Shocking statements, standing up and shedding spectacles in Salford
10 October 2019

Julie Vincent CMRS, Insight Director of TSR Insight, reviews the Best of Impact 2019 conference.

On 19 September 2019, TSR Insight and the MRS hosted our fourth annual event for higher education market research managers at the Lowry in Salford.

We have a great talk and then a lovely lunch before moving on to the MRS Best of Impact in the afternoon.

Higher education market researchers event

This year we welcomed Mike Bond, from Bond & Coyne, who gave a fantastic presentation about applying creative thinking to market research, insight generation, and how research is communicated to our clients.

The feedback from attendees was that this was a really exciting session! And not something they tend to see at other market research events. So, a big thankyou from all of us. Some key insights from the session included…

• Play to your audience – Mike showed us an amazing mini report they created for The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) which was designed to cut through the noise at the UN General Assembly. In the form of a wheel, this was a tangible interpretation of the research findings. While the reader was absorbing the insights in the room, the flip side of it had wheel linking all the pages together and forming a memorable visual impression in the minds of attendees.
• Engagement fatigue? Go offline – Mike showed us the badges they created for Movember, allowing people to easily donate by placing their smartphone near the badge, and avoiding the barriers associated with asking for, and giving, sponsorship. People tend to be overwhelmed with social and email communication, by a wide range of very deserving causes. Something offline is now novel, and often therefore more engaging as part of an integrated strategy. Mike showed us examples of where tech + offline sparked amazing engagement.
• Lose your tinted spectacles – The lens through which we look at research findings can sometimes skew or even flatten the exciting insights we achieve through interpretation, so we learned how challenging that and looking at things in different ways can provide surprising results. Exploding the tiger will stay with me, but hard to sum up in a sentence! It was about allowing thoughts to wander around key elements of problems and ideas and just seeing where it goes. Also, becoming a tourist at work was a great thought, what if you were the customer and you just popped in? We also had a long and therapeutic discussion about university prospectuses…

Sam Uzzell, Head of Market Insight and Data from the University of Surrey, who presented last year, and Mike are tough acts to follow for next year, but we have our thinking caps on already! Thanks to everyone who joined us.

The Best of Impact

Then it was on to the main event, an excellent mix of different types of projects, but with some common themes - including how great research requires all stakeholders to be ‘in the room’ throughout the project.

Popshop – Always on client

Matt Baker, BAMM

The challenge of researching categories like sparkling drinks, which are overwhelmed by new market entrants, was met by creating a pop up shop in the Boxpark street food venue in Croydon for a whole year.

This meant that products could be tested on the audience passing through, and global representatives from the client were able to actually take part in the research process, hearing feedback from their customers at the point of experience.

The approach was described as method agnostic, and the focus being not on the limitations of the approach, but the benefits; notably, the researchers had to behave like retailers. If you have to put yourself in the shoes of those who are selling it, as well as those who are buying it, the insights were so much richer.

Chicken Welfare: Making It Personal

Matt Allen, Folk Research and Antony Antoni, World Animal Protection

The most shocking statement in this session was that the most space a battery chicken ever has is when it’s in your oven. Sometimes an insight stays with you and this was one of those cases. It brings the experience of the animals you eat into your own home.

The target audience for this research was meat eaters globally, and understanding cultural conventions and cross cultural similarities, in order to devise a campaign to raise awareness and concern for animal welfare.

By using a wide range of techniques, they discovered that motivating factors for improving animal welfare tended to come from the personal rather than the political.

Revulsion about what they would be eating and the food chain resonated with people regardless of geographical location or cultural background. The approach included separating the issues directly from the animals and thinking about what respondents would associate with broiler chickens; was it a beautiful woodland and landscape, or was it tangled and uninviting?

Petitions were created and a hashtag, #ChangeForChickens. Brand awareness was measured and increased globally, and the message - all living things deserve a good quality of life.

Unlocking Potential: How Insight Powered F1’s Growth

Greg Morris, Formula One

James Burnett, Flamingo

Greg did a superb job of being both Greg and James, as sadly James wasn’t able to make it.

Leading the newly created insight function, introduced in 2017, the goal for Formula One was to understand its current audience and how it engaged with the brand, and how to extend this to new audiences. Also, importantly, make every race a ‘Superbowl moment’. In order to achieve this it was essential to understand what was currently on their mind, so that it was possible for Forumla 1 to effectively fight for a share of mind.

An interesting insight was around the three areas associated with the brand; cosmology, spectacle and aristocracy. The final area, aristocracy, for some was aspirational, but for the US market was a barrier. The US sports culture centres around supporting the underdogs, the example given was of lower ranking NFL teams getting the first pick of new players. Also, the approach which hides the cars behind screens created a barrier to engagement, with people feeling excluded.

Implementation of insight included fan festivals in cities, focusing on attracting both men and women to come and look at the cars and engage with the wider spectacle of the brand through hospitality, music and a strong customer experience. The results have been impressive, increasing engagement with the brand on social and attendance at races.

Joining the dots…

And finally, interestingly, a clear theme from both our higher education event and the Best of MRS in the afternoon was about the effective communication of research insight.

The days of the standard PowerPoint aren’t dead, it was more that the direct connections between the target audience, the client and the agency need to be much closer, more empathetic, and ultimately authentic. And, in times of constrained budgets, the final deliverables for the client need to work much harder to be engaging and enable and facilitate decision making and action.

Join the Dots l Insites Consulting changed the pace of ‘graveyard’ shift at the end of the day by getting us all think about how we deliver insights. We weren’t allowed to sit down straight away! And the engagement with us was experiential rather than didactic. In a very hands-on session we experienced one of Manchester’s newest night spots, become historians making vital decisions on museum artefacts, and explored the hair care challenges of women around the world, for the latter ideally wearing an apron.

They gave us a great handout from their Culture & Trends team about immersive approaches to debrief workshops, focusing on the senses; sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. And had fabulous ‘Save’ or ‘Splurge’ options!

Here’s to next year and another great MRS Event and more inspiring sessions to get us thinking.