That was the intriguing notion being discussed by Annelies Verhaeghe of Insites Consulting at the recent Cloud of Knowing meetup.

As John puts it:

[In the Insites study] bloggers were asked to provide images of what they perceived to be cool at a music festival they were attending. Researchers, marketing experts and 4 different types of crowds were then given the task of evaluating these and providing perceptions of their own. The bloggers then graded these in terms of the insights they generated. The 4 different types of crowd included those who were at the festival and also those who were not. And those who knew the bloggers and those who did not. The result showed that crowds appeared to be a better source of insight. And that the most fruitful crowd was one familiar with the context (ie present at the festival) and unfamiliar with the blogger (at several degrees of separation). A fascinating paper which has given Insites a way to use crowds to increase insight generation (they claim) by 200%!

Watch the video to discover what Annelies found.

 I think all the research industry should adopt a CFO, because what the CFO wants to know is not whether that ad. tested better than that ad., but does the whole program move us ahead in making brands more valuable in peoples’ lives and therefore dropping to the bottom line. (Alan C. Middleton)

ESOMAR’s 2008 Congress is nearly upon us and in this exclusive preCast, BrainJuicer Chief Juicer John Kearon chats with three of the keynotes about how cultural and technological changes are impacting peoples’ lives, and how the disciplines of marketing, branding and research need to adapt to keep pace with such change.

John is joined by former senior JWT executive Alan C. Middleton, popular anthropologist Grant McCracken, and design entrepreneur Richard Eisermann.

Listen to the podcast here

 STARRING 

• Alan C. Middleton, Assistant Prof. of Marketing and Executive Director, Executive Education Centre, Schulich School of Business, York University
• Grant McCracken, Anthropologist, Research Affiliate, MIT
• Richard Eisermann, Co-founder, Prospect
• John Kearon, Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer (host)

Listen to other podcasts in this series

Timeline [27:20]
00:00 Intro.
03:10 Brands as a shared construct (incl. 2-way conversations).
03:38 Edinburgh University’s research into the role of political brands (Alan).
04:52 “Designers will increasingly be providing the tools and methodologies for people to provide their own answers…the challenge is trying to provide a business model” (Richard).
06:20 Mass ethnography (Grant).
07:14 “In an experiment…noticed that everyone in a bar stopped drinking at the same time, even when they were blind!” (Grant).
07:33 Open-source branding (Grant).
08:29 User-created content is changing media consumption patterns (Alan).
10:10 Engaging people in the marketing process (“Marketers are becoming a symmetrical party in the relationship”) (Grant).
11:17 In a more complex world, research should be seeking themes and inspiration, not discrete answers (“Stop using research to invent products!”) (Alan, Richard).
13:38 Marketing needs to know when a prosumer vs consumer approach works (i.e. co-creation vs. prescriptive) (Alan).
14:30 Why ethnography can be more inspiring than traditional research approaches (Grant).
15:56 Designers need to understand ‘meaning’ and direct contact with consumers is the only source of this (Richard).
16:52 The need for ‘whole human research’ (Alan).
17:47 Innovation happens at the fringes, but most research doesn’t go there (e.g. off-road bicycles).
20:16 Overcoming risk-averse behaviour in corporations (“the high risk of not taking a risk”) (Alan).
21:59 Overcoming risk-averse behaviour in the MR industry (balanced score cards).
24:52 Wrap-up.

Notable Mentions
Andrew Keen, “Cult of the Amateur”.
Co-creation.
David Weinberger.
Design Council.
Disintermediation.
Economic downturn.
Ethnography.
IDEO.
JWT.
Naomi Klein.
Neil Gershenfeld.
Open source.
Sid Levy.
Edinburgh University.
UGC.
Whirlpool.

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

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It’s a bunch of geeks from podcast network PodTech, Irina from GETV, some folks from Rev3 (Kevin Rose’s burgeoning podcasting outfit), and Facebook and others.

It’s also an example of this co-creation lark in which the group is sufficiently motivated to express its love for the new iPhone through song and dance. Pity Nokia fans aren’t as animated about the new N95 which while getting rave reviews, is clearly not emotionally inspiring enough to get them to shake their collective booty!

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