ResearchTalk

In the final of three audio podcasts recorded live at ARF Re:think ‘10, we chat with Conquest Research’s David Penn about his new tool, Infexious, which he says better predicts the likelihood that a campaign will go viral.

More precisely, David is interviewed by Rob Gotti and Robert Hall, both from the Boston Beer Company and who were intrigued by the tool and had a few questions.

David founded and runs the London-based quantitative outfit Conquest Research. The invention of Infexious, which uses visual metaphors to get a more emotional, pre-cognitive measure of consumer reaction, follows the earlier development of Metaphorix, a tool using a similar approach to measure how engaging a campaign or execution is.

We chat about…

• What the tool does
• Pre-testing the Cadbury Gorilla ad. failed – would Infexious be any better?
• The difference between an individual and a social response – and which is best measuring
• Is this tool really measuring pre-cognitive responses?
• Validation – Evian & Compare the Meerkat ads.
• Do clients always want their ad. agency to develop ads. that go viral?
• Persuasion in communications without being rational – the Carling campaign

(Pic c/o rooreynolds on Flickr)

In the second of three audio podcasts recorded live at ARF Re:think ‘10, we chat with anthropologist Grant McCracken.

Grant trained as an anthropologist (Ph.D. University of Chicago), has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He started the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he did the first museum exhibit on youth cultures. He has taught anthropology at the University of Cambridge, ethnography at MIT, and marketing at the Harvard Business School.

He recently published his third book, Chief Culture Officer, in which he argues that the time has come to elevate cultural understanding within organisations as part of both an offensive and defensive strategy.

We chat about the key themes in the book and are kindly joined by researcher Steve Gentile of Think Tank NYC, someone who I roped into the conversation once I heard that he had actually read Grant’s book

(Pic c/o hyku on Flickr)

In the first of three short audio podcasts recorded at ARF Re:think ‘10, we chat with Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Digital Strategic Services Online Division at Nielsen.

Pete was one of the early advocates of CGM and started a firm that eventually became part of Buzzmetrics, itself later bought by Nielsen. An author and prolific tweeter, we chat about…

• The implications for an organisation’s structure and culture as it grapples with responding to customer issues in real-time
• Which department should manage and own social media conversations
• The importance of ensuring that consumer trust is never ‘violated’
• Nielsen’s new algorithm for blending the potency of paid- (advertising) and earned- (social) media
• What CMOs are looking for from media measures
• The next challenge for social media: data integration, segmentation

Neither the BA strike nor the motley crew above could stop our first visit to the ARF Re:think annual confab in New York (a special thanks, btw, to Joel Rubinson and team for providing access).

Key themes this year were neuroscience, biometrics, social media management and measurement, integrating offline with online behavior (as advertisers and marketers look to link a stimulus on one with resultant behaviour on the other), and the increasing value of understanding cultural influences through ethnography. It was good to see a conference confidently devote so much of its agenda to the new MR, or ‘the new normal’ as the ARF referred to it.

Specific highlights for us include

• A marathon 2-hour session from various folks at Nielsen on ‘Thinking How Consumers Watch, Listen and Buy’. Led by Paul J. Donato, CRO, we learn, among other gems, that high search term prices was the reason for the bizarre but ultimately successful UK ad. campaign Compare the Meerkat. Donato also referred to big data sets – data abundance and mining was a clear theme, particularly among the big boys in audience and shopper measurement
• A panel discussing the new ways to understand influences on consumers, by looking through a social lens (Larry Friedman of TNS), a cultural lens (anthropologist Grant McCracken) and an emotional lens (Carl Marci, Innerscope). The different perspectives showed the value of diverse information sources and subsequent need to integrate or synthesise the data into a coherent, persuasive whole
• A lively debate among client-side folks on ‘How to Bring the Voice of the Human Into the Boardroom’. Some interesting ideas came out the debate moderated by Joel Rubinson: Stan Sthanunathan of Coca-Cola says they are slowly shifting to a pay-performance model for their MR agencies; John Forsyth of McKinsey says that his clients are looking for people with good synthesis skills; Susan Wagner of Johnson & Johnson talked of having shifted 15% of their MR budget to so-called new MR tools (she didn’t specify what these were). Stan also talked of ways to stimulate his internal clients’ thinking using more than just conventional research – for example by getting them to meet with folks in the army to share challenges and strategies

We managed to record a few short audio podcasts, do have a listen

• Nielsen’s Pete Blackshaw on a new algorithm for measuring ‘blended media’ (paid + earned media) Listen here
• Anthropologist Grant McCracken on why companies can’t afford to continue without a Chief Culture Officer Listen here
• Conquest Research’s David Penn on his new tool for predicting the virality of communications Listen here

It was a pity we couldn’t stay for the final day when neuroscience and biometrics were covered in earnest. But we have recorded video chats with some of the key players and plan to bring the completed film to you later this year.

A big thanks again to ARF folks Joel Rubinson, CRO, and marketing director Heather James for giving me access to an event I look forward to attending again.