An Experiment in Crowd-Sourcing
“What’s changing in the world of market research?” – that was the question I posted on LinkedIn late February 2019, inviting folk from the world of MR to contribute about 80 – 100 words to a crowd-sourced piece for publication on ESOMAR online in March. I had envisaged 10 short viewpoints, with a total word count of around 1000 words, on a first-come first-published basis.
An experiment. Did it work?
I received five great contributions, so read on first – I’ll follow on with my take-outs.
GEOFF PAINTER
Asia Pacific Insights Lead, PepsiCo
“The pace and magnitude of change within company-based Insights teams is unprecedented.
Accelerating top-line growth is the mission for all large scale FMCG companies who are only just emerging from a challenging period of zero-based budgeting and real cuts on demand-driving spend. The legacy of this era will continue to be a much greater scrutiny on investment choices that in turn challenges Insights teams to step up and “do more” to directly influence business outcomes.
Digitalization and Automation are shifting the effort and investment away from routinised Insights activities with the benefit of freeing up talent and time to really address the opportunities for enhancing consumer growth. The most impactful Insights teams are also taking the time to enhance their business influencing skills by really understanding the commercial side of their organizations with the aim of becoming “indispensable partners” for key growth decisions. It’s a challenging world of change for sure, but also an exciting opportunity for Insights professionals to enhance the impact of their work and to help shape the businesses of the future.”
STAN KNOOPS
Global Director Consumer Insight, IFF
“In today’s multi-source, imperfect information world, it is important for our market researchers to supplement their technical research skills with the ability on how the output should be interpreted. To generate actionable insights about consumers’ real motivations and frustrations, and to turn those insights into sensorial experiences that transform the everyday.
This requires us to rely more on ‘observations’, ‘contextual interactions’ , ‘ gut-feel’ and ‘a bias for action’.
This is getting more important to make sense of the market and consumers and it empowers and encourages us to experiment and innovate faster to really delight consumers.”
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REBECCA HARRISON
Head of Qualitative, Relish Research
“There is no one word that accurately defines what we have become as an agency, nor did we want to write a litany, so we have crafted our own: Adaptagenuity. In a fast-paced world that is forever pushing boundaries of what is possible and desirable in terms of cost, time, AI and human approaches etc, we are forever having to adapt our style, our offer, our skill-set and the impact and inspiration we can bring to businesses to help them thrive in an equally rapidly-changing landscape of their own. This takes nimble adaptation but also ingenuity and bravery without losing a sense of self. A bit like evolution at the speed of light but with purpose and human brains and heart at its core!”
SHIFRA COOK
Founder, Particity*
“As a MR tech business, the main changes are around how we continue to work most effectively and efficiently. The solution to which is made possible by a combination of technology and trust.
For example, we work flexibly and remotely. But we couldn’t do this without a strong foundation of trust nor without a comprehensive suite of tools for document-sharing, project management, online meetings and general office chat. This way of working gives us a greater focus on outcomes over hours, with increased productivity as a by-product. Plus, it means we can more readily work with the most appropriate and skilled talent, which isn’t always on our doorstep.
To work most effectively and efficiently we are also automating many administrative tasks across the business, spanning finance, sales and marketing. All of which enables us to use our valuable time for the work that’s going to make the most difference.”
*Particity is a SaaS platform that provides fast, easy and secure ways to manage and pay participants in research. https://www.particity.co.uk/
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CHRISTINE DIANI and JIM GOLDENBERG
Market Research Principals – KMK Consulting Inc.
“As a market research consulting firm in the healthcare and pharmaceutical space, we see an uptick with our clients for broader and more holistic program designs, including greater emphasis on the entire journey that incorporates multi-phase research. This focused approach often utilizes qualitative research for rich, deep insights to support robust quantitative designs. Research is strategically focused and considers all touch points of the journey and stakeholders. While some clients are bringing more of their research in-house, we provide industry expertise, unbiased research, consultation and insights, along with other integrated solutions to drive business revenue and success domestically and globally.”
http://www.kmkconsultinginc.comh
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That’s it with the content. Hope you found it valuable.
So back to the question: did the co-creation experiment work? Yes and no….
Positives first. From a content point of view, submissions needed little or no editing, and were from a mix of client-side and agency folk across the globe.
On the downside, I received fewer contributions (5) than I had hoped for (10). I’m not sure why – the call for papers was viewed almost 1.800 times, received 19 likes, so it enjoyed reasonable visibility by humble MR standards.
Maybe it’s the timeframe – kept deliberately short. But how long does it take to write 100 words? Maybe there are other barriers – let me know why you didn’t make a contribution.
Content-wise, here are my key take-outs:
- On the client side, there is ongoing pressure to ensure MR is more tightly connected to business decision making – both Geoff Painter and Stan Knoops make the “bias to action” point very clearly.
- Imperfect MR knowledge is OK. Even when ambiguities exist or some questions remain not fully answered, MR needs to shift to persuasion and impact mode. This is admittedly difficult for MR suppliers to relate to – if they deliver an “imperfect report”, it is potentially open to criticism, particularly if not framed well.
- MR suppliers are being asked to perform remarkable, Houdini-like contortions to respond successfully to the scarily changing world that their clients live (and perish) in – Rebecca Harrison describes this state as “adaptagenuity”.
- DIY is happening in MR – but there is a space for MR consultative approaches, notably with category expertise, as witnessed by pharma/healthcare specialist MR agency KMK Consulting’s piece.
- Automation and tech are changing our world in terms of what’s possible in working practices – but trust is key to making it work, as Shifra Cook points out. A deep-dive would be needed here IMHO.
- Finally, MR is a very diverse, global space – there are likely many, many players and people across the globe that many of us don’t know, quite a few of whom may be newcomers, likely with a specialist focus. This has quite profound implications for how we present ourselves as an industry.
That’s my topline. Some of it was admittedly confirmatory, but at least one of the contributions I found genuinely surprising, insightful even – reason enough to have gone through the exercise!
Big thanks to all who contributed – let’s hope it starts a conversation rolling.
1 comment
What’s changing is that the marketing research industry is noticing that are a lot of peripheral companies taking on more and more of the work we’ve not been doing. If you needed someone to turn data intro strategy, more companies are doing that. If you need someone to collect biometric data, more companies are doing that. We’re finally realizing that our traditional companies no longer ‘own’ or ‘deserve’ this work when other companies are doing it better than we are. We’re finally waking up that to get a seat at the proverbial table, we need move beyond the data to provide genuine value that goes beyond the presentation of pretty reports.