Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Relative relevance: How brands can re-connect as consumers adapt to a post-COVID world

Article • Jacob Harbord, Christine Tan, Clement Law and Angel Manzano, WARC Exclusive, August 2020

There is no doubt that measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 will have a lasting impact on everyone and knowing how people are adapting and coping will be key for brands moving forward.

How a pop-up community helped Kindoh launch in Germany

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Qual360 Europe, February 2020

Looks at how Kindoh used a pop-up community to gather insights about the German diaper market as well as test and rate its own product.

Notes from the qual frontline

Opinion • Brian Carruthers, February 2020

Better, faster, cheaper research may be possible after all – Brian Carruthers takes the industry’s pulse at Qual360 Europe .

Dispelling the myths of pollution to help people protect themselves

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Applications of Research, 2019

Reckitt Benckiser, a consumer goods company, investigated the reasons for disappointing face mask sales and how it could empower consumers to take responsibility for their health in India.

Business banking switch - business unusual for RBS

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for Financial Services Research, 2019

RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), a banking brand, launched real-time customer communication research in the UK to understand how it could get consumers to switch banks.

Department for Education: Fire It Up – Effecting a seismic reframe of apprenticeships

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, Jeremy Bullmore Award for Creative Development Research, 2019

The Department for Education, a UK government department, promoted apprenticeships across the UK by launching a mixed methodology research study that facilitated its campaign.

PwC: The Future of Government

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Public Policy/Social Research, 2019

PwC, a multinational professional services network, launched the Future of Government project, an ambitious effort to ask serious questions about what kind of a society we want Britain to be.

World Animal Protection: When disasters strike, animals suffer

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Highly Commended, MRS Award for International Research, 2019

World Animal Protection, a non-profit animal welfare organisation, created a quant/qual study that provided it with hard evidence to encourage the protection of animals from government officials globally.

Open Banking: Power to the people

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Financial Services Research, 2019

Open Banking, a government agency initiative, developed, launched and scaled Open Banking in the UK using a curated suite of research methodologies to inform customer experience guidelines.

Audience segmentation & beyond

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Innovation in Data Analytics, 2019

Looks at how an artistic and cultural venue moved beyond its current customer base and tapped into new audiences to understand and engage potential audiences in the UK.

Is it possible to predict human decision-making? Using qual and quant to understand the context and emotion behind why people make choices

Research Paper • Nina Kanin and Zehra Odunayo, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2019

The Streetbees platform aims to address the complexity of human decision-making by capturing real behaviour, emotion and context in the moment of consumer choice.

Talking to India’s farmers

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Marketing Week Insight Show, March 2019

Outlines a project to set up the first continuous panel to help a pesticides company better understand India’s farmers.

Creating brand and business transformation: Awakening a sleeping giant

Research Paper • Sally Smallman and Emiliana Vidali, ESOMAR, Congress, 2019

Explains how, in ten years, Gordon’s Distilled Gin, an alcoholic drinks brand, reversed its decline by discovering new insights and changing leadership behaviours in the UK.

Long-term tragedy versus short-term response: The marketer's dilemma

Research Paper • Sam Munderere and Will Goodhand, ESOMAR, Congress, 2019

SURF, a charity supporting survivors of the Rwandan genocide, used a new application of research and insight to identify the optimal creative executions for fundraising.

Rapid impact: Creating a market leader in a year through machine-learning, ethnography and psychology

Research Paper • Genevieve Hall, Vivek Banerji, Alessandro D’Angelo, Dan Atkins and Daniel Rayner, ESOMAR, Congress, 2019

Papilocare, a brand of HPV prevention cream, became the market leader in Italy in just one year thanks to a strategy which was underpinned by hidden and differentiating insights.

Standing out from the crowd: A global study to define the perfect music festival

Research Paper • Christian Kurz, Anna Noel Taylor, Kerri Fortune, Ian Wright, Jo McIlvenna and Ben Allen, ESOMAR, Congress, 2019

Viacom, an American multinational mass media conglomerate, set out to learn the 'secret sauce' of the best festivals and to evaluate how that might be improved.

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.

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.

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).

Qualitative research