Back in March this year, Herdmeister Mark Earls organised a talk at the RSA involving two of his collaborators (Prof. Mike O’Brien, professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri, and Dr. Alex Bentley, co-director of the Centre for the Co-evolution of Biology and Culture at the University of Durham).

ResearchTalk was there to capture the event so for those who weren’t able to make it, we hope you enjoy this brain food.

Mark Earls:

Prof. Mike O’Brien:

Dr. Alex Bentley:

Sony founder, Akio Morita, once said: “Curiosity is the key to creativity.” So, given how curious researchers are, we decided to speak to some client-side researchers to discover ways in which they have used creativity to amplify the value of research.

 
The Listener
Dr. Simon Roberts, Lead, Design/Social Science, Digital Health Europe, Intel

Roberts’ solution has been to turn some of his findings and insights into well-produced booklets and brochures, something he did for a recent global ageing study with hundreds of in-depth interviews: “Let’s put it all in a booklet and make sure that every person in the organisation for whom this is relevant gets a copy on their desk. We can also use it externally to tell a story about our work.”

Pop here for the rest of the article – available only for a limited time – and do subscribe to Research World magazine.

John Kearon, Chief Juicer at BrainJuicer, explains how he is turning research on its head by shifting the focus from asking people to explain their own behaviour, to using peoples’ innate social abilities to comment on the behaviour of others.

A pioneer in the use of wisdom of crowds in research (since 2004), he also reveals the results of experiments in mass ethnography, mass anthropology and co-creation.

Filmed at the BrainJuicer/HSBC London Summerfest in June 2009 (disclosure: we produced the vid).

More videos from this event here.

We filmed this at a recent AQR ethnography training event.

It’s 15mins of edited highlights featuring useful tips and rich examples, drawn from a jam-packed 3-hour* training session run by ethnography expert Siamack Salari (of EverydayLives) and semiotics expert Greg Rowland (of Greg Rowland Semiotics). Enjoy!

You can also find a brief writeup of the event here.

More AQR coverage here.

* In fact the training ran all day, the bit we didn’t show was the half-day devoted to worked examples with full delegate participation

 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

Series:AdTalk
Series:Events Series:ESOMAR Series:Congress08
Series:Commissioned

via dvorak.org/blog

Series:MarketingTalk

The beauty of the internet for those keen to understand consumer needs and desires is that people naturally express these in social networks and other social media.

iWant is a simple, experimental tool we’ve built to mine this info from the twitter stream. Give it a spin if you dare

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

Mark Earls’ latest contribution to life, the universe and everything is gaining traction. His new book rethinks how people make decisions and discovers as a result that much of current research practice is fundamentally flawed in its assumptions and interpretation of consumer behaviour. Quite fitting for this self-styled ‘Contrarian’. The book provides psychology underpinning for many recent phenomena such as social networking, engagement, conversations, ethnography, blogging and predictive markets by showing how we act as groups and not individually. Part of our monthly column for ESOMAR’s Research World magazine

 STARRING 

• Mark Earls, author, Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature, Head Honcho, Herd Consulting

TIMELINE [17m19s]
00m00s Intro.
00m42s Why current research practices are wrong.
02m09s The industry is improving, but not enough.
03m21s The value of ethnography and predictive markets techniques.
03m57s ‘Herd’ questions the assumptions made in traditional research.
04m31s Improving opinion polling predictability.
05m10s Does ‘Herd’ have implications for all types of research?
05m29s Do social networking tools play a role in ‘Herd’?
06m48s The benefits of meme trackers.
07m10s Would ‘Herd’ have predicted the eventual success of SMS?
08m09s P&G Tremor panels.
08m58s Persuading others to adopt ‘Herd’ thinking.
09m35s Is Tesco a ‘Herd’ brand?
10m28s Co-creation, software beta testing and the open source movement.
11m34s Consumers co-creating ads.
12m10s Other brands that follow the ‘Herd’ philosophy.
13m03s Progressive research agencies.
14m17s Summarising the ‘model’.
15m25s Inspiration for writing the book.

Notable Mentions
Acacia Avenue.
American positivism.
Andrew Ehrenberg (Prof).
Blogs.
Bob Worcester (Sir).
BrainJuicer.
Co-creation.
David Goetz.
Digg.com.
Dodge.
Dove.
dunnhumby.
Ethnography.
Fiona Blades.
Gerald (Jerry) Zaltman: “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market”.
Hall and Partners.
Harvard Business School.
Influence maps.
James Surowiecki.
Jeff Goldblum.
John Kearon.
MESH Planning.
Mike Hall.
MRS.
MySpace.
NHS.
Ogilvy & Mather (O&M).
OLR (Opinion Leader Research).
Open source.
P&G Tremor panels.
Predictive markets.
Social networking.
Spring Research.
Stephen Phillips.
TechMeme.com.
Tesco.
The Big Chill.
Tom Daly.
Unilever.
Wardle Mclean.
Wendy Gordon.
Wikis.
YouTube.

Quotes
“Post rationalisation is more important than sex.” (Jeff Goldblum).

“Individuals are really poor witnesses to the richness of their own lives.”

“We (MR practitioners) are still very bad at predicting.”

“I know that when an idea is interesting it creates energy … whereas most of our methodologies don’t look at that as an indicator.”

“The future may be much more two-way.” (in reference to P&G Tremor panels).

“This is perhaps one of the hardest things for business and market research to understand, consumers frankly tolerate us.”

“It’s never been harder to do marketing … we are at an inflexion point.”

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk

 EXCLUSIVE  Mark Jones of Lastminute.com talks about evolving their B2B offering to allow partner brands to take advantage of their infrastructure and content relationships. Flemming Ostergaard talks about how it took LEGO’s worsening financial performance to wake them up to the importance of directly connecting with kids through ethnography. And Michael Spang talks about the challenges involved in regionalising the Kodak global corporate website to make it more relevant and useful

 STARRING 

• Mark Jones, MD, Lastminute.com
• Flemming Ostergaard, Director Global Innovation & Marketing, LEGO
• Michael Spang, Eastman Kodak

Recorded live at the Euro MR Event 2006

TIMELINE [18m05s]
00m00s Intro.

1. Mark Jones (Lastminute.com).
00m30s Evolving a B2B strategy.
02m32s Not licensing the lastminute.com brand.
02m45s Types of research conducted.
03m23s Experimentation, innovation and dynamic packaging.
03m58s Evolution of the lastminute.com brand.
04m49s Key challenges over the next year.
05m09s Segmentation.
05m45s Building a strong brand with universal appeal.
06m33s Brand evaluation metrics.
07m11s Impact of being bought by Sabre.
07m56s Personalisation initiatives: current and future.
08m26s Web 2.0 initiatives.

Notable Mentions
B2B.
B2C.
Branding.
Brent Hoberman.
Demographics.
Dynamic packaging.
Early adopters.
Iberia.
Kuoni.
Martha Lane Fox.
Prototyping.
RSS.
Sabre.
Segmentation.
Tesco.
Thomas Cook.
Travelocity.com
User generated content.
Web 2.0.

2. Flemming Ostergaard (LEGO).
08m54s Using ethnography to really understand kids.
10m30s The impact on LEGO’s product innovation.
11m29s Building on ethnography.
12m08s Any epiphanies?

Notable Mentions
Ethnography.
Mindstorm.
Privacy.

3. Michael Spang (Kodak).
13m17s Improving the kodak.com web experience.
14m44s Deciding on which regions to survey.
15m33s Regionalising a global gateway.
16m17s Importance of the website.

Notable Mentions
China.
Corporate image.
Digital photography.
Web usability.

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

Series:EMRE06 Series:Events

 EXCLUSIVE  We like showcasing excellence. So why, you ask, does Anne Kirah deserve this accolade? Because she keeps things simple, she keeps it real. And while that may sound like a cliche, it’s what few clientside researchers do. Yet Anne has managed it at Microsoft. She and her team have got engineers thinking about the people who use their products. One team has even named part of their office Howard’s Corner as a legacy to an octogenarian man who forced them to design products and services for everyday folks and not just the tech savvy. Listen on, it’s inspirational and, as Vinny Jones would say, it’s emotional

 STARRING 

• Anne Kirah, Acting Dean, 180 Academy, formerly Lead Design Anthropologist, Microsoft

Recorded live at the Euro MR Event 2006

TIMELINE [18m38s]
00m00s Intro.
01m18s 180 academy – the genesis of a school that teaches radical innovation.
02m35s Reasons for leaving Microsoft.
03m17s Spreading innovation by communicating in the same ‘language’.
05m32s The importance of design in changing lives.

Microsoft
06m38s Products should be meaningful, relevant, desirable, useful – do Microsoft products pass this test?
07m26s Howard’s Corner – using everyday, ordinary people to create really useful products.
09m40s It’s all about people, not users.
10m33s Shifting Microsoft from tech to people focus.
11m35s The true art of anthropology and ethnography.
13m34s How Anne and her team drove change at Microsoft.
14m43s Should companies employ board-level consumer champions?
15m51s Does Ray Ozzie’s arrival as Chief Software Architect herald a new era of humanity at Microsoft?
16m28s Anne’s legacy at Microsoft: just think people, remember Howard’s Corner.

Other
16m49s Being picky with her new clients.

Notable Mentions
Anthropology.
Bang & Olufsen.
Bill Gates.
Denmark.
Design.
Ethnography.
Innovation.
Lego.
Microsoft.
MSN.
Nokia.
Novo Nordisk.
Ray Ozzie.

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

Series:MarketingTalk
Series:EMRE06 Series:Events

 GUEST  Online research pioneer Pete Comley, Chairman of Virtual Surveys

 TOPICS  YouGov quadruples profits; BrandIndex tracker & word of mouth; Web 2.0. VS: Staying independent; Accidental genesis of VS and early challenges; Research 2.0; Blogging; Future challenges

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  Al Gore, BSkyB, Current TV, Ed Keller, Eric Berne, ESOMAR, The Future Place, Google, Greenfield Online, Harris Interactive, Henley Centre, Keller Fay, MySpace, Quentin Ashby, Ray Poynter, RI, Stephen Phillips, Trish Comley, YouGov, YouTube

Music Brother Love and Matthew Ebel from the PMN

Series:Weekly

 GUEST  Semiotician Dr. Rachel Lawes, founder of Lawes Consulting

 TOPICS  Launch of branded communities within MySpace; Researching social communities; Internet key to promoting movies; Advertising blending into content; Semiotics explained; Lawes Consulting breaking into new sectors

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  Halifax Bank, HBOS, Lynx, MTV, MySpace, Snakes on a Plane, Spring Research, Stephen Phillips

Music Brother Love and Slackstring from the PMN

Series:Weekly

Guest  Siamack Salari, CEO and Founder, EverydayLives
Guest host  John Griffiths, Planning Above and Beyond

PODCAST
Ethnography is increasingly being used to fill the void of consumer understanding left by traditional research techniques. But what exactly is it, how does it work, and how does it stack up against existing tools?

In this podcast, John Griffiths (Planning Above and Beyond), a qualitative practitioner with experience of ethnography gets the low down from dedicated ethnographer Siamack Salari, founder and head of EverydayLives.

Timecode [27m18s]
00m00s What is Ethnography?
02m27s Ethnography vs. traditional research.
03m00s ‘Survey instruments’ used.
03m59s The different types of Ethnographic study.
06m02s Making Ethnography work in low usage categories.
08m03s How to encourage respondent participation.
09m10s Getting permission to film in public/private places.
11m00s The sensitivities involved in filming children.
12m02s Understanding consumer behaviour through co-creation sessions.
13m16s Is Ethnography more holistic than focus groups?
14m10s Helping clients decide if Ethnography if appropriate.
16m04s Measuring the quality of output.
16m39s Managing the risk of not discovering much.
18m00s Making the output actionable (examples given).
21m42s Indicative costs.
22m48s Indicative timescales.
23m17s Ethnography vs. qualitative video research.
24m44s Why is an Ethnographer needed in this age of self publishing (e.g. blogging, podcasting).
26m10s Criteria to use when deciding whether or not to use Ethnography.

USEFUL LINKS
John Griffiths: Planning Above and Beyond, Account Planning.net
Siamack Salari: EverydayLives

Music courtesy of Theatrimus and The Blue Mile from the Podsafe Music Network.

Thanks again to KD Consulting for sponsoring this podcast.

Series:Sponsored
Series:Skills