According to a study put out by Texas A&M University, executives are more willing to take a significant pay cut working for a top firm rather than having a greater salary at a mid-range company. This week, Fast Company wrote a piece detailing 5 reasons why these individuals choose the top brands over higher pay. The first listed among the others, is that working for a top company boosts personal identity. In this sense, where you work becomes your self-identity and by working for a top company, your self-identity gets a boost. Secondly, an obvious point, is that working for a top company offers prestige. Clearly being able to claim you work for a company like Apple give an individual a bit more status. The third reason they argue, is that it sends signals about quality. 'In addition to paying less, the study found that top brands also attracted CEOs of higher quality, based on their experience, board appointments, and other factors.' The article ends by claiming that working for a top company can trump a long list of experience and affect your salary in the long run. What do you guys think? I'm inclined to agree with most the points made, although I do believe there is much to be said about gaining experience from various organizations and becoming well-rounded.
An article posted on Fast Company this week details allegations against Google on the premise of illegal data collection on young students. The group filing the complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, goes by the name 'The Electronic Frontier Foundation' (EFF). According to EEF, ''Despite publicly promising not to, Google mines students' browsing data and other information, and uses it for the company's own purposes.'' Additionally the group harshly criticized Google by stating that minors should not be treated as 'guinea pigs.' They continued their criticism in saying that 'If Google wants to use students' data to 'improve google products,' then it needs to get express consent from parents.'' In response to the allegations, Google has stated that it 'will disable the setting on school Chromebooks that allow Chrome Sync data to be shared in the near future.' This is definitely an interesting case with respect to market research and what can cross the line ethically. As always, I encourage individuals to read the article here and comment on what you think. 
Did you know that females are still the largest buyers of pop music? According to an article on Forbes this week, women continue to make up the majority demographic for consumers of pop music. 'What do Adele, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith have in common? Most of the buyers of their albums are female, according to an article by Hannah Karp in the Wall Street Journal based on data from a number of market research firms.' The article points out that, while this may come as no surprise, the ability to have an understanding on an artist's fan base corresponds nicely with the 'conventional industry wisdom.' According to the article, a Nielsen study also found that the majority of Adele's fan base are females between the ages of 25-44 years old with children. This was an interesting statistic to me because I would have assumed this number to include more of the demographic that we call 'tweens.' Regardless of the stats, I found this article extremely interesting in its explanation of how market research is being used within the music industry.
Nichole Dicharry, is a Digital Marketing Assistant at IIR USA, Marketing and Finance Divisions, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. She can be reached at Ndicharry@iirusa.com