Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Lux: Shrugging off gender inequality – Decoding ambivalence towards gender inequality in Japan

Research Paper • Deanna Elstrom and Emi Nishiyama, ESOMAR, Asia Pacific, 2019

Lux, a Unilever-owned haircare brand, conducted a quantitative study to ascertain where personal "pain points" are from the perspective of today’s Japanese women.

Brand relatability x financial services: How to win with GenZ and millennials

Article • Ryan Arshad, WARC Webinars, May 2019

Discusses the core drivers of building 'brand relatability' vs brand relevancy and why and how the mindset of millennials and Gen Z differs when it comes to financial brand consideration.

VIVO Cannabis: How do you research a market that doesn’t exist?

Article • Sam Peña-Taylor, Event Reports, MRS Impact, March 2019

VIVO Cannabis, formerly ABcann, needed to transition its marketing out of a medical-prescription market and into a legal over-the-counter, wellness, and recreational offer – it needed to understand the Canadian cannabis market and launch brands to compete in it before it became legal.

Exploring sharing behaviors across social media platforms

Research Paper • Chang-Dae Ham, Joonghwa Lee, Jameson L. Hayes and Young Han Bae, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2019, pp. 157-177

Increasingly, consumers are simulcasting branded content across multiple, interconnected social media platforms creating a complex social media ecosystem.

Why companies risk losing customers by not reciprocating on shared data: Rebuilding the data-sharing economy in a consumer-driven world

Research Paper • Natasha Hritzuk, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 58, No. 4, 2018, pp. 394-398

This article looks at how companies can rebuild trust with consumers over the use of their data with the advent of increasing regulation, such as GDPR.

CPNI: “All aboard – “See it. Say it. Sorted”, a public vigilance campaign to support the transport network”

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Public Policy/Social Research, 2018

The Centre for the Protection for the National Infrastructure (CPNI), the lead government authority for protective security advice, embarked on a four-year research programme to support the government’s counter-terrorism (CT) strategy in protecting the transport network from terrorism in the UK.

Christmas LIVE – Aldi shoppers’ journey to Christmas

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for Applications of Research, 2018

Aldi, the value supermarket chain, changed how UK consumers viewed the store and Christmas shopping behaviours to contribute to a record-breaking Christmas 2017.

IKEA Life at Home Report 2017 International research by C Space

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for International Research, 2018

IKEA, a furniture retailer, broke three norms when conducting global research to create its Life at Home Report.

Auto Trader Group: The Car Buyers Report – not new, not used but next

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Applications of Research, 2018

Auto Trader, a digital automotive marketplace, was able to shed its reputation among UK consumer as a place for ‘cheap second hand cars’ and delivered a twelvefold ROI.

PizzaExpress: Menu engineering - a predictive, insight-led solution to effective menu design

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Applications of Research, 2018

PizzaExpress, a restaurant group, brought to light new insight into how customers navigate menus in restaurants and how this affects their purchasing decisions.

Multiple Sclerosis Society: Measuring the socio-economic impact of changes to PIP eligibly criteria for people living with MS: a participatory approach

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for Public Policy/Social Research, 2018

The MS Society commissioned research to inform a media campaign aimed at convincing the UK government to change various aspects of Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Profiting: The Prophecy for Qualitative/Quantitative Fusion

Research Paper • Omnia Holland and Danielle Holland, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Omnicom, a boutique research firm in Australia, combined qualitative and quantitative research methods in the hair and beauty industry to streamline the research process.

The Magical Body Mirror: Linking personality, clothing preference and nonverbal cues to understand decision-making

Research Paper • Alejandro Salgado-Montejo, Ana María Moreno, Rodrigo Salgado, Daniela Greiffenstein and Jorge Alvarado, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Neurosketch, a market researcher, analysed how people in Columbia dress in order to predict how they will respond to different strategies, brands and products.

Smart Data Works: Delivering ideas for product improvement and shopper understanding

Research Paper • Nikolai Reynolds, Stefan Maas and Robert Wiggall, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Mars Petcare, a pet food and animal care brand, cut through non-relevant data to better understand its shoppers' needs in the UK.

Human Plus Digital Equals Agile and Accurate: How holistic communities can provide depth, rigour and quality to impatient stakeholders

Research Paper • Philip Morrison and Alex Johnston, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

The Distilleries, an insights company, and research firm Jigsaw, discuss taking a holistic approach to online communities in the UK and developing a mindset that focuses on the client end-game, rather than any fixed methodology.

Integrating Digital Conversations: Laying it on thick with social intelligence

Research Paper • Ellie Osborne and Oliver Roberts, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical company, used social listening to collect data findings that were grounded on naturally occurring consumer conversations about athlete's foot in the US and South Korea.

Fast Fashion Delivered: An innovative approach fusing AI and segmentation for brand building and consumer targeting

Research Paper • Archana Pai andPriyanka Bhargav, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Myntra, a fashion e-commerce company, developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict growing fashion trends in India to improve its business metrics.

Kellogg’s Chocos: Kidscan

Research Paper • Preeti Mascarenhas, Aditi Dalal, WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Entrant, 2018

Kellogg's, the market leader in India's breakfast cereals category, grew sales for its Chocos product with the use of an innovative in-house market research product.

A Game Changer in the Understanding of Toy Consumers: A tracking system to drive the toy business during the Christmas campaign

Research Paper • María Payá, Raul Gordo, Marc Smaluhn and Joaquim Bretcha, ESOMAR, Congress, 2018

Hasbro, a toy and board game company, conducted research that allowed it to make data-driven decisions to optimise its advertising investment in Spain, adapting the campaigns to the real behaviour of the different targets, and adjusting the use of media for every specific moment of the consumer journey.

The Small Enterprise Blueprint: How research for a Small Enterprise transformed the lives of police officers and the role of researchers

Research Paper • Alex Holmes, Alex Wilman and Ben Grainger, ESOMAR, Congress, 2018

Metfriendly, a financial institution, increased its new business and membership in the UK by using insights to build a new communications strategy with potential members.

Zero to Greatness: How to transform an organization from utilizing insights and analytics to craving them

Research Paper • Holly Rozelle, ESOMAR, Congress, 2018

Nature’s Way, a vitamins and supplements brand, transformed itself from not leveraging data at all to becoming dependent on data, insights and the Marketing Capabilities function, which has resulted in growth for its products in the US.

Cracking the Congealing Data Privacy Code: A client’s perspective on the impact of privacy on the need for agility in market research within the financial services industry

Research Paper • Kudzai Guvi, ESOMAR, Congress, 2018

Standard Bank, a financial services group, used a mixed-method approach to discover how privacy legislative challenges are affecting market research clients and agencies in South Africa.

Finding ‘opportunity spaces’ in ambient cake with Bord Bia

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Market Research Summit London, May 2018

The ambient cake category is seen as old fashioned and has experienced a decline in purchase intent.

The six universal drivers of brand love

Article • Chiara Manco, Event Reports, IAB Europe Interact, May 2018

Kantar Consulting and media company Oath conducted research across 13 countries and 150,000 consumers to identify the key drivers of brand love.

Retail revolution: How consumers accept, understand and trust artificial intelligence

Research Paper • IAB Europe Research Awards, Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour, Winner, 2018

OMD, an integrated communications agency, launched a campaign across Europe to better understand consumers' perceptions of artificial intelligence (AI).

Qualitative research