ResearchTalk

Why qualitative had to change

ResearchTalk — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:09:42 +0000

This article first appeared in November 2008’s edition of ESOMAR’s Research World magazine.

In an age where innovation is de rigeur, we look into how well qualitative is keeping up with the times.

“You must have mis-recruited me,” says Chris Forrest of qualitative house The Nursery, “I’m not sure there is lots of innovation in qualitative.”

Moreover, he feels there’s no need for innovation: “Qualitative research is quite evolved… a major tool for us is the good old focus group…it’s just a very good way to get people to interact with each other.”

But far from being a Luddite Forrest is innovating, it just takes him a while to acknowledge this. And that’s not dissimilar from the initial reaction we get from others we spoke to.

So, where’s the innovation?
There are two emerging areas of innovation in qualitative, and both are online: hybrid techniques that capture quantitative and increasingly qualitative information; and, techniques that capitalise on web 2.0 and the increasingly participatory nature of the web.

These reflect some emerging ‘truths’. The fact that emotions play a more significant role in decisions than rational quantitative surveys suggest, hence the use of a hybrid model to infuse the data with emotional feedback. The fact that consumer presence and attention is shifting online, hence the use of online as a data collection method not just for quantitative data. And the extension of ethnographic techniques online where self-expression is abundant.

Qualitative agencies are starting to embrace online. As Sandrine McClure of Reperes (one of the first agencies in Second Life) puts it: “We’ve moved away from the ‘let’s do qual. the way we used to do it and let’s put it on the internet’ to now learning how to do it online properly.”

Hybrid: more than the sum of the parts
So-called hybrid techniques are not a recent innovation. Quantitative practitioners have included qualitative elements in questionnaires for some time to source rich, unprompted data. But here’s the difference: the new hybrid is driven by the qualitative folks.

For Forrest at least, the motive for developing hybrid techniques was defensive as well as progressive: “[we developed hybrid] because nobody is using all the theory we currently have about how the brain works, and we were going to conferences and finding that quanties were raiding the qual. toolbox…to make quant. surveys more interesting – they were taking some of our pie!”

Forrest uses hybrid techniques for brand communications work. They comprise three projective techniques: word association; a proximity/predisposition measure; and a semiotics-based picture sort based on the work of Gerald Zaltman. McClure deploys hybrid studies, which are similarly based on projective techniques, when developing brand platforms for new brands.

Qual 2.0
The humble blog, that bastion of self-expression, has really taken off as a platform for qualitative exploration.

Sven Arn of H,T,P Concept refers to his offering as a ‘focus blog’ and often sees it as a pre-group, a place for consumers to accurately report on product usage and discuss issues ahead of a traditional focus group: “You’re a lot closer to the moment of consumption using this technology…and the great thing about it is it takes place in their own time.” The ability for consumers to upload photos and rich media only adds to its attractiveness.

But why bother with the subsequent focus group at all? Arn says, and others tend to agree, that the humble focus group will be around for a while: “…one thing that we found doesn’t work in a blog…as soon as you start asking lots of questions, it ends up being a question and answer session and people lose their involvement, you don’t get a lot of depth.”

Unlike Arn, McClure often uses her ‘home use’ blogs standalone. Used for qualitative product testing, they are far superior to the paper diary due to their interactivity. In fact she recalls how interactivity transformed the prospects of a breakfast product. During testing most reported that the product was ‘disgusting’. But then one person came up with a preparation method that significantly improved the taste and texture. Needless to say the client was happy with this random act of co-creation!

McClure sees qualitative 2.0 as an enduring phenomenon, and one that is becoming increasingly mainstream among consumers (no longer youth-centric) and agencies.

But let’s balance this unfettered enthusiasm with a clientside perspective. Crispin Beale, recently appointed head of Facts International but hitherto a career client (Royal Mail, BT and a major electronics retailer), puts it succinctly: “online communities have been more successful than I thought they would be.”

Assessing innovation
Innovation is all very good. Clients say they want it. And we know that in competitive markets with a low barrier to entry (i.e. MR), the most innovative players tend to thrive.

Forrest, however, takes issue with the notion that clients always want it: “It’s been a truism in the industry for a number of years that if you want to win a proposal then you recommend lots of interesting methodologies…but the client says they only have budget for the focus groups. You win the project on the sizzle stuff but then they don’t do the sizzle stuff…clients like to feel they are buying something funky.”

Beale takes issue with this: “[As a client] we were always looking for innovation.” And he didn’t buy any of the arguments about innovative techniques being too risky to try: “…it’s very much talking to a network of peers, finding out who’s been using new techniques. Then if something new can give you a competitive advantage, you just try things on a small scale.”

Informed buyers would, Beale says, belong to client networks and discuss the efficacy of new techniques: “…sometimes we’ll say I’ll give it a go and then next time say it’s your turn.” Moreover, “…it’s not just the techniques, it’s the individuals. And if you get individuals that you trust and respect within the industry…then you’re more predisposed.”

McClure provides a balancing view: “Innovating still takes a leap of faith, it takes confidence. [Clients] need to have faith in your agency and confidence in themselves [to be able to sell it internally].” That said, as the number of success stories presented in conferences and publications increases, clients will no longer have to rely on that intuitive sixth sense for internal justification.

Hy Mariampolski of Qualidata, a specialist in ethnography, has more issues with interpretation than techniques: “Most practitioners don’t have the foggiest notion of how to interpret projective techniques…I’m looking for a higher level of interpretation, not a higher level of analysis.” As an example, he cites a shower study where they tried to understand why a person washed their hair five times, something only made clear through observation. The interpretation, that showering was a self-nurturing behaviour, well beyond basic functional need, fundamentally changed the category.

Beale welcomes more actionability: “…sometimes as an industry we get very, very tied up in specific methodologies, whereas what we should be getting tied up in is how we used those insights to make money or save money.”

On a similar theme, and more plea than innovation, Arn, along with others to be honest, adds: “More and more we have got to stop calling ourselves qual. or quant. agencies.”

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:ESOMAR Series:ResearchWorld

Giveaway: ‘Buyology’

ResearchTalk — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:16:23 +0000

UPDATE: Giveaway now closed, winner will be announced soon.

Hey everyone, it’s giveaway time

Thanks to brand futurist Martin Lindstrom and publishers Random House, we’re giving away a copy of Martin’s new book, Buyology. For info on the book look here, here, or here.

The giveaway: we’re restricted this time to mailing to the UK or Europe. You also need to be a member of the Facebook group. Then, email us with your name, position, company, country and one incisive question for Martin.

We’ll try to get Martin to answer the best ones and get him to nominate the one that impressed him most. So get thinking - we need your submission by 11.59pm CET this Friday, 14th.

BrainJuicer’s Innovation Conference

ResearchTalk — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:20:52 +0000

BrainJuicer’s Chief Juicer John Kearon is a regular on the conference circuit.

After noticing that many events tend to mainly attract agencies, he began to wonder whether there was a way to significantly increase the client quotient.

Well, a few weeks ago he ran his inaugural Oktoberfest, a one-day event in London and Amsterdam with a hand-picked line up of ‘innovators’ as speakers. Each intimate gathering attracted over 100 clients.

The events were free and in true bootstrap fashion John partnered with Unilever and Philips to host the events and provide refreshments.

John Griffiths blogged about the London event. And we were asked to film, the result being the 17m highlight clip below (from 6hrs worth of material) which we hope you enjoy.

STARRING

Andrew Gaule, Founder, The H-I Network
BV Pradeep, Dove team, Unilever
Jaroslav Cir, CMI director, Rexona (Unilever)
John Kearon, Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer
Mark Earls, Herdmeister, Herd Consulting
Michael Spencer, MD, Sound Strategies

London:

Amsterdam Conference

John Grant: “I wonder about the longevity of branding”

ResearchTalk — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:58:35 +0000

Famed planner John Grant is now well known as a sustainability consultant. But not only in the environmental sense - he holds strong views on the sustainability of brands in an era of greater transparency and accountability. An era in which brands are being compelled to stand for something relevant in peoples lives.

John is one of the keynotes at the upcoming trends conference Consumer Alchemy ‘08. Hosted by Gfk Roper, here’s a short teaser we prepared earlier.

And below you’ll find the actual podcast chat (c. 20mins) with two other keynotes as they talk through trends they are seeing and what brands are doing, and can do, to capitalise on these trends (as usual, there’s a full list of talking points after the fold).

STARRING

John Grant, independent brand strategy consultant (blog)
Nick Chiarelli, global trends expert, GfK Roper Consulting
Pamela Hamilton, head of creative development, ITV Imagine

TIMELINE [22:36]
00:00 Intro.
01:57 Trends being witnessed: global unevenness of credit crunch; adjusting to new realities; culture clashes as BRIC countries repurpose western values; megacities.
05:09 Climate change and confidence: the year of the small car, no longer eco luxury.
07:28 Consumers want simplicity of choice.
08:19 People want meaning (engagement, co-creation, spirituality).
10:36 Globalisation: developing economies have a huge appetite for cultural globalisation.
12:36 The globalisation paradox in entertainment.
13:46 Implications for brands: shifting from fantasy to authentic stories (Apple, Dove).
16:06 Resolving brand contradictions at Unilever.
17:30 Shifting curencies in an online world (reputation etc.).
19:37 Health: an example of globalisation in an holistic sense.

NOTABLE MENTIONS
“The Green Marketing Manifesto”, John Grant.
Apple.
BBC.
Brazil.
China.
Cisco.
Climate change.
Credit crunch.
Dove.
Economy.
Eric Hobsbawm.
GE.
Globalisation.
Health paradox.
IKEA.
India.
Kodak.
Levi.
Lynx.
Powergen.
Prius.
Steve Jobs.
Trends.
Unilever.
World of Warcraft.

MUSIC
Music courtesy of Jakit Patrick from the Podsafe Music Network.

Peanut Labs: focus, focus, focus

ResearchTalk — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:49:02 +0000

Peanut Labs has an innovative take on a pretty unglamorous but fast-changing part of the research industry: online panels. Unlike other panel providers, they generate sample on-the-fly through social networks. As a result, not only can they source difficult-to-get Gen-Yrs, you can also think of them as Google Adsense for social networks, i.e. a powerful monetisation engine that social networks seem to love.

They’re doing pretty well - created only 14 months ago, they already have an annualised turnover of $10m. Not bad for a company started by a bunch of twenty-something college dropouts.

Based in Silicon Valley, we managed the above quick chat with founder Murti Hussain, and newly annointed part-time CEO Simon Chadwick (the adult supervision!) during a recent trip to London. We cover a number of key strategic decisions they’ve made including why Simon is joining now, their strategy for maintaining the fast growth, hiring tactics, barriers to entry, mistakes, exit strategies and who we think will end up buying them.

Below the fold you’ll find some more info on their background and ambitions (based on a profile we wrote for trade pub Research World)

BTW, props to the wonderful folks at Starbucks in Wardour Street for cutting the background music while we chatted - much appreciated.

Article from ESOMAR Research World May ‘08

Losing Their Virginity

The MR industry has Richard Branson to thank for its latest up-and-coming entrepreneurial star, Peanut Labs.

In late 2006, Murtaza Hussain, co-founder of the social network Xuqa, hit a snag. He and his fellow co-founders realised that making money from their increasingly popular social network was trickier than expected: “The CPMs [advertising income per 1,000 users] were horrible.” And with $1.3m in seed funding there was pressure to grow revenues.

But while normal folks might get depressed when things go bad, entrepreneurs look for inspiration. And this came to Murti, as he likes to be called, from reading Branson’s “Losing My Virginity”. Branson, the eternal optimist, talked of switching business models if ventures didn’t at first succeed. And so Murti and his fellow co-founders turned to market research for enlightenment.

No, not to identify answers. They decided to offer their community to researchers.

Going It Alone
Murti’s initial instinct was to work with one of the big online panels.

But he switched from partnering to competing after what he refers to as “a very interesting experience” speaking to Greenfield Online and GMI: “For the panel companies, technology is not their strength. When it came to integrating systems, creating a good user experience, they did a really bad job.”

So Peanut Labs was born. A Silicon Valley start-up run by a 22-year old!

Delivering Gen-Y Happiness
Peanut Labs’ claimed forte is providing high quality Gen-Y sample at reasonable cost (eg. CPI of $5-7 at 50% incidence). And they source way beyond the Xuqa network, having done deals with a bunch of applications across the main social networks (MySpace, FaceBook, Bebo etc.) as well as with smaller, niche communities. Applications include Fluff Friends on FaceBook.

Their 29% response rate is much higher than standard. The secret sauce? Murti repeatedly talks of focusing on the user, almost as a mantra (a common ideal in Silicon Valley): “We do a lot of targeting and pre-screening.”

Murti has also found that users far prefer virtual currency than cash incentives: “Even though I’m young it still doesn’t make sense to me…but it seems that a virtual incentive…has a much higher perceived value to people…it’s their way of feeling important and being loved.”

The TeenPreneur
Like most CEOs, Murti is highly articulate in the financials, mission, strategy and key operational details of the business. But then you remember that he’s just 22 (his older brother is the COO).

His entrepreneurial zeal started at the tender age of 14 in Pakistan where he formed a web design company. He then moved to the US only to become, at 21, a dropout from Williams College (“a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere”). Entrepreneurial dropouts include FaceBook founder Mark Zuckerberg who he knows well (“we’ve had a love-hate relationship given we were in the same business”).

The good news with his current venture is that the shift from social network to panel provider is paying off: “We’ve had good luck breaking into the industry with access to an attractive demographic at a price no one else can match.” (he’s keen to point out key initiatives beyond cost such as the fraud reduction Optimus ID).

Target: $100m
Murti reports 15-20% monthly growth. And 2008 revenues are estimated to be “in eight figures”. A sizeable chunk is split with the application providers given the revenue share model.

There’s been recent acquisition interest: “In the last three months we’ve had at least two research firms interested, but I think there’s a lot more value we can add”. They’re not ideologically opposed to selling: “Realistically I think the company will probably sell before an IPO.”

In the mean time, Peanut Labs has raised a second tranche of funds to support growth. This brings the total investment to $4.5m.

The target, Murti says with confidence, is to build a $100m company (by market capitalization).

So, having proven they can turn communities and forums into efficient panels, they plan to move beyond Gen-Y and launch a physician’s panel (“the largest US physicians panel”). Murti’s proud of finding a “fool-proof way to verify that panellists are indeed physicians”.

So, Murti’s biggest challenge going forward? “It’s really about trying to maintain our culture and innovation…You need to hire the right people, especially in senior management…they need to live and breathe the culture because if they don’t, the people who report to them won’t.”

Trends and Insights for Aug ‘08

ResearchTalk — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:36:48 +0000

Pic: smaku/flickr

Get these daily by subscribing to the RSS feed or via email.

Amazon should give away barcode readers (29 August)
Get a Whiff of This! The Amazing Power of Scent Marketing (28 August)
Publicis’ Tobaccowala: Mass Media Is Far From Dead (But It’s Not Growing Either) (26 August)
Is Google More Expensive Than TV? (26 August)
Is Paul Feldwick God? (26 August)
P&G Taps Bloggers, Moms for Unconventional Product Launch (23 August)
Lending to the poor has rich rewards (23 August)
Grabbing Lightning (21 August)
ESOMAR â€˜08 keynotes on keeping pace with change (21 August)
Free Baby Free (20 August)
Profanity works (20 August)
Innovation and the Tragedy of the Anti-Commons (20 August)
Bus Stop Swing Set: A Public Transportation Playground [Bus Stop Playground] (20 August)
The Economist visits with three digital nomads (19 August)
Ofcom Communications Market Report 2008 (17 August)
Li Ning stays one step ahead of rivals in Olympic brand race (15 August)
Gartner Hype Cycle 2008 (11 August)
Planning's very own Clover Machines (7 August)

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

ESOMAR ‘08 keynotes on keeping pace with change

ResearchTalk — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:29:14 +0000

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

A surprising revelation via user-generated ethnography

ResearchTalk — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:03:42 +0000

Common sense would probably tell you that stealing a bicycle using brute force in a high traffic area was nigh on impossible without being stopped or challenged. Well, think again. This video shows how easy it was for a guy to steal his own bike in busy NY using a bolt cutter, hacksaw and electric saw. And not just once but several times. He did this to try and understand how his bike kept getting stolen despite the fact that he secured it well. There’s a couple of funny bits towards the end: a police van drives right past him attempting the theft in plain sight, but intercepts the camera guy and cautions him not to stand in the car lane. Also, one person does eventually bother to intervene but there’s a twist that you really have to watch to believe. The result is a revelation not just for the guy himself but also for those manufacturing security chains and locks as it changes the assumptions they often work to.

via dvorak.org/blog

Series:MarketingTalk

Sky News Technofile: Innovations in retail

ResearchTalk — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:47:24 +0000

Sky News Technofile is a weekly segment on the UK satellite news channel.

Around nine minutes long, the latest edition provides a roundup of shopping technology from the likes of Infosys and Fujitsu and focuses on how it benefits consumers as they shop in physical stores. There’s some useful stuff including a mobile app that provides shopping ideas (a la amazon).

You can find this and other episodes of Technofile here (also available in podcast form).

Series:MarketingTalk

Clean hotel? The proof’s in the pudding

ResearchTalk — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:15:55 +0000

If you think this is in bad taste, just wait for the bit where you say to yourself “No, she’s not seriously gonna do that!”

via AdFreak / Brief Blog

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

Trends & Insights for Jul ‘08

ResearchTalk — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:23:09 +0000

Image credit: smaku/flickr

Every day we scan hundreds of blogs and mainstream media for choice content that we think you should read/imbibe.

We’re picky and deliberately avoid articles that make it to the mainstream because this just adds to the echo chamber. The result is a manageable set of hopefully useful links that you may not have ordinarily come across.

To get these in real time, subscribe to the special Trends & Insights RSS feed or the daily email.

If you haven’t already subscribed then here’s what you’ve missed over the last couple of weeks:

Is Unilever running out of ideas? (31 July)
Thinking about design research? (31 July)
How big is the free economy? (31 July)
Portugal signs up for 500,000 Intel Classmate laptops (31 July)
Segment Watch: the businessthlete (31 July)
On broadband and oil (30 July)
P&G goes for design thinking (29 July)
Insight (27 July)
The World is Flat, for free (24 July)
The magic of marketing (24 July)
Ted Mininni: newly minted expressions? (22 July)
NEC technology identifies person’s age and sex, delivers targeted ads (22 July)
30 somethings & Age: a generation of denial (21 July)
John Steel "Planning at 40" (21 July)
The accountability of research (21 July)
Emily Bell: If Google should falter, how many others will follow? (21 July)
New face recognition system helps stores to identify VIP customers (18 July)
Nudge (18 July)
Georgie in Campaign (18 July)
Is user-friendliness a sure marketing bet? (13 July)

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

You’re Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link. Or are You?

ResearchTalk — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:32:14 +0000

For control freaks like Apple, partnerships must be really frustrating. Famous for wanting to control every aspect of their product - hardware and software - plus sales, service etc., the torrid iPhone experience over the last 24 hours must have sent Steve Jobs fuming to say the least. It’s not absolutely clear who is to blame, but the guns are pointing at Apple’s partner, AT&T (and other carriers overseas).

So even though many decry Apple for being a relatively closed platform, the events of the last 24 hours may have brought some people round to Apple’s way of thinking, or at least made them more sympathetic.

But the reality is that partnerships in most sectors are an increasing necessity. As markets mature, product life cycles and development lead times shrink in today’s ever competitive landscape, organisations have to pair up to provide services they couldn’t do themselves, or at least not cost/time effectively.

Apple clearly sees the mobile market as a crucial one. So would it make sense for them to become a mobile carrier to control the experience end-to-end? Well, that would seem overkill. The bad experience involves activation, the general experience using AT&T and other carriers doesn’t seem to be a particularly big issue (or is it?). Apple is not in the pipes business, so why worry about the mobile pipes if it doesn’t worry too much about the fixed broadband pipes?

So, this got us thinking. As the title of this post conjectures, is the Apple/iPhone brand damaged by having a partner that is a weaker link in the brand experience chain? Anecdotal evidence from people being interviewed outside Apple/AT&T stores would seem to suggest (a) many folks attributed the blame to AT&T, and (b) the diehards waiting in line, sometimes for hours, love the iPhone so much that hurricanes probably wouldn’t have stopped them. And although mainstream news covered the travails, we can’t really see it denting iPhone desirability or demand.

But then you wonder, did Apple anticipate this beforehand and decide to accept the consequences because to have improved it (the back-end systems supporting activation) significantly may have cost too much or been too much hassle? Was there a trade-off?

We are, of course, drawing a parallel here with the BAA/BA fiasco a few months ago at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, where some believe BA may have skimped on the staff training to try to save a bit of money. If that were true, it would have been a spectacular own goal given how much it’s cost BA in compensation and negative publicity, not to mention the senior heads that rolled.

Conspiracy theories aside, it seems we need a clearer way of showing senior decision-makers the short and long-term costs of making key decisions like those discussed above. Because just as environmental costs are starting to be factored into the price of goods, businesses need to be aware of the full hinterland affected by the occassional short-sighted decision.

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Series:MarketingTalk

Why ‘Risk’ Shouldn’t be a Four Letter Word

ResearchTalk — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:33:17 +0000

Our March ‘07 Spotlight column in ESOMAR’s Research World magazine.

Being prepared and empowered to take risks is fundamental to true innovation and progress.

A few months ago, during a podcast recording, Jem Fawcus of the innovative Firefish was asked about his attitude to risk. I naturally assumed that as an entrepreneur he would be pro risk-taking. After all, he and business partner Allison had taken big personal risks to establish their agency. But Jem surprised me with his anti-risk stance: “agencies are there to minimise client risk”.

It took me a few moments to realise he was right. But, as someone who’s an advocate of experimenting to drive innovation, which invariably involves risk, I believe that I was also right, and that risk-taking and the tolerance of mistakes should be an essential characteristic of the industry.

In the words of Sir Ken Robinson, the inspirational educator and innovator, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Managing risk
I am essentially calling for researchers to be given a license to innovate and be creative. In effect, for management in research organisations, as well as in client marketing, product and MR teams, to explicitly and sincerely tolerate risk and mistakes. Because until we find the perfect approach to addressing client issues, we should always be looking to improve through trial and error.

But that’s not to advocate risk-taking at all costs. That would be silly. Even the most ardent supporters of innovation would agree to sensible limits. In fact, when I recently emailed a prolific industry innovator a story about how someone at Google managed to lose the company $1m by mistake, something that one of the founders brushed off as a cost of their experimentation culture, my contact remarked that “luckily for them $1m is neither here nor there”.

It comes down to culture
There’s no fast track to creating a culture of innovation. It takes time. It takes persistence. It takes top level support.

“I believe a creative culture comes from combining skills that don’t normally come together and making sure that people don’t become too habitual in their working practices,” Derek Leddie, The Leading Edge

In time, though, the benefits do flow through:

“We were looking for a new way of measuring the equity of our brands. Repères took the risk of researching and developing a completely new approach. They asked for minimal development investment. Today we have undertaken 15 different projects with them and they have a licensed product that is selling well to other clients,” Mark Whiting, Moët Hennessy.

The client factor
Some naysayers among you may point to the power of clients to kill innovation. While that is true, the good news is that an increasing number of brands are picking up on the innovation vibe, including P&G, Tesco, Apple and Google, to name but a very few. Brands that not only like their agencies to exhibit similar traits but in many cases expect them to.

And the interesting thing is that as online brands proliferate and grow in influence and prominence, so does a culture of experimentation as symbolised by the term ‘beta’ (a label designed to warn users that websites/applications are not in final form and may contain errors).

As Mark Jones, managing director of travel and entertainment brand lastminute.com explains:

“One of the things that the lastminute.com brand represents is innovation. We don’t claim that everything put out there works first time…we’re not afraid of innovating and even getting it wrong amongst certainly a closed user group.”

Finance brand egg.com shares a similar culture, as profiled at last year’s Congress.

The pay-off
But can risk-taking and innovation lead to financial prosperity? Well, let’s take a look at an extreme example, Google, only eight years old, but already making around $6bn in annual profits. All driven by a culture built on systemic innovation. A culture that attracts and retains the best engineers, by giving staff 20% time to design and develop their own initiatives (most of their new products originate from this source), and ensuring that ideas are only ever internally shot down on the basis of robust, quantitative, objective data. A culture that embraces risk and mistakes, and sees them as the inconsequential cost of progress, a bit like a child trying to walk despite continually falling down.

But, you say, that’s hardly a relevant reference for the research community. Well, that’s the kicker. Google and the MR industry share the same mission: both are designed to quickly get people to the information they need. The only difference is, MR currently adds meaning.

Anyway, I’ll leave the final word to Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo! senior VP, who recently issued the infamous ‘Peanut Butter Manifesto’ to address his employer’s poor performance: “…the employees that we really need to stay [are] leaders, risk-takers, innovators, passionate….”

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:ESOMAR Series:ResearchWorld

Digital Ethnography or Voyeurism?

ResearchTalk — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:56:38 +0000

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

“How Many Shining Eyes Around Me?”

ResearchTalk — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:34:59 +0000

That’s the question conductor Benjamin Zander asks in this, yet another beautifully powerful and funny session from TED.

We’re not massive classical music fans. But if we had Benjamin Zander teaching us things may have been different. Not content with simply creating classical music fans, Benjamin talks of creating a better world through the power of music.

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

A leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven, Benjamin Zander is known for his charisma and unyielding energy — and for his brilliant pre-concert talks.

VRooM, VRooM

ResearchTalk — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:34:57 +0000

Our latest Spotlight column in ESOMAR’s Research World magazine

Ladies and gentlemen, we are privileged to witness the start of a new movement. A movement that is revving up to do what The Cluetrain Manifesto did for marketing communications. Welcome to VRM.

Remember ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’? It’s the book co-authored by pre-eminent marketing practitioners including Harvard University’s Doc Searls. It coined the phrase “markets are conversations”.

Well, Mr. Searls is at it again. Not satisfied with inspiring consumers to use the web to redress the balance between marketers and consumers (e.g. via blogs), he wants to move things up a gear. And web strategist Adriana Lukas is along for the ride.

VRM…what?
VRM stands for Vendor Relationship Management. Put simply it’s the opposite of CRM.

Put less simply, says Lukas, the intention is “to equip individuals and vendors with tools to enable mutually beneficial transactions and to readdress the balance between demand and supply. It doesn’t get your pulse racing!”

The impetus for change, she adds, comes from an intuitive sense of what people prefer.

Consider a street market. Commerce here comprises three elements: conversations, relationships and transactions.

By contrast, online commerce tends to be just transactions, without meaningful conversations or relationships. “Online advertising isn’t really about conversations [it’s one-way shouting], and CRM isn’t really a relationship [it’s about hoarding and potentially mis-using data],” says Lukas.

VRM is therefore predicated on the notion that empowering individuals to take charge of their data (i.e. giving them the ability to decide who to share it with, when and how) will foster better relationships between consumers and brands, and ultimately lead to healthier markets.

A New Era
The inspiration for ‘Cluetrain…’ apparently came from Searls et al ruminating about the different dynamics and rules in the online world, and the inability of brands to adapt. A well-known example is where Dell gave a high profile blogger poor service. Dell’s reluctance to ‘join the conversation’ when the blogger posted about the experience resulted in a major backlash which, thankfully, Dell seems to have learned a painful lesson from.

Perhaps the tide is turning in favour of VRM given the growing support for somewhat related initiatives such as OpenID (single sign-on) and data portability. The latter is designed to ensure vendors do not lock-in consumer data to unfairly prevent or discourage switching. When Searls speaks to marketers he likens data lock-in to people lock-in (slavery), clearly hoping to elicit an emotional reaction! “We have to think about whether lock-in is necessary to managing relationships,” says Searls.

New types of data are also moving online, and vendors may be wise to consider VRM principles. Take Google, Microsoft and their recently launched health initiatives. These are ultimately aimed at holding medical and health records in one place – very scary. Both stress the security of their systems and the benefits for both health organisations and individuals. But these may not go far enough for VRM proponents.

Own Terms
These are early days for the VRM movement. Although Searls is sponsored by his employer, he is open-sourcing development to attract the best and most passionate minds to the cause.

Spearheading progress from her London base is Lukas, member of the Project VRM steering committee: “VRM is a culmination of what I see the web and the social web doing to individual empowerment, taking it further from conversations to transactions.”

Through regular meetings at her VRM Hub, Lukas is developing a web-based protoype to put a practical face to the concept. But further down the road, is there is a risk of VRM stalling if marketers and consumers fail to buy into the concept?

Lukas promotes VRM as win-win. She expects brands to be able to transact far more with those consumers who take charge of their own data. The example she cites is based on her love of wine. If VRM enables her to create a ‘feed’ of information reflecting her wine likes (say drawn from her blog and various websites), and then offer this to a series of wine merchants, she would in effect be providing vendors with both the ability and permission to sell her relevant items. If anyone misbehaves (by spamming, etc.), she could remove them from the feed. The rest would benefit from seeing continually updated needs.

But all this seems a lot of work for the average consumer. Lukas agrees and says that the answer is, once the infrastructure is built, to encourage developers to build compelling VRM applications that individuals want to use.

In the end, “I want to share my data on my own terms,” Lukas says. Who could argue with that?

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:ESOMAR Series:ResearchWorld

Solving Sustainability: More Speed, Less Haste

ResearchTalk — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:16:25 +0000

The biggest challenge is not the technology, but in changing peoples’ habits. (Julia Hailes)

Former BT futurologist Ian Pearson recently joined a futures consultancy with a bang when he put out the provocative report Achieving CO2 reductions in the UK by using technology instead of muddled thinking.

The report suggests, among other things, that the rush to save the world from dwindling energy reserves, global warming etc. is forcing policy makers and other stakeholders to make poor decisions.

Sustainability consultant and author Julia Hailes MBE kindly agreed to put Ian on the spot in this quickfire conversation to discuss Ian’s analysis. As expected, the two don’t agree on much, but there is some common ground.

STARRING

Ian Pearson, Futurizon, personal website and blog
Julia Hailes MBE, Sustainability consultant, and author, The New Green Consumer Guide

Listen to other podcasts featuring Ian and Julia.

Timeline [32:08]
00:00 Intro.
00:55 Ian: We shouldn’t be rushing in to solve Climate change. Waiting for future technology can help to better solve the problem.
01:55 Julia: The more we do sooner…the better it’s going to be. Not convinced that technology is the answer.
03:11 Ian: Rushing generates a negative impact (eg. wind power case study).
04:05 Julia: Wind turbine early adopters started to become more aware of their energy usage and reduced consumption as a result.
04:50 Ian: Better to capitalise on peoples’ emotional commitment when technology/things do work.
05:27 Ian: Landfill and recycling policies need to be thought through much better (danger of alienating tax payers).
07:12 Julia: UK suffers from different recycling policies throughout country. Need for more centralised thinking (causes issues when advising supermarkets).
08:10 Ian: Centralised thinking is a boon for scientific approaches.
08:30 Julia: Futurizon report does not cover packaging sufficiently (P&G detergents spend disproportionate amount of time worrying about packaging).
09:41 Ian: Better for brands to be seen to be doing something.
10:19 Julia: Report in danger of being in a fantasy world (eg. shooting nuclear waste into space, diluting Uranium a better idea!).
10:36 Ian: Believe this will be do-able in the future (via space elevator).
12:00 Julia: Against nuclear power because it offers a poor return. Other technologies are more cost effective (wave, tidal, solar power), yet receive a fraction of the investment.
13:18 Ian: Agree. Nuclear has probably reached the end of its use by date as solar power prices could match conventional power by 2016/17.
14:31 Julia: More sensitive solar film being developed. Challenge is to manufacture in scale.
14:59 Ian: Oil companies have a vested interest in pushing technologies that can scale.
15:41 Julia: Bio fuels - a red herring as not a practical alternative to oil.
16:21 Ian: Agree. An example of scoring quick political points without adequately thinking through the solution.
18:20 Ian: Suggestion - creating carbon reefs with plastic waste.
19:06 Julia: Prefer glass to plastic.
20:07 Ian: Transport idea - apply Internet protocol/packet systems to the road to maximise use with electronically driven ‘pods’ (road trains).
22:54 Julia: Would be a challenge to use in rural areas.
23:17 Ian: EU initiatives are already in progress to automate highways. Also a social solution.
25:03 Julia: The fact that people can be tracked may raise privacy issues.
25:23 Ian: “Privacy issues are being eroded whether we like it or not.”
26:30 Julia: Disagree with Ian that people should not be encouraged to reduce consumption, e.g. reduce air travel.
27:06 Ian: Soon planes may be able to run on batteries, thereby assuaging the CO2 concerns of air travel. Plus, air travel is a small CO2 contributor and contributes alot via taxes.
28:48 Julia: Report makes some big assumptions and is overly optimistic. Energy rationing is the status quo.
29:31 Ian: While there is a strong case for reducing demand in the short term, long term needs will be more than satisfied with new technologies.
30:21 Julia: Not as optimistic as Ian.
30:47 Ian: Closing comment.

Notable Mentions
Air travel.
Big brother.
Biofuels.
Biogas.
Climate change.
Nucleur power.
Privacy.
Solar farms.
Solar power.
Superconductivity.
Sustainability.
Transport.
Wave power.

Thanks to freelance media and marketing journalist Jo Bowman for the use of her dulcet tones for the outro

Music Theatrimus from the PMN

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

Back of a Napkin - The Movie

ResearchTalk — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:17:12 +0000

We recently pointed out this short clip of Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.

Here’s a much longer clip, courtesy of Google Talks…

And The Winner Is…

ResearchTalk — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:31:39 +0000

A couple weeks ago we ran a marketing book giveaway.

It seems it was quite popular because we received 17 entries, all of them worthy. But of course there can only be one winner.

Choosing the winner was difficult. Now we’re bound to say that, aren’t we? But it really was because we had to choose between an entry that totally ruled our head, and another that pulled at the old heart strings.

In the end we couldn’t/didn’t want to choose between them, so we convinced the generous folks at publishers OUP to send a free book to both of them.

The ‘head‘ entry (which you can see at the bottom of this post) was from Simon Kendrick, a commercial research consultant with UK commercial broadcaster ITV. Simon blogs and previously came to our attention for his comprehensive updates from the recent Research 2008 conference. We asked him for a short bio…

Upon leaving university, I did the apparently normal thing of looking for a job that had nothing to do with my degree. As I studied philosophy, politics and economics this was three times as difficult, but I have managed to dig out a niche for myself within media research. After several enjoyable years learning the tricks of the trade at the agency side, I have now crossed over to the client side. Stationed in the commercial sector of the business, I use a mixture of industry currency, desk research and commissioned projects to make the case for advertisers and agencies to work closely with us.

The ‘heart‘ entry read thus:

Here in South Africa text books are insanely expensive: the exchange rate, together with high import taxes, make purchasing text books onerous. My students and clients both look forward to anecdotal instances to bring the theory to life. I am sure that this would help.

It was from Michele Sohn…

Michele started Grey Matter, one of South Africa’s first new media companies, which she successfully sold to i-africa.com. She now heads up Confluence
Digital Research and holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MBA from Wits Business School. She lectures at Wits Plus and the IMM.

We hope this gift will, in some small way, do some good.

So well done to both of you - your books are on the way (one of which has been signed by the authors because we only expected one winner!). We look forward to Simon’s blog review of the book which we’ll link to once it’s done.

Simon’s creative entry…

I would benefit from getting the book because

I am an advertising researcher. I look for inspiration and tips from all quarters in order to improve the effectiveness of my work
I have aspirations to move to a more marketing-orientated role. This book would complement the “on-the-job” training roles I am undertaking
I am a voracious reader, but have trouble splitting by time between online and offline. This is long enough to keep me offline for some time, thus protecting my eyes
Being as my “TV” is in fact a “pc”, I would be sure to use the DVD regularly
My partner is a student. By giving me study notes, you would help me empathise with her

Yourselves and OUP would benefit because

I would write a very nice post on my blog about you
I would tell all the people I work with about the nice people you donated the book. About 5,000 people work in the same organisation as me within the UK…
I would also make the book and DVD available for them to read, thus spreading the love [ed: book does not include DVD]
I live in London and you will save money on shipping
I studied and lived in Oxford for 3 years. You would be giving back to the local community as well as the “online community”

There we go - two sets of 5 reasons. We are well matched.

I realise this hasn’t been particularly creative so I will donate a marketing idea of my own: challenge the public to successfully remove the title from the business book section in Blackwells/Borders/Waterstones et al, and place it in the women’s glossy magazine section. Photographic evidence should be provided, with the winner receiving an appropriate prize. This will not only create buzz but create sympathy for both the bookshelf-stackers and security guards- two oft-overlooked contributors to society. [ed: we do not condone such rebellious ideas]

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk