Welcome to the 20th Edition of the ESOMAR Asia Pacific conference!
There is no better way to celebrate this occasion than to highlight the deep and sustained impact that the market research industry has had on communities’ development, consumer understanding, business growth and technological innovation.
Firstly, we should celebrate how much our industry has changed in the past 20 years, primarily impacted by the many opportunities and challenges of our new digital world. Disruptive changes re-shaped the market research industry due to rapid advances of technology include:
- Online data collection methods were adopted and surpassed well-established face-to-face methodologies and enabled more agile insights
- The penetration of smart phones and wireless technologies, such as Wifi and Bluetooth, together with an ever-expanding digital footprint provided new rich sources of information
- Increases in computer processing offered the potential to revolutionize the science of research enabled more precise modelling and forecasting tools
- Democratization and easy access to information disrupted the status of market research agencies, which until the beginning of this century had a more critical role in collecting, distilling and reporting data, research and insights
This led to a growing and constant demand for the insights function to become increasingly more predictive, forward-looking and actionable, pressuring the market research industry to rapidly develop new and more advanced consulting and system integration capabilities. This increased the pace of acquisitions & consolidation amongst the largest market research agencies in an effort to stay competitive, and led to a global trend of relocation and contracting out non-core operations to low cost jurisdictions.
Secondly, we should celebrate how much the Asia Pacific region has been at the forefront of these profound changes and how much its market research industry has benefited from technology innovations. These were crucial in addressing complex and structural challenges that the industry historically had faced, especially with regards to consistency and quality control of data collection.
The Asia Pacific region has displayed consistently high levels of growth in the last decades and now accounts for 15% of the global insights market, driven primarily by China, Japan and Australia. This growth has been aided, for the most part, by economic stability, liberalization of access to new markets and agility when adapting to changes.
The Asia Pacific region has displayed consistently high levels of growth in the last decades and now accounts for 15% of the global insights market, driven primarily by China, Japan and Australia. This growth has been aided, for the most part, by economic stability, liberalization of access to new markets and agility when adapting to changes. This agility has led China to pioneer in big data integration and analytics, leveraging internet giants Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba, who dominate China’s digital landscape, and the rest of the world is following closely. Continuous innovations around Artificial Intelligence and its application in data collection and analytics are set to revolutionize our industry yet again in the very near future.
These radical industry changes – digitalization and democratization of information – created additional pressure to ensure high quality standards, ethics of the profession and to address the general public’s privacy concerns. ESOMAR’s role in reinforcing the concept of ethical responsibility and lobbying for adequate data privacy legislation around the world has been paramount in strengthening the role and future of the market research industry.
ESOMAR has contributed greatly in training research professionals in this evolving industry through conferences, webinars and master classes, and its success is evident by the strong and growing attendance of their events in the last 20 years.
Therefore, and lastly, we should celebrate ESOMAR’s impact on the market research industry in Asia Pacific!
The first East & South East Asian ESOMAR Conference, held in Hong Kong in 1996, had a strong focus on Marketing in Asia and the contribution of research in consumer marketing, product development and media & advertising, as well as the challenges of conducting research in such complex environments.
Fast forward to the 20th edition, as we are now in neighboring Macau, and we celebrate the impact of market research by sharing insights and innovations that:
- Celebrate humanity – contributions to the promotion of gender equality in Japan, the improvement of digital literacy of women in rural India and reducing the amount of unrequested goods sent during humanitarian crisis
- Celebrate technological innovations – contributions of Artificial intelligence in optimization of media ROI and brand engagement, as well as the use of voice in qualitative research methodologies
- Celebrate Asia – contributions of methodological innovations in exploring Asian consumer habits, humor & homes
- Celebrate the future of Market Research in Asia
We invite you to listen and engage with speakers from Google, Unilever, Ocean Park Hong Kong, just to name a few, plus leading agency speakers from Ipsos, Kantar TNS, The Behavioral Architects as well as several technology companies.
More importantly do not miss the opportunity to connect and network with your industry peers and continue to celebrate your achievements in creating impact!
Cristina Quental
Programme Committee Chair
To register for ESOMAR’s Asia Pacific conference 2019, taking place in Macau from 22 to 24 May, please go to this page.
Alternatively, if you cannot attend in person, you can register to free online live broadcast of ESOMAR Asia Pacific 2019, broadcasting 23-24 May, via this page.
