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  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

 EXCLUSIVE  As official podcaster to the upcoming ESOMAR conference, we’ve secured some exclusive and meaty previews. Kindly hosted by Mark Whiting, Director of Marketing Intelligence Services, Moët Hennessy, and Program Committee Chairman, this is the first of four previews and focuses on improving foresight accuracy

 STARRING 

• Dr. Howard Moskowitz, Moskowitz Jacobs
  Stock Market Prediction
• Fiona Blades, MESH Planning Tools
  Using Mobiles to Improve the Accuracy of Marcomms RoI
• Thomas Perry, Oliver Tabino, SINUS Sociovision
  A Sensitive Approach to Screening Future Innovation
• Mark Whiting, Moët Hennessy (Host)

Learn more about ESOMAR CONGRESS ‘06

THANKS
A huge thanks to Mark Whiting, his guests, and to Véronique Jeannin, director general of ESOMAR, and her team for their help in producing these podcasts.

TIMELINE [36m41s]
00m00s Introduction by Véronique Jeannin, Director General of ESOMAR.

Stock Market Prediction (Dr. Howard Moskowitz).
01m29s Introduction.
02m43s Motivation.
03m16s Approach.
05m28s Validation.
05m55s Key challenges.
06m59s Commercial applications.
07m35s Competing approaches.
08m25s Overcoming the challenges.
09m09s The benefits of Howard’s unconventional background.
10m00s Is MR-driven foresight getting more accurate?
10m38s Drawing inspiration from James Surowiecki’s ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’.
11m10s Other sources of inspiration.
11m48s Other aspects being covered at Congress.

Using Mobiles to Improve the Accuracy of Marcomms RoI (Fiona Blades).
13m00s Introduction & motivation.
14m22s Approach and benefits.
17m25s Potential limitations.
18m07s Length of texting period.
18m45s Improvements to WoM measurement.
20m41s Importance of the post-interview.
21m35s The importance of context in marcomms.
22m06s How the technique improves accuracy.
24m08s The potential for under-reporting.

A Sensitive Approach to Screening Future Innovation (Thomas Perry and Oliver Tabino).
25m33s Introduction.
26m19s Approach and benefits.
27m00s The core psychographic segmentation.
28m14s Using ethnography to aid with long term forecasting.
29m08s Making the findings meaningful to client Deutsche Telekom.
30m44s Major decisions that have been taken using the system.
31m33s The risk of killing off good products/ideas.
33m09s The use of early adopters in forecasting.
34m06s Aspects being covered at Congress.
34m36s Validation.

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

Series:Events Series:ESOMAR Series:Congress06

 GUEST  John Kearon, founder and Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer

 TOPICS  Good financial results from online researchers; Addressing declining participation rates; John’s winner and loser of the week; AQR’s 25th anniversary; Rant of the week; BrainJuicer wins Philips global Insights Testing

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  AQR, Bill Gates, Birds Eye, Cadbury, iD Factor, Ipsos, James Surowiecki, Martin Glenn, Melinda Gates, Millward Brown, Philips, Research Now, Rosie Campbell, Siamack Salari, TNS, Unilever, Warren Buffet

Music 2006 Pl@stic Soul and The Clintons from the PMN

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:Weekly