One thing was abundantly clear at the three U.S. Quirks market research conferences this year – Winning brands are embracing the Live Well™ mindset, even if they don’t know the term. Yet.

Meet Stu Cohen, The Olinger Group’s new Vice President of Client Solutions.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is like the new walk-on player who slam dunks alley-oops and makes the whole crowd go wild. Everyone loves him, but he is not the most important player on the team.

One pet was deathly afraid of my hair, so I had to pull it back in a ponytail. Another wanted to eat it, and he gave me a friendly chomping. Ethnography studies are always fun and unpredictable.

Utility is the expectation. Promise is the motivator. One gets you to the starting line, the other gets you on the market share winner’s podium.

Back in the day, all the cool and impressive people rocked polo shirts with a small crocodile logo. Now they wear whatever they want because they are rocking authenticity.

When brands authentically meet consumers where they are in their Live Well™ space, demographic differences become irrelevant, and huge business opportunities open up.

I walked like Gucci, learned how to reduce analysis time by 80%, and was interviewed as an industry expert at the Qualitative Research Consultants Association Conference last month. It was great!

Here is the hard truth: Consumers are never going to approach a brand and say, “You help me live well.” But they will absolutely quiet quit a brand that doesn’t do just that.

Bots are a nuisance that corrupt data and skew market research results. They are increasingly sophisticated and sneaky, so we have become increasingly vigilant.