. People think it to be a futuristic idea but from the past few years, professionals have been working on this subject. After, a lot of research and hard work it is said that it has got the potential to have a business through commercial space tourism. The activities include: going as a tourist, going stargazing, watch a rocket launch, or travelling to a space-focused destination.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the waves of space tourism started taking place because of a deal between the Russian company MirCorp and the American company Space Adventures Ltd. American businessman Dennis Tito became the first orbital space tourist in history. Tito paid $20 million for the ticket to International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. It was launched in April 2001. That was the first real milestone where a lot of people were demonstrated that there is a market for private citizens to go to space as tourists.

Over the next few years, six more private citizens went to the International Space Station:

  • 2002: South African computer millionaire Mark Shuttleworth
  • 2005: American sensor hardware millionaire Gregory Olson
  • 2006: Iranian-American software millionaire Anousheh Ansari
  • 2007: Hungarian-American software billionaire Charles Simonyi (who visited again in 2009)
  • 2008: British-American video-game millionaire Richard Garriott
  • 2009: Canadian billionaire artist Guy Laliberté

These trips were just the beginning. Due to this exposure for private citizens, more household names of space tourism began to rise. Jeff Bezos of Amazon established Blue Origin in 2004, Richard Branson established Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk established SpaceX and dozens of companies came in the industry for the individuals to pay and access. The only destination allowed was the International Space Station. It has been limited to launches aboard Russian Soyuz aircraft.

There are number of projects underway to help ordinary people to get into space which includes the Space Island’s Group and the Mars One project which are still in the concept phase. 

Sources: https://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/spacex-blue-origin-space-tourism