2020 was a year like no other. For obvious reasons. However, one trend C-19 didn’t buck was the stream of fantastic content Research World’s contributors provided us with. In fact, judging by Research World’s 10 most read articles in 20201 C-19 only added to it….
1. The top 10 global consumer trends (Alison Angus and Gina Westbrook – Euromonitor)
Life – and content – existed before C-19. Despite the upheaval that followed this article’s March 2nd publication, consumer trends caught your attention all year – namely accepting technology, frictionless experiences, inclusivity and personalisation.
2. Understanding the social cultural differences between China, Japan and South Korea for better communication (Martin Schiere, Elaine Zhang, Sheng Liu – Glocalities)
China, Japan, and South Korea account for 24% of the global economy. Knowing their cultural nuances is therefore important. This is possible by:
- Segmenting each countries’ population into achievers, challengers, conservatives, creatives and socializers
- Identifying which segments dominate each country
- Knowing this means for communication strategy
3. Strategic planning – through and beyond the pandemic (Brent Balloch – Babylon, John Presutti – Market-I Research Services)
Pandemics aren’t new. But that doesn’t make them easy to manage. Fortunately, this article supplied direction on how to do so by highlighting the importance of:
- Crisis management strategy’s four stages – initial, middle, resolution, and recovery
- Using crisis communications to protect brands and reaffirm their values
- Pandemic research that uses agile methods
4. Understanding how consumers are responding to COVID-19: a round-up of studies
The research community responded to C-19 in the only way we knew how: a wealth of information and insights. This one article combined the global insights from mood trackers to social media buzz to physician studies to help us understand C-19’s impact on consumers.
5. CEO of Ipsos, Didier Truchot, on how COVID-19 is impacting the company (Didier Truchot – IPSOS)
Didier Truchot summed up C-19’s challenges in two questions:
- How can we help our clients during the lockdown (even if they can’t start new projects)?
- What can we do once lockdown has ended?
The answer lies in strategy, using our tools wisely, but not pretending research and insight is the answer to everything.
6. Post-Pandemic: Scenarios for the Insights Industry after COVID-19 (Robert Moran – The Brunswick Group)
What happens to the insight industry after C-19 is the question we’re all asking. Robert Moran suggested four options:
- Back to normal – sharp economic re-bound & similar operating environment
- New normal – sharp economic re-bound & dissimilar operating environment
- Turbulence – unsteady economic re-bound & similar operating environment
- Resilience/adaptation – unsteady economic re-bound & dissimilar operating environment
7. How to maintain changed behaviours in COVID-19 (Tamara Amsons & Colin Strong – IPSOS)
New behaviours have been adopted to fight C-19’s spread. However, getting people to maintain a changed behaviour is challenging. Key to maintaining new behaviours is:
- Making new behaviours enjoyable
- Motivating people to keep to the new behaviour
- Using a new behaviour to build a positive identity
- Ritualising new behaviour
8. Five data protection issues for researchers to consider in 2020 (Robert Bond – Bristows LLP)
Research needs good data protection practices and ethics to follow the law, meet research participant’s expectations and build a trusted relationship between researcher and participant.
Issues central to this are transparency/accountability, understanding personal data’s nature, defining controllers and processors, the laws of data processing and ethics.
9. How to face the challenges of remote working in the COVID-19 era (Britta van Arman, Living Chi)
Most researchers have been working remotely full-time in 2020. This has brought challenges to productivity, wellbeing and communication. To help overcome such challenges a dedicated workspace, positive mindset and optimised communications – amongst other things – are needed.
10. The effect of cancel culture on brands (Priya Lobo – Ormax)
Cancelling involves rejecting a person/brand either on social media or in real life. Cancel culture’s original objective may have been about justice and getting accountability of what a person/brand stood for. However, this has devolved into armchair activism with a mob mentality, involving quick, harsh – even hateful judgements. Brands need to be prepared for this, listen to their consumers and determine the seriousness of their situation and above all, communicate carefully.
