Kids & Youth Insights Virtual Summit 2021

10.00 Welcome from the Chair

Josephine Hansom, Managing Director, YouthSight Research

10.10 NEW! MRS Covid guidelines for kids & youth research

MRS opens the 2021 Kids & Youth Research conference outlining its new guidelines for undertaking research with children and young people. Stay up to date with the Kids in schools Covid-19 guidance and MRS’s guide to the ICO Age Appropriate Code. Put your questions to our standards team.

Julie Corney, Standards and Compliance Officer, MRS

10.20 Nicki Karet, Managing Director, Sherbert Research
IN CONVERSATION WITH…
Sarah Burkett, Head of Children's and Learning, Audiences, BBC
Julia Bond, Commissioning Editor for 0-6 independents, CBeebies

New ways of workings

2020 has brought huge upheaval for children’s researchers. Agencies have had to adapt quickly to understand how kids and young people were reacting to their landscape that was changing almost inconceivably.

Nicki will share the agency perspective of how Sherbert moved its qualitative kids insights tracker online, navigated discussion of particularly sensitive subjects without meeting ‘in person.’ She’ll discuss the behaviours and attitudes that have been shaped as a result of these evolving circumstances and considerations for what this might mean for future research.

Sarah from the BBC will share a content perspective of the challenges and questions 2020 has created for programming in order to ensure it continues to reflect the real experiences of young people growing up in the UK today.

Julia will share the impact and challenges on editorial and production, and how commissioning and production teams have adapted to continue to deliver content to our audiences.

10.45 Children’s Media Lives: life in lockdown 

Ofcom’s Children’s Media Lives study has tracked the media and technology behaviours of a cohort of children aged 8-18 for the past six years. When life changed back in March, urgent questions emerged about how children would cope with this dramatic increase in free time, loss of structure and isolation from friends. The shift to remote-methods from in-home fieldwork raised a significant challenge, as we needed to compensate for what couldn’t be seen over Zoom. Children captured photo diaries documenting their lockdown experiences, sent screen recording of their time online, and their social media activities and ‘screen time’ statistics were captured.  

The research revealed that a few children were able to maintain a balance between schoolwork and other media activities, close contact maintained with friends via video chat and some increase in ‘family time’ around the TV.  For the vast majority however – it was TikTok, TikTok and more TikTok.  

Ruby Wootton, Associate Director, Revealing Reality  
Jessica Rees, Senior Market Research Manager, Ofcom 

11.10 Break

11.30 Gen Z unmasked: Covid-19 impact on the world of teens
To keep a finger on the pulse of Gen Z and their changing needs in COVID-19 times, The Coca-Cola Company in collaboration with InSites Consulting, explored how the COVID-19 crisis has, and will affect everyday lives of Generation Z around the world. Based on insights from talking to teens across 8 markets – combined with studying over 40 different global sources of secondary research, this case study shares the 5 key take-aways to keep in mind when addressing Gen Z in the upcoming months and years.

Joeri Van den Bergh, Co-founder & Future Consumer Expert, InSites Consulting
Begonia Fafian, K&I Director, Coca-Cola Western Europe

11.55 Diversity and Inclusion Through The Eyes of Youth

Diversity and equality matter to young people, and they prefer brands that embrace and display these values. However, for every brand getting it right there are many getting it wrong.

Discovery’s annual qualitative kids and youth tracker based on vox pops and  remote sessions is seeking to understand what young people think of today’s brands. Which brands are getting diversity right, and which are falling flat? What do brands need to do to succeed in this space? And what do brands definitely need to avoid? Hear top tips for brands on how they can engage with young people and showcase diversity without risking being cancelled.

Afra Acquah, Associate Director, Discovery
Helen Lockett, Senior Research Manager, Discovery

12.20 Break

12.40 Reshaping the narrative around youth football

Football is the most popular team sport for children under 18. However, data suggests that there is a 50% drop in participation amongst boys and girls after 13-14 years old. So The FA, with YouthSight’s help, set out to address their two business challenges – why are players dropping out and what can be done to retain them?

In this session, The FA and YouthSight will share the four-stage iterative approach used which included 70 qualitative interviews, co-creation sessions and an online survey of 1800 young players. They will discuss how each intervention idea was tested and scaled and how this led to a refresh of how the FA rationalised and communicated the benefits of football to its new generation.

Josephine Hansom, Managing Director, YouthSight Research
Ross Antrobus, Head of the Behavioural Insights & Business Analytics, The English Football Association (The FA)
Harriet Jowett, Behavioural Insight Lead, The English Football Association (The FA)

13.05 Youth advocacy for the Covid generation

Examine ClearView’s journey of developing a co-created study to get to the heart of how Covid-19 has affected 16-25 year old’s career paths, prospects and skills & knowledge frameworks. What did young people experience during the lockdown, what did they want their futures to look like and what support did they think was necessary to achieve this?

Hear how newly announced findings from the project are supporting young peoples’ advocacy efforts in ensuring their experience and expertise are central to the design of interventions and decision-making processes that will impact employment opportunities for the Covid generation.

Kenny Imafidon, Managing Director | Co-founder, Clearview Research
Niamh McGarry, Research Director, Clearview Research
Leon Mascott, Youth Co-creator
Freya Jamieson-Smith, Youth Co-creator

13.30 Break

13.50 How do you secure loyalty from Gen Z in a global pandemic?
2020 has been a year like no other. Not only are we in the midst of a global pandemic, but critical issues, including climate change and racial equality, have reached a boiling point. Through qualitative and quantitative research, Kadence International in conjunction with Tesco Mobile and Respondi have sought to understand what Gen Z wants from brands in this new world and how brands should adapt to win their loyalty.

Hayley Bunn, Customer Research & Innovation Manager, Tesco Mobile
Carolina Starkhammar, Insight Manager, Kadence International
Rob Jones, Insight Executive, Kadence International

14.15 Remote and respectful research methods with young people during a time of crisis: Understanding lived experiences of Covid-19 in low and middle income countries (LMICs)

Gathering insights from young people in a way that is respectful, robust and genuinely participatory has never been more of a challenge. The Covid-19 crisis has made face to face research impossible in LMICs, but at a time when the needs of young people are rapidly changing. The pandemic is having a dramatic and devastating impact on young people's access to basics like an income, food and education. And the effects on their mental health and wellbeing are likely to be sustained.

This panel will discuss three projects that tackled gathering data in a rapid and effective way during the first months of the crisis. Panellists will consider the success and challenges of their respective methodologies and next steps for sustained engagement with young people as the crisis deepens.

Chair: Isabel Quilter, Senior Evidence manager, TEGA, Girl Effect London
Panel:
Nicola Jones, Principal Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute
Betelihem Demise. Evidence Manager Girl Effect Ethiopia
Poorvi Mehrotra, Assistant Programme Coordinator, Restless Development India

14.50 Closing comments from the Chair

14.55 Close of conference