Research 2008: Good, Bad or Ugly?

I’m a ESOMAR regular, so I thought I’d try our home grown conference this year. And it was good, it was lively, busy with good attendance. I enjoyed the conference mainly because I caught up with old colleagues and UK clients! And I liked the workshops. The papers, hmmm, while I did not attend all of them, were good in parts.

But……… there was one paper (which will remain unnamed) which was a shameless sales pitch. I would have thought the MRS would be more careful about such a breach of rules ( ESOMAR certainly is!).

The conference started with a bit of doubt about the future and role of Market research in business and ended with an upbeat session by the new entrants of the industry.

Alan Leighton, Chairman Royal Mail Group, delivered a energetic, creative keynote giving us a boardroom perceptive on research. He drew a tenuous if entertaining link with a 1880 ‘first book of psychology’. He pointed out that research still did not have its deserved place in the board room, mainly because of complacency and perhaps arrogance in the boardroom and complexity and lack of business actionability of research results delivered. He also suggested we change the name of ‘research’ to radar – methinks no thanks, We don’t want to go the Consignia way and be consigned to the back room instead of the boardroom do we?!

As we continued to doubt the research function, Dave Philips of Research International and Verity Clifton of Glaxo Smithkline, talked about the ‘Insight Function in Flux: Where next?’ They described the increasing need for communication skills within the insight function and the need to talk us to be bi- lingual – talk the consumer and commercial language! There was a challenge that research skills could become a hygiene factor.With Return on Investment as the bottom line, researchers need to deliver Insight Excellence from their ‘knowledge directorate!’

ICG’s very own Judith Steinert’s flaunting her ( and her client Catriona Ferris’s) hidden assets in a paper entitled ‘if you’ve got it Flaunt it : How to use your hidden assets’, displayed what we independents do best – deliver vfm for our clients with our experience and creative thinking. They presented a Knorr Vie datamining case study displaying the great collaboration possibilities between Independants and Clients.

Corporate and Social Responsibility are the buzz words in business these days. A very interesting session overall, James Boulton described HSBC’s responsible marketing initiative with the success of the ‘Green Sale’.

Liz Harrison, of the Co-op was more convincing about how CSR is in the DNA of the Co-op. She described how the Co-op keeps away from ‘Green wash’ and delivers CSR strategies and tactics, which benefit society, Deliver a fit with the Co-op brand and are actionable and sustainable.

I attended two of the workshops and enjoyed them immensely. ICG’s Caroline Pakel – Dunlop, made me analyse my life in depth as well as get creative with Structured Dialogue.

Rachel Lawes, ran a colourful workshop on semiotics with confidence. We discussed the semiotics of colour and explored the use of colour in communication.

Finally, the grand finale of the conference, the Pecha Kucha ( which means chit chat in Japanese) session was upbeat with young market researchers presenting their fresh new experiences in MR in their own, inimitable youthful style!

Anumita Sharma