Research in the boardroom?

 

The day opened with the Big Planning Debate – ‘Is research failing in the boardroom?’ It seemed like there were two issues here.

 

In the past, a session with the word ‘planning’ meant advertising agency planners, and this did indeed get a mention, albeit only when one of the panel commented that agencies didn’t do planning any more, as their role had been high jacked by the research industry (I wondered if agency planners still attend the MRS Conference and find it relevant – they used to be a core part of the audience, and regular speakers).

 

However, I believe that the session title was really about the boardroom issue. We don’t need much of an excuse to delve into this, but it was interesting to see from a texted comment that the Marketing Society has been concerned about this (where marketers are concerned) for the last three years.

 

What, only three years! It’s been on the MRS Conference agenda, plus task forces etc., for perhaps the last 15 years. Come on Marketing Society, keep up!

 

Realism is key

 

The ‘debate’ was led by a very interesting talk from Rupert Howell, with a view from the ITV boardroom.

 

He provided a dose of realism about the dreary agenda of PLC boards, driven by governance, accounting and other regulations and legal requirements, leaving little time for strategy and other interesting things!

 

In his view, the only researchers who get access here were those who researched the views of The City and key shareholders – and here brevity and experience were the two key attributes needed.

 

He counselled us to aim for the management boards and board strategy ‘away days’, as these were the places where the issues that research covered got air time.

 

And, as he pointed out, individual board members, like himself, may have research as part of their responsibilities, so they can carry the messages upwards.

 

The question was posed that in an age of supposed customer centricity, this should surely be represented at board level …

 

Howell also made a plea for greater accountability – in-depth investigations where research appears to have provided the wrong answers, but in order to learn, not to chastise.

 

He also pointed out that research is often commissioned too late to have a real impact. I could hear the sounds of stable doors being closed, and galloping hooves fading into the distance …

 

Unlike 15 years ago, when Howell dared to suggest that market research was unaccountable, he did not get booed by the audience.

 

In fact, 71% of the audience thought that market research should be more accountable – the world has changed immeasurably in the intervening period.

 

At the end of the day, it is the quality of the internal leadership of market research that counts most in defining the impact it has on the business.

 

Return on investment

 

The second session in the Ballroom focussed on the issue of ROI. Andrew Sharp, of PWC, provided an interesting presentation on valuing intangible assets, and how few of these actually related to those managed by marketing.

 

He also argued that ‘brand value’ can be an overrated concept, describing how TNS panel data clearly showed that virtually half of all brands had a life of only four to five years.

 

Andrew also outlined how the economic benefit of a brand could be calculated, and showed an analysis across different sectors based on a ‘willingness to pay’ metric that identified the category leaders, and argued for a wider application of econometrics to aid the efficient use of marketing budgets.

 

His talk concluded by describing the role that market research could play, and he argued researchers need more financial literacy and use metrics that connect with financial management.

 

He also supported Rupert Howell’s view that research is often commissioned too late day to provide effective answers to real problems.   

 

Blue-sky thinking or Boom Chicka WaWa

 

Mark Kingsbury, of Bootstrap Insights, described a potential method for measuring the ROI of market research, based on the models used in brand frameworks.

 

This was an interesting concept, but was ‘blue-sky thinking’ that needed an application to identify if what was proposed would work in the real world.

 

By comparison, Fiona Blades, of MESH Planning, and Ana Medeiros, of Unilever, presented a creative use of new technology to track advertising campaigns and brand image using mobile phone texting.

 

Essentially, respondents text in all their ‘touchpoints’ with a range of brands – the nature of the ‘touchpoint’, its context and their feelings about the brand at that time and in that context.

 

Their case study was the young male deodorant market, focusing on Unilever’s Axe/Lynx brand. They showed how the impact of catchphrases (such as Boom Chicka WaWa, used in the ad below) can be measured, impact of channel mix, wear out, image factors etc., and how these could be used to develop metrics. These are new tools for the new world.

Web 2.0 (Part 2)

 

The final session in the Plaza suite took us further into the Web 2.0 world. Diana Derval, of DervalResearch, and Mario Menti, of GMI, took us into the parallel universe of Second Life to describe how market research worked in this environment.

 

Here, we heard about ‘Interview Bots’ (interviewer avatars) and ‘Interview Corners’, and even ‘Interview Sofas’, where the sofa asks the questions! What was interesting was that all the questions and answers are in text – there were no ‘voice’ communications.

 

They also described the ten main personas that people adopt in Second Life, and how these can be used in research. My underlying concern is the context and validity of the responses in an environment where participants are living an imaginary life.

 

Tom Ewing, Research International, took us through the world of discussion boards, from how they work to how they evolve, their dynamics, and how to undertake research with these communities.

 

He defined the stages in involvement by participants, from ‘Lurker’ to ‘Newbie’, ‘Regular’, ‘Elder’ and ‘Legacy’, as well as the role of ‘Trolls’, who goad participants to change their views, and sometimes represent opposing communities (for example, an anti-car person ‘invading’ a car related discussion community).

 

He argued for the ‘researcher as Troll’ – namely, a disruptive force in the community – and also described how product-focused communities tended to evolve eventually into social communities, leading to a gradual change in the nature of the discussion content, and therefore losing its relevance as a research source over time.

 

Online anthropology

 

The final paper, by Lisa Galarneau of Intrepid Consultants, provided an anthropologists view of social networks, based on her very extensive and in-depth doctoral research amongst gamers playing City of Heroes/City of Villains around the world.

 

She described why the principles defined by Margaret Mead for successful anthropological studies apply equally well when researching social networks and virtual communities.

 

She described why the new skills gamers develop, and how the ways of relating to others in the virtual world had a positive relevance and impact in the real world. Researching these communities also provided a global view of people and common issues.

 

She did caution, however, that communities are self-organising, and quickly wither and die if there’s any attempt to control them, as well as emphasising the importance of ‘play’ in today’s world, echoing papers in the first Web 2.0 session.

 

Researchers wanting to engage with these communities must get involved themselves, go where the participants are and ensure that sufficient time is taken to understand the community and its culture first before beginning any research project – Margaret Meads’ prime golden rule of anthropology.

 

In summary

 

So, how was it overall, retrospectively? I’m a traditionalist who likes meaty case studies, based on a solid research foundation, and a clear description of the impact on the organisation.

 

These were few this year, and sometimes the presenters didn’t provide sufficient description of the methodology to make a judgement.

 

This is perhaps in line with the views of what top management expect from research, with the focus being on what should be done, and the methodology taken on trust.

 

This is fine for that audience, but I think that market researchers expect more details on methodology from their peers. Good examples of research in action for me were those on Boots and Durex.

 

I also want to hear about the new frontiers, and not re-runs of old debates. I therefore enjoyed the two sessions devoted to Web 2.0, and learned a lot about the challenges market research faces in the virtual world, including new solutions to new problems using new technologies.

 

These sessions contained some ground-breaking papers – Lauri Manual ofHarris Interactive, Graeme Griffiths of TNS Media, and Lisa Galarneau of Intrepid Consultants, in particular, were all well grounded, insightful and entertaining.

 

I also believe that the research industry needs to engage more in the marketing accountability debate, and deliver added value to clients under pressure to prove that expenditure on marketing pays off.

 

The papers from Andrew Sharp of PWC, and Fiona Blades (MESH Planning) and Ana Medeiros (Unilever) were very impressive contributions on this theme.

 

It was also reassuring to hear from Gregg Fraley that creativity is a skill that can be learned, rather than being innate – today’s complex, fast-paced markets and new technologies require innovative solutions from market researchers, so more emphasis on this in training!

 

Going backwards or forwards?

 

So, what were the old debates? Well, firstly, the one about research in the boardroom, which re-emerged with a vengeance – a topic that has been endlessly debated over the years.

 

I thought that Rupert Howell provided a dose of realism and common sense on this topic; the first time I’ve heard a perspective from someone who is a PLC board member, and, understands our industry. Please, let’s end this sterile debate now!

 

I feel similarly about the one about whether we are added-value consultants or production units. I liked some of the points made by the speakers in the ‘Honing Business Skills’ session, but it was still like re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

 

If this is such an issue, why don’t we take action, instead of endlessly discussing it? We’re so good at beating ourselves up, and navel gazing.

 

The issue of ROI on research spend also continues to burn up a lot of energy that could be better directed elsewhere. How do you put a value on an insight?

 

As one delegate commented, market research is not a science: we develop hypotheses from findings, not facts – it’s what is then done with the outputs that matters.

 

Again, it was Rupert Howell who put his finger on what accountability should be more market research – learning from when things go wrong; but together with all the guilty parties, not as a witch hunt directed at research.

 

And if, as we constantly say, that market researchers have a poor understanding of clients’ businesses and the issues they face, then again the solution is a different emphasis in how we train our people.

 

Maybe if new entrants thought the a career in market research was really all about learning to help businesses engage more profitably with their markets, we might start attracting the type of graduates who head for the management consultants.

 

Out with the old ...

 

What about the new format? I think it was a good move to find ways to increase the participation of delegates, and try to create more discussion about the issues.

 

However, sometimes the debate seemed to be between members of the panel, excluding the audience, and at other times projecting the text comments on the screen while the panel answered questions from the audience was an unwelcome distraction.

 

On a couple of occasions, the debate was dragged out far too long by the session chairman. Still, as an experiment it was a step in the right direction.

 

I hope that the idea in one session of the speakers introducing the topic, then sitting back and letting a video do the rest does not become a common practice – this is a cop-out!

 

Finally, delegates received no papers or copies of the presentations – they are to be sent out ‘later’.

 

This is not a good idea – perhaps if the traditional written paper to support the presentation is slipping away into history (a definite retrograde step), then delegates need at least copies of the presenters slides, and on the day. It will be interesting to see what we eventually receive, and how comprehensive it turns out to be.

 

My quote of the Conference was from Lisa Galarneau: 'Working in Web 2.0 leaves me in a permanent state of intellectual erection!'

 

So, to finish, two questions. Firstly, what is ‘insight’, and why do we need it? I was brought up to deliver actionable findings from research that led to business change – it was called market research.

 

As Mike Thompson pointed out in a recent letter to Research, auditors and other professions don’t suddenly re-name what they do – they have a heritage that gains them respect and gives them authority with their clients.

 

Have we lost the plot to the extent that we, or others, believe that a new title confers a new status? I don’t think so – let’s be proud of being called ‘market research’.

 

And secondly, what was ‘The Great Debate’?

A debate – at last

 

After the surrealism of last night’s party in the Dali gallery, the morning got right back down to earth, and approached the conference’s self-proclaimed ‘Great Debate’ – namely, changing business through better customer understanding.

 

We began with a panel discussion chaired by Hall & Partners’ Vanella Jackson, who introduced (in no particular order) Kirsty Fuller (Flamingo), Peter Dann (The Nursery), Richard Huntingdon (Saatchi), Rupert Howell (ITV – the only clientside director) and Malcolm White (krow) to debate the issue ‘Is research failing the boardroom’.

 

In response to audience questions via the (slightly irritating) interactive system, this was later re-formulated into “Is the boardroom failing research?” On a vote, both propositions were supported by almost identical margins.

 

Reaching the boardroom

 

Rupert Howell’s ‘keynote’ pointed out that the board of a PLC, formally speaking, is mostly concerned with a whole raft of issues that have nothing to do with running the business. So research has no place, effectively, here.

 

Where it does matter is in the management committee, so we should at least recognise that what we should hope to influence is a range of board-level players, not the board as such (except on its rare ‘strategy days’), and the critical thing is to have a conduit (probably the marketing director) to this committee.

 

In the management committee context, there is a very clear requirement that any research presented should be communicated concisely, and used to provide ideas (insights, even) that will have a genuine impact on the business.

 

Top management wants ideas, backed by evidence, and ideally new. Rupert also repeated an old plea, for which he had been booed at an earlier MRS Conference, for research to be accountable, and to admit when it was wrong. In the discussion that followed, a number of themes emerged:  

• that marketing is, in fact, failing research at board level (an idea familiar from yesterday)
• that research isn’t a  sort of pill that you can take to cure problems – you have to interpret and use it – it should be an inspiration to succeed, not a vaccination against failure
• that if research is to influence top-level decision making, it has to be presented with confidence by people who have earned or can gain the respect of top management
• that good research reveals complexity, not the single number provided by (say) the Net Promoter Score or the Awareness Index: too much brevity may be damaging
• that methodology is less important than content, at least in a presentation
• that procurement produces pressures that reduce the quality of research
• that research tends to underplay its real strength: its ability to interpret the complexities of human psychology.

A quite wide-ranging floor discussion ensued, in which perhaps the key observation was Dan O’Donohue’s question: shouldn’t the board be dragging researchers into meetings in a world where consumers are increasingly recognised as being in charge?

 

Delivering insight to clients

 

Sally Webb and Steve Wills introduced a session on the relationship between agency and client researchers to a crowded secondary Plaza Suite, and an audience that was nearly 40% clientside.

 

Steve wondered whether this was really a necessary set of questions that still needed to be discussed after at least five years of conferences – perhaps this could lay the issues to rest.

 

Verity Clifton, GSK, and Dave Phillips, RI, opened with an analysis of the client insight department’s role and how it is developing, based on interviews with a number of clients and agencies. What seemed clear is that there are several different models of clientside insight, and hence of the sort of relationship that might be expected between client and research agency.

 

It seemed that most client companies are on a journey to a slightly uncertain destination, and few could claim to have got it right yet.

 

As became clear, especially from the GSK experience, there are some complex problems of balancing different skill sets and specialist needs within the client organisation, and many pressures to be absorbed, against a background where companies are trying to keep their overheads down and therefore outsource to reduce intolerable workloads.

 

Clearly, GSK had arrived at a formula where insight had become an authoritative source of commercially useful ideas and knowledge, and importantly a feed into future strategy.

 

In all this, communication skills are vital, and research skills may be compromised – placing a reliance on the agency to ensure technical quality – and in this it’s important that the insight team is able to speak two languages: consumer and commercial.

 

Of course, not all companies arrive at the same position: three rough ‘models’ can be identified:  

• similar to agency account planning or brand management, but with a special future focus
• ‘classic’ clientside research, but with a new balance between research skills and business thinking
• an authoritative in-house ‘knowledge directorate’.

Rewind

 

Catriona Ferris, Unilever, and Judith Steinert, The Insight Connection, discussed how Unilever is approaching its research – an operation that spends €400 million annually, more than the company’s ad agency fees or ad production budget.

 

Even with this large resource, the Pavlovian temptation to spend when faced with a problem should be resisted – though it often seems the easiest way out in a situation where:  

• time pressures are absolute
• there’s information overload, and the information within the company is often fragmented and hard to find
• there’s a  need to balance globalisation and local needs
• a silo mentality pervades the business, so that information can be hard to exchange.  

In addition, brand managers are not predisposed to ‘old’ research: backward views don’t fit the zeitgeist. But, as Judith showed, it is possible to use old research to draw a new picture, and at the least, develop a much tighter brief for new work.

 

Work on a whole range of data from different sources within and outside the company had enabled Unilever to develop a completely new brief for Knorr.

 

Using this material had led to a wholly new approach to marketing fruit and vegetables (a key insight was that they are, though usually talked about in one breath, completely different) and a tightly-focused brief for new research to fill the inevitable information gaps.

 

The key issue that emerged from the ensuing discussion was the need for clients to be very clear about the level of insight (if any) they expected from agencies.

 

A financial services company (which shall be nameless) said they had absolutely no use for agency insights, because the agencies could not possibly understand the complexities of their products and business: they themselves were the experts …

 

Responsibility?

 

For the final session in the main hall, Gordon Steele, of the Guernsey Post, introduced a series of presentations on CSR – by saying he himself was a bit cynical about the whole thing, but prepared to be convinced.

 

The green bank (1)

 

Keynote speaker James Boulton, of HSBC, gave us a run-down of the bank’s expanding sustainability programme. This operates at the corporate level, with a series of monitored targets to reduce environmental impact, and at the consumer level (as shown in the ad below), through both ‘green sales’ and more specific product initiatives, with links to green philanthropy.

 

Research at several stages of the planning process of these exercises showed both how consumers respond positively and the effect on perceptions of HSBC, benchmarked against some key ‘competitors’.

 

The green bank (2)

 

Next, Liz Harrison, from the Co-op Group (more than just the bank), enthusiastically explained how CSR is – literally – part of the Co-op’s history and in the group’s DNA. CSR, she argued, should be concerned not with mere philanthropy and good works, but with – primarily – treating both employees and suppliers fairly.

 

This view was echoed subsequently by panelist Helen Tabrett of Waitrose, who spoke of the company being seen to be ‘doing the right thing’ (as shown in the ad below).

This is more about how you do business than specifically what you do, especially in the face of considerable consumer confusion about the whole CSR agenda.

 

For the Co-op, there is no question of its profitability for the group: it builds and maintains loyalty, while initiatives like the Co-op bank’s recruited new customers. For companies wishing to embark on CSR programmes, she posed three questions:  

• what’s the impact on society?
• does it fit the brand?
• can the brand deliver?  

And a message: do CSR properly, on the basis of shared values.

 

And a research effect?

 

Finally, Ian Brace, TNS, in a paper jointly prepared with Clive Nancarrow, from Bristol Business School, looked at a key issue in researching CSR issues: the well-recognised tendency of respondents to give socially desirable responses (SDR) of three distinct kinds.

 

He argued – but did not show – that the impersonality of online research can in itself reduce SDR, and showed through matched-sample research in several countries that suitable question wording and introductions can significantly affect (usually, but not always reduce) the level of SDR – in ways that do, however, vary by country.

 

In a world where the CSR agenda has been substantially driven by survey findings, this could make a genuine difference to how the CSR imperative is perceived.

 

The ensuing discussion saw the audience voting broadly in favour of CSR on a variety of topics – arguably a neat piece of sample bias. The charge of “greenwashing” remains open, however, and the implications for research unclear. Caveat emptor, perhaps?

 

A brief overview

 

So, how was it for you? Well, I’m still wondering what the subject of the ‘Great Debate’ of the conference title actually was. I think it’s something about insight, but I’m not sure.

 

This was a conference that was long on the role of research and very short – deliberately – on the nitty gritty of what it is and how to do it better. And a lot seemed to be about the interactive technology, which was fun but clunky.

 

Arguably, the MRS can do this every now and then. But if it is going to maintain – or raise – the intellectual standards UK research has set over the years, it can’t do it too often. Techniques, methods, statistics, methodologies (even) do matter – even if they are a bit uncool.

While the majority of MRS Conference delegates made their way to the official conference party, an event of a very different kind was taking place above a nearby pub.

The mysterious Research Liberation Front hosted a fringe meeting of rants and skits from research luminaries, on topics ranging from the pointlessness of brainstorming to the nature of 'insight'.

It was shoot-from-the-hip stuff and a welcome light-hearted antidote to the formality of the main event.

Here are some pictures that tell the story ...

Is this what groups really think?

 



Stephen Phillips of Spring Research discusses the perils of conjoint analysis:

Audience interaction as Mike Imms (not pictured) attempts to find the true meaning of insight:

From box-tickers to trailblazers

 

The afternoon in the main hall began with Martin Hayward, of dunnhumby, introducing a session on research in the wider marketing mix. First up, Greg Nugent, of Eurostar, effectively ignored the session title – ‘Research as part of the wider marketing mix’ – with an extended discussion of the position and credibility of research in the boardroom.

 

On the basis of informal research, he concluded (surprise!) that MR lacked real boardroom credibility – but that this is largely because it is tarred with the marketing brush, and “marketing” are those people who produce either advertising (shock) or gismos (horror).

 

In principle, he said, company boards do get research, but in practice they fail to realise its potential or value. Too often, it is seen by management as mere box-ticking.

 

He summarised all this under four main points:  

• MR is often seen as commissioning results, not research – i.e., simply something to support marketing’s pre-determined agenda.
• MR comes too much at the end, not the start of the process: it ought to be used to initiate thinking.
• MR is too often a marketing (and not a business) tool, concerned with history rather than strategy.
• There is, in fact a missing link between research and strategy.  

He finished by offering the industry two options: firstly, to stay as it is (which is unacceptable, and vulnerable to economic pressures), or to innovate and reinvigorate itself. This would require reframing MR to become the start of the business process, taking a wider angle of view, making no prior assumptions (ban discussion guides!), stop projects that clearly aren’t working and recognizing the growing possibility of, and need for, ‘real-time’ research.

 

Burger blame

 

Next, Chris Payne, Brand Doctors, and George Davison, McDonald’s, talked about ‘scapegoat brands’ – brands that fall victim to today’s gathering blame culture, of which McDonald’s, with its media-fuelled links to obesity, is a classic example. Payne’s key mnemonic for the attitude of people and the media to such brands is, enticingly, SEX – Scapegoating Eclipses eXactitude.

 

There were two key research lessons from the quite successful project to re-establish McDonald’s UK business: firstly, to involve the very willing new CEO deeply in the research process, and, second, to recognise the trap posed by the textbook ‘funnel’ approach to research – if you start with the wider context, you merely allow all negative and hostile views to frame the subsequent discussion of the issues you really wish to cover, and respondents will not believe anything good in what you show them.

 

McDonald’s used US polling expertise to develop a consumer strategy focused on ‘swing voters’ (mums with kids), leading eventually, with the aid of considerable product development and wider communications, to enhanced trust and improved sales.

 

What are the lessons for other scapegoats? Direct resistance and denial don’t help; embrace real brand intelligence and ally this to innovative communications thinking; research adaptively, and focus on ‘climate’ not just brand; listen selectively; concentrate on perspective; recognize that brand attitudes are not predictive; and, most importantly, remove the funnel!

 

Postal trauma

 

Another troubled brand is the Post Office, hit by declining mail volumes and reduced government business, leading to many (highly unpopular) branch closures and declining staff morale.

 

Caroline Bates, of the Post Office, and Sophie Spence, of Mother, gave a straightforward account of how research identified the key role of trust in supporting the Post Office’s entry into new markets (such as insurance and telecoms), and the potential strength of trust in the organisation.

 

This was translated into a multi-media campaign for ‘The People’s Post Office’ – see the commercial below – that both re-motivated staff and enabled the PO to launch new products. Research shows that, after six months, much of this has worked, at least in people’s minds, though their willingness to take up the new products is still lower than it should be.

In the brief panel discussion that followed, Jane Frost, of HM Revenue & Customs, showed how basic, successful groundwork could enable a clientside research team to move on to do more creative research, once its credibility had been established, with examples both from HMRC and the BBC.

 

The role and value of insight

 

For the final main session, Simon Liddington, The Insight Exchange, and MRS Chairman, introduced a series of presentations on insight, asking ‘can researchers be insighters?’ The audience thought, by a small margin, that researchers could indeed add this new coinage to their job descriptions.

 

Gregg Farley, author of Jack’s Notebook and a creativity and innovation consultant,told us that creativity can be taught, or at least enhanced, however uncreative we might believe ourselves to be, and offered six ways to be more creative.

 

His key observation is that we have 70,000 ideas every day, and should write these down in a notebook, because we’ll forget half of them… sounds like a full-time job. There’s lots of detailed wisdom on his website.

 

Organisation and insight

 

In the first of two very detailed and challenging papers, Nick Bonney (Orange) and Jonathan Fletcher (Illuminas) looked at the ways in which changing business structures, especially decentralisation and flatter management, create new needs and challenges for insight management.

 

Exactly how insight can fit into companies depends very much on the culture and creative style of the company, but an understanding of these is a necessary underpinning for the effective management of insight within the organization.

 

The key, unsurprisingly, is that MR (= insight) should be looking to produce results that can help drive business change, not just give itself a warm feeling. This requires the right balance of trust and skills, and active collaboration both between clientside researchers and agencies, and across the business disciplines in the team. Teamwork is key.

 

Industry futures

 

Andy Dexter, Truth and the (absent in Hong Kong with new baby) Alice Page, of UBS, talked about how the industry could structure itself to produce more, better insight. This involved a valuable analysis of the pressures on the industry (which are not exactly new), and views on how researchers might expect to achieve the necessary trade-offs between time, money and talent, in the face of clientside pressures and the looming menace of procurement (where have we heard that before?).

 

Dexter argued that the key distinction in all this is between data as a commodity and insight as added value; and that by no means all research agencies are likely to want or be able to deliver insight in such a way as to get properly paid for it – and, indeed, some may not wish to do so. This all sounds a little like the old qual versus quant arguments recycled under new colours, but it was done with considerable panache.

 

Subsequent discussion emphasised the importance of context in how insight(s) can be regarded within a company. And questions from the floor raised the hoary challenge of intrusion by management consultants on the sacred turf of research insights – a challenge quite brusquely dismissed by Bob Adams, formerly of AMEX, now of Capital Group, one of the panel, who observed that consultants were useless when it came to being creative.

New beginnings or the same old story?

The 2008 MRS Conference is at a new location and has a new format, with electronic voting throughout, the opportunity to text questions and comments to the session chair and extended debates built into each session.

So, we went straight into a vote on whether market research offers graduates an attractive career, producing a very divided result, suggesting that delegates are perhaps not totally happy bunnies!  

The opening session comprised video vox pops from undergraduates about whether they had considered market research as a career choice (a ‘no!’), and new entrants to the industry describing how and why they choose this path (all much more positive views). This was to pose the question as to whether we had a recruitment crisis in the industry – in my view, probably not.

 

We went quickly on to the next vote, on that hoary old chestnut about whether research gets sufficient airtime in the boardroom. A not surprisingly large ‘no’ vote here, but this is in line with coverage of this issue at previous conferences over many years.

 

Enlightenment from the past

 

Crispin Beale, Director of Customer Insight, Intelligence & Analysis, Royal Mail Group, and the Conference Chair outlined the conference theme: ‘Changing business through better customer understanding’ – or, more simply, make money, reduce costs, and use insight orientation (insight became something of a mantra as the day unfolded).

 

He then introduced his boss, Alan Leighton, Royal Mail Group Chairman, to give the opening keynote speech. Leighton, in addition to an illustrious career in business, is also author of On Leadership: Practical wisdom from the people who know, the best-selling business book in the UK since it was published last year.

 

Perhaps, therefore, his ‘strange what you pick up in a hotel library’ theme should not have been a surprise, but the book (yes, a book) in question was an eclectic psychology text, published in 1880. Chapter headings included ‘Miss the Tunnel at the End of the Light’, ‘Listen to the River’, ‘Find the Jewel in the Toad’s Head’, ‘Create the Will and the Rhythm’, ‘Avoid the Funeral of the Living Corpse’, all of which formed the basis for his messages for the research industry.

 

Leighton sees market research as the ‘radar’ of the business (‘Listen to the River’), and the need to listen to employees and customers. He pointed out that ‘companies don’t die, people kill them’ (or ‘Miss the Tunnel …’), through complacency, complexity, arrogance and/or faulty radar. Some companies ‘sap’ the energy out of their people, rather than ‘zapping’ or energising them.

 

We should look for the good in people, and the good people in bad companies (‘The Jewel in the Head …’),  identify the ‘influencers’, and when companies loose their way discover what led to previous success. Every great failure, after all, was once a success.

 

He advised us ‘don’t mate with what you hate’ (‘Avoid the Funeral….’), citing the often negative effect of merging competing organisations, and the importance of making the right choices (for you) in life. This was inspirational stuff, but whilst the principle is probably right, I don’t think we will follow his advice to rename the industry ‘radar’. However ‘radar’ became the buzz word of the day!

 

Does market research deliver change?

 

The second session focused on the role of research in transforming businesses. The opening vote on whether clients should be able to get their money back if research doesn’t lead to business change showed that just over half disagreed, but with clients more likely to support that view. If only life, and decision making, were that simple!

 

However, nearly two-thirds of voters thought that the key factor in a successful research project was a willingness by clients to be open minded. So, it was interesting to then hear Elizabeth Fagan, Marketing Director of Boots UK, outline the customer-focused heritage within the company, and the key role played by the extensive research programme. The Boots brand, she claimed, is perceived as the most trustworthy, expert and knowledgeable brand in the UK.

 

As with the case of Tesco, Boots can also draw on a wealth of data from its loyalty card programme, and it is the synthesis of data from different sources, the knowledge drawn from it, and the way this is then applied within the business, that leads to success.

 

Fagan described a business planning process built up from customer insights, the increasing use of econometrics to identify cause and effect, and the impact of Customer Listening Forums held at local level. These comprised 25 customers per forum, a panel of five Boots managers, and a customer-led agenda demonstrated the extent to which customer-centricity was embedded within the company.

 

Research in a changing world

 

In comparison, Michael Ballard and Jean Wong, of Inside Edge, ‘abdicated’ their role as speakers by playing a video presentation based on an international survey of business leaders interviewed on their views of market research, with vox pops from some of those interviewed.

 

There was not much new here in terms of why market research is sometimes not seen to deliver added value, but the recommended necessary skill sets for researchers covered ones that maybe we still don’t pay sufficient attention to: understanding a business, aligning market research to business goals, speaking the language of the business (finance) world, learning from the world of theatre to make effective and imaginative presentations. Or, in short, new skills for a new world.

 

In contrast to this rather depressing tale, Danny Murray (Durex SSL International) and Lauri Manual (Harris Interactive) echoed Fagan by demonstrating how research can help a business successfully re-focus to meet the needs of a changing world.

 

The message here was not based on the findings from the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey, despite them having teased us with selected findings, such as the fact that 53% of respondents would like more experimentation in their sex lives.

 

Rather, it concerned the importance of collaboration across a multi-disciplined global team, and sharing a common vision where all partners are encouraged to get the best out of each other. The result was a key resource, widely used across the whole business and with insight embedded into the culture.

 

The key message was to trust partners to look at problems in new ways, handing them a puzzle to solve, rather than a set of instructions to follow. Following a debate on the issues raised in the presentations, 50% of delegates indicated that agencies do no have the business skills to successfully deliver insight.

 

The world of Web 2.0

 

Away from the main Ballroom sessions, the early afternoon session in the Plaza Suite focused on the business potential of Web 2.0. Dan O’ Donoghue, Head of Strategic Planning, Publicis Worldwide, described the change from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ in this virtual world, and questioned whether the term ‘market research’ – with all its connotations of control – was the right term to use where the control of data has passed to the respondent.

 

Are market researchers ready to accept a co-respondent world?  Dan described ‘Generation D’, who don’t accept the Victorian concept of strict boundaries separating work and play. All this presents the need for new creative orientated skills, rather than the traditional technical skills of the research industry.

 

Mavens, Connectors and Salespeople

 

Derek Eccleston and Luca Griseri, Harris Interactive, discussed whether the influencer concept of “Mavens”, “Connectors” and “Salespeople” described by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point applied in the world of social networks and how they can combine in the right circumstances to create a ‘WOM epidemic’.

 

Their research focused on the commercial context of Web 2.0, and while indicating that Gladwell’s concepts do not apply online, they identified a lower level of trust in the Web 2.0 environment compared with offline, confirming the current social, rather than commercial, value to users. The strong ties tend to be offline, the weaker ones online.

 

While Web 2.0 is, therefore, currently still primarily a social medium, the opportunities are there for commercial usage, if the barriers (such as lower trust) can be overcome. For advertisers, an integrated offline/online strategy to drive WOM is currently the best option.

 

The world of online gamers

 

The final presentation, by Ed Bartlett, Publishing Europe, and Graeme Griffiths, TNS Media, described research undertaken to establish the impact of advertising messages within online games.

 

The findings showed that players felt that advertising – such as on billboards within the game itself – and branded products (such as cars) added to the realism, and such funding made the games more affordable.

 

The research also demonstrated the value of brand building, where the context was appropriate. Among the main concerns was the possibility of ad breaks, as on TV, or a negative impact on PC performance. The possibility is there for creating a 360 degree scenario where brands are advertised, opportunities are provided to purchase online, and brand image data can be collected.

 

We learned that gamers are older then you might think – average age of 32, playing 12.5 hours per week (compared with the average for ITV viewership of 5.5 hours) – and had an average annual earnings of £25,000; a potentially rich seam for brand owners to mine.

 

The debate raised the issue of analysing and making sense of the huge flows of data generated in the Web 2.0 world – ‘learning to sip from the fire hydrant’. Boots could probably provide some suggestions!

 

Honing business skills

 

The day’s final main session discussed the skills needed by the research industry in the modern world. In his opening comments, the session chair, Simon Liddington, of The Insight Exchange (and the current MRS Chairman), asked for a vote on whether delegates thought researchers made good “insighters” – many thought they did not. The implication is that insighters are a new breed, possibly the go-betweens, linking market research and the client (weren’t these called client side researchers?).

 

Developing creative skills

 

Gregg Fraley, GF Enterprises, reassured us that we could all learn creative skills to improve our problem solving and decision making. Fraley feels this is the most fundamental business skill we can develop. He described six ways to improve creative behaviour:

• Write down all ideas
• Have lots of ideas
• Inject a sense of play into thinking
• Separate imagination from critical thinking
• Have some relationship with the arts or nature
• Make deferring judgement a way of life (make lists, but make decisions later). 

Creativity is essential to being successful in market research, as it leads to innovation and increased relevance.

 

Connecting with a flat world

 

Nick Bonney, of Orange, and Jonathan Fletcher, of Illuminas, discussed the role of the researcher in the flat, looser business structures of today’s companies. Command and control cultures have been replaced by those emphasising vision, motivating values, collaboration, leadership and learning organisations – this change plays to researchers strengths, such as curiosity and collaboration, but presents new leadership and cultural challenges.

 

They argued that fruitful areas for market research are the trend towards customer-centricity, risk management and coherence (including the importance of pulling in one direction and integration). They see a future in teams, not gurus, and where single projects for single clients are a thing of the past.

 

Recognising the cultural style of the client, and responding accordingly, will be increasingly important. Should researchers be ‘wide eyed children or gnarled old sceptics’? I leave you to judge on that one!

 

Professional service or manufacturing unit?

 

The final speaker was Andy Dexter of Truth Consulting. He questioned whether the market research industry was applying an appropriate model for today’s world, and argued that the research industry is closer to a production unit than a professional service in terms of its margins and its business and investment models.

 

The latter spends a disproportionate amount on people, the former tend to focus on infrastructure and seeking economies of scale and cost saving measures. Professional services are built on a client-to-people model, rather than a client-to-company one. His recommended strategy focused on:

• Admitting that data is a commodity, while thinking is not
• Investing in developing knowledge
• Considering alternative business models (e.g. partnerships)
• Being prepared to take brave steps. 

Two distinctly different business models should be considered – the professional services added value option, or the cost focused manufacturing alternative. However, the latter delivers less real value to clients. His forecast for the future included a rapid growth in credible consulting agencies.

 

As a final thought, could someone please tell me what the difference is between market research and insight?

Welcome to WARC's blog of Research 2008, the annual conference of the Market Research Society.

Live reports from Roderick White and Peter Mouncey will start appearing here through the event, staring Tuesday 18 March.

Meantime, you can find full event details on the Research 2008 website.