Anderson Analytics Uses Psychological Profiles to Recommend Specific Marketing Strategies

Stamford, CT – October 2, 2006–Anderson Analytics, a boutique market research consultancy, recently helped GigisCloset.com, a new online lingerie retailer, better understand how to segment today’s online women. The study utilized AA-Projective, a revolutionary research tool that combines psychoanalytic projective methodology from the social sciences with Anderson Analytics’ state of the art text mining techniques.

The study which identified five distinct segments of women, confirmed Gigi’s Closet’s hunch that the average sized American woman, referred to as ‘Ms. Online Plus’, feels underserved by current retailers such as Victoria’s Secrets who cater to a younger smaller woman. The study also discovered another very attractive segment of women which Gigi’s Closet’s management had not identified, ‘The Career Woman’.

Unlike regular segmentation research which only takes into consideration opinions, behavior, and demographics, in the study, AA-Projective allowed Gigi’s Closet to also understand subconscious motives and concerns of women interested in purchasing lingerie online.

Women in each of the five groups were found to be psychologically distinct from one another. Specifically, the Career Woman and Ms. Online Plus demonstrated psychological characteristics that are more amenable to Gigi’s Closet’s value proposition than other groups.

Kristina Haas, director of sales & marketing at Gigi’s Closet, commented that “the study provided such rich findings. We were impressed with the amount of information garnered from the creative techniques employed by Anderson Analytics. It was particularly useful to have psychological profiles translated into specific strategy recommendations.” While some results confirmed and refined notions held by Gigi’s Closet’s management, others were counterintuitive said Ms. Haas. “We had expected the average American online woman (Ms. Online Plus) to be somewhat insecure, instead we found that she is sexually confident and uses lingerie to show this side of herself to her partner, while surprisingly ‘The Career Woman’ is much more insecure about her body image than we would have assumed. Apparently, size has little to do with our image of ourselves, and corporate stress can have a negative influence on our confidence.”

AA-Projective is an example of combining the fairly new discipline of text mining with a well established psychoanalytic technique, which until now could only be used among small groups. The result is a methodology which is not only extremely insightful but is also, for the first time, statistically valid. According to Dr. Anna Song, a consultant at Anderson Analytics, “AA-Projective is based upon years of empirical testing done in the field of personality psychology. Projective techniques have developed into a sophisticated technique that could provide invaluable information for companies in most industries.”

“AA-Projective is so exciting because it enables us to see the previously missing piece in consumer behavior” said Tom Anderson, managing partner of Anderson Analytics. “This technique helps clients like Gigi’s Closet understand not just the demographics, behaviors, and attitudes of their target segments, but adds the missing dimension. Clients can now also quantify personality and the subconscious motives, giving them a tremendous information advantage over their competition. To my knowledge, AA-Projective is the first emotive research methodology, with the ability to automatically analyze hundreds of consumers at once, that has been applied in market research.”

Caroline Haegele, co-owner of GigisCloset.com commented on the study, “creative and energetic, Anderson Analytics is truly a next generation research firm. Unlike some of the older and larger market research companies where we would have had to settle for the B-Team, Anderson Analytics provided a gigantic increase in value!”

To find out what type of woman you are go to: www.andersonanalytics.com/cosalusso/typingtool.htm

About Anderson Analytics
Anderson Analytics is a full-service market research consultancy and helping clients gain the “Information Advantage”. We do this by combining new technologies with traditional marketing research, providing quantitative and qualitative solutions to help solve challenging marketing problems and discover hidden opportunities. We combine the efficiencies and business experience found in large research firms with the rigorous methodological understanding from academia with the enthusiasm and creativity found only in smaller firms. For more information, please see www.andersonanalytics.com.