The 10 Answers to Contemporary Market Research Questions aims to present those key items as a set of questions and answers. While it’s not a manual of how to conduct research, it does provide nuggets of information that will enable new (and sometimes older) researchers to orientate themselves, and avoid walking into too many of the traps that the changing world of market research can create.

The book has been created through the voluntary and collaborative efforts of a team of people brought together by ESOMAR. Amongst others our very own Anouk Willems, Senior Innovation Manager at InSites Consulting was one of the contributing authors supporting the key project team: Finn Raben (ESOMAR), Sue York (NewMR) and Ray Poynter (Vision Critical).

Interested? Check the ESOMAR website for more information or download a free taste chapter.

Premiumisation

A first way to make consumers the next superstars in design is by placing them in the centre of attention. ‘Premiumisation’ is an ambiguous (and difficult to pronounce) trend, not only does it define trading up your products to a more premium proposition, it is also crossing a bridge to make the luxury world accessible to more customers. Dee Cooper, former Product and Services Director at Virgin Atlantic, talked about how the attention for detail in the customer journey of their Business Class passengers influenced the experience of all Virgin Atlantic customers. They went beyond their ‘hero’ product – the seat in the airplane – and storytelling to enrich this experience by challenging the norm. One way to do this is by recognising the power of conversations and delivering unexpected (and conversational) distractions such as waiter service, spas and jacuzzis in the lounge.

Structural collaboration

The former trend makes the consumer feel like a superstar. But the user can also become a superstar by participating actively in the design process. This in particular was the topic of my presentation in the ‘Product service ecosystems’ session. On the one hand users are already participating spontaneously in design initiatives, they talk about problems they encounter, come up with solutions, build them and share their creations with the rest of the world. On the other hand, innovation challenges are becoming increasingly complex. Even when taking inspiration from observations or coming up with ideas together with users, there are still a lot of variables to get right along the way.

With the focus on a holistic user experience, product design goes beyond product attributes and features. In addition to evolving from product- to service-thinking, the ‘experience environment’ broadens the ecosystem and makes other users part of the value proposition. When I was reading a book on my iPad Kindle app and wanted to highlight an important passage, I was quite surprised to see popular highlights by others. The activities of other readers are thus creating additional value for me. As an increasing number of stakeholders is taking part in such systems, there’s a need for intensive and efficient collaborations. Users are becoming more and more design-savvy; it’s time to not only involve them in one phase of the process, but to set up a more structural collaboration. Please check my presentation below and get in touch with questions or feedback.

Additive manufacturing

The democratisation of innovation is stimulated by technology. Internet and social media allow people to connect with like-minded people and to build on each other’s ideas and creations. The act of participating in innovation activities is even creating additional value for consumers. When people construct products themselves, such as IKEA furniture, they tend to overvalue their own creation, a phenomenon known as ‘the IKEA effect’. Technology like additive manufacturing or 3D printing is also facilitating this effect. Stijn De Rijck, Marketing Manager at Materialise, was proud to showcase his very own iPhone cover with a pattern he designed himself, without CAD skills, via an intuitive online tool. Assa Studio & Digital Forming is a pioneer in this type of manufacturing and Assa highlighted this technology is revolutionising the design world. The designer of the future will not have full control over the end result anymore as users will have the freedom to customise their products within a pre-defined (and pre-designed) framework. Although this is very much focused on durables, we can already dream about how this will shape the expectations in the world of FMCG or CPG.

Find out more about the ESOMAR 3D event online or take a look at our upcoming event & speech calendar for more opportunities to meet us.

We will show you how to interact and connect with all health stakeholders. By means of different case studies, such as Nutricia,UCB and Merck Serono, we will explain how we try to connect and engage with these stakeholders, with the help of Consumer Consulting Boards, Facebook and other channels.

The full programme is available on our Smartees website. This is also where you can register if you’re interested in joining this seminar. We hope to see you there!

Anouk presented a Heinz community case together with Joella Marsman (Marketing Research Analyst at H.J. Heinz), with a specific focus on how to grow the value of a long-term community within an organization. The full article can be read here. And as we speak, Anouk has already arrived in Bankok for her presentation at Insights Valley Asia-Pacific tomorrow, on collaborating with consumers in Asia: opportunities and challenges of MROCs in the Asian Market. Want to stay up to date? Then follow @AnoukW1 and find out all about her journey over there or just watch her presentation below!

All these questions will be answered during 4 different Smartees sessions. So wherever you are, you will be able to join one of our ‘Connecting with consumers around the world’ Smartees: the Seminar in Rotterdam (June 4), the Seminar in Ghent (June 6), the Breakfast in London (June 18) or the online Webinar (June 27).

In all sessions, Tom will show you how Consumer Consulting Boards can help brands run international projects easier and more cost-efficiently and how longitudinal consumer connection unveils insights you had not discovered yet before. Case studies from universal brands such as IKEA will illustrate how our approach allows international teams to have the global helicopter view, while local teams gain local knowledge to make the brand and its offering relevant and truly successful in local markets.

The full programme for each of these sessions is available on our Smartees website. You will go home not only with a lot of new and useful insights, but also with a brand new copy of The Consumer Consulting Board book! Interested in joining one of these sessions? Then register online!

We kicked off with a small who’s who and the most urgent question they had regarding research communities. Most of these questions related to recruitment and engagement, where people wanted to understand “how to find those very specific profiles”, “how to engage people with non-sexy topics and themes such as financial questions” or “how to apply research communities for other business objectives than innovation”. In addition to explaining research communities and the InSites Consulting approach, Tom also showed how we leverage the research internally as well, creating maximum impact and helping market researchers to drive their ROI up.

Before going for a break, I presented one of our inspiring cases which I had been so lucky to work on. Through the Heineken Open Design Exploration case. I showed how research communities brought together hip young people from around the world to help Heineken conquer the nightlife. In addition, this case illustrates how research communities can also serve as an inspirational platform for both internal and external stakeholders.
After a break and some coffee and snacks where some final pending questions were discussed, we headed back to turn theory into practice. We split up in small groups with a similar industry focus to apply the learnings from the first half of the workshop to an actual business objective. Using our market research skills, we developed research objectives and questions and a research community to answer these questions. At the end of the brainstorms in group, the different teams presented their case to the other groups, leading to some very interesting business questions (how to increase loyalty within pub patrons whilst making them eat more pastry and having them consume more (responsibly)).

At the end of the afternoon, Tom had answered the different business objectives and we were ready to continue the conversation over a nice drink with some appetizers. It was a great day and not just temperature-wise… We had had an interactive afternoon, where we all learned from each other and learned how to turn a research community into a success for your business objective. We thank our clients for attending and for thinking along with us! It was a great workshop and we’re already looking forward to the next one!

Connecting through the digital sense

Virtual products such as websites, mobile applications and software are being developed at lightning speed. Although it’s a challenge for these services to relate to all senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch – and the experience is also depending on ‘external’ factors such as the device and context of usage, a large number of digital products succeed in creating an emotional link with their users. Our Social Media Around The World 2012 study reveals that smartphone users install 22 apps on average on their device, 9 of which are used at least weekly; the most popular ones are social network applications. People switch seamlessly between online and offline as they access their content and connections through the digital sense.

Although they are not waiting for the next social network, unique ways of connecting with people – like Instagram – can still be successful. A great example of a new application that relates to consumers through the digital sense is Couple. It is emphasizing the emotional connection you have with your partner by creating a timeline just for two, where you can post video messages and photos that no one else will see. It gets truly sensorial with the ThumbKiss – a feature which shows you where your partner is touching their screen so you can touch the same spot on yours, making both phones vibrate simultaneously.

Connecting with the digital sense

The next challenge for virtual products is to create an emotional connection from within the product, beyond the content and connections it can provide. Luckily (and surprisingly) people are actively looking for connections with the products around them. This became clear in the presentation by Jan De Koster from Slightly Overdone at Idealabs. It only took eyes and eyebrows to give his Yummy machine a character of its own; his children even perceive it as part of the family! Although this is not a quest for placing eyes on applications and Internet services, connecting with the digital sense might be the key for users to adopt your service. Major players are already heading in this direction. Apple’s Siri is improving its dialogue interaction and Evernote is showing a smart side by automatically taking over the subject of the meeting in your calendar when you start a new note during that meeting.

Google Now is even taking it a step further; the personal assistant by Google doesn’t only answer user-initiated questions. Answers are served without a user needing to enter a query, based on search habits. Although these developments are exciting, they can also freak out their users. In the world of Yummy and other robotics, this principle is known as the ‘uncanny valley’. The more services connect with the digital sense, the higher the emotional response of the user will become, resulting in a loyal relationship. When this exceeds what users can process and understand, it creates a feeling of discomfort, failing to relate to the user. A thorough understanding of people’s needs and expectations is required to avoid this.

Understanding through the digital sense

As there is more to digital media than meets the eye, gaining a holistic view on the usage, experience and context becomes more and more important. This was also one of the challenges Vodafone was facing in the development of 10 new Commercial Services in 2012. To understand the relevance, performance and customer journey from discovery to adoption, we tapped into the digital sense by setting up a global user trial program or Consumer Consulting Board in 6 key markets. Connecting with users through  both the online community and the mobile community application provided us with a longitudinal understanding of the experience and allowed the Vodafone smartphone apps to meet and surpass customer expectations; connecting with users through and with their digital sense.

Services like Cloud, Contacts and joyn were developed to connect the target group of first-time smartphone users with their contacts and content through the digital sense. Guardian helps families teach their children how to responsibly use their mobile and the Internet. Just like a drivers permit, it gradually teaches children about responsibilities and permissions as they level up with the digital sense. In addition to providing contextual understanding and guiding the further development and go-to-market of the services, the robust approach of the Consumer Consulting Board also ensured the internal teams at Vodafone acted on the results.

Our presentation can be accessed via the link below; don’t hesitate to get in touch and share your thoughts and ideas on the sixth sense.

We want to develop strong relationships with our moderators, have them connect and share experiences with each other, and shape the future of qualitative online research together. Therefore, we have created a platform for connecting and collaborating with all members of our Global Community Moderator Network, the Moderator Square.

To give you a quick overview, this is what this Moderator Square is all about:

• The Blog keeps our moderators posted on the new things we are working on, on tips & tricks they can use during the projects they are working on, on upcoming changes or trainings, in short: being up-to-speed at all times.
• The Discussions corner is where we ask for their opinion and learn from them.
• In Let’s co-create, we will discuss topics such as the impact of cultural differences on running online research communities. We are not limiting ourselves to moderation only, but also trigger a deep dive into recruitment, processes, timings, incentives etc. This co-creation community allows us to tap into the rich experience of moderators all over the world, making our research locally relevant.
• In Your ideas, moderators can share their ideas with us, and have your colleagues vote on them. Again, those ideas can go from small operational things to big cross-border thinking!
• The Social Corner allows everyone to connect with InSites Consulting and of course with their fellow moderators.
• The E-learning corner gives them access to a whole range of e-trainings, including testing and homework, which will allow moderators to get and stay on top of all new methods, processes and tools, and learn it at their own convenience and pace.
• Finally, a number of practical pages will help them in keeping an overview of their projects, finding the right links, tools and people to manage their projects in an efficient way.

The Moderator Square will allow us to learn from each other, not only during projects, but also in-between projects. It will allow us to build a continuous relationship with our moderators, and enable us to co-create the future of market research.

Similar to our core belief that consumers can act as the best consultants for companies, we believe that our moderators can help us improve our thinking and processes in an impactful and continuous way. The Moderator Square allows us to transcend time and space, discussing and collaborating with moderators all over the globe, jointly bringing community research and online qualitative research to a higher level. We are very excited about this new step in the development of our relationships with moderators and will keep you posted on the learnings we will build through this unique community of moderators!

The Moderator Square is a closed platform for members of the InSites Consulting Global Community Moderator Network only.

Several speakers shared their thoughts on these topics on April 19th at the 2013 SM@RT (Starting Marketing and Research Talents) congress in Amsterdam. Following last year’s successful congress, this year’s event was organised around a very relevant theme: ‘Lean and mean: doing more with less’. In other words: market research in times of crisis.

‘Long term crisis mindset’

Thimon de Jong (TrendsActive) started the day with several interesting insights into what is currently going on in the (digital) world of consumers and researchers. In an excellent presentation, De Jong argued that after more than five years of ‘crisis’, the consumer has adopted a ‘long-term crisis mindset’. With 2012 as the starting year for this shift in perception, there is a growing awareness that the crisis might last much longer than previously thought and that it might actually be or become the new reality. A new status quo, as De Jong calls it, where “uncertainty is permanent”.

Luckily, the speakers did not only share their thoughts on the sombre current situation. They also offered refreshing takes on the crisis by bringing to the footlight potential paths which might lead to innovation within market research and ultimately to a brighter future.

Lean, mean & optimization

Focusing on lean and mean, Joëlla Marsman (H.J. Heinz) and Anouk Willems (InSites Consulting) co-presented the long running ‘Food&Zo’ Consumer Consulting Board (on-going community). With about 150 consumer participants, this community has been running since 2008. Since then, it has generated thousands and thousands of posts and virtually endless feedback on specific themes as well as concrete and immediate feedback on new products and concepts. In 45 minutes, Joëlla and Anouk showed that by investing at the beginning of the community and consequently staying closely involved with the community as a client, an on-going community is a great and quick method to get the consumer feedback marketers are looking for.

In the afternoon, Jeroen van Schreven (UNC Plus Delta) gave an introduction to Lean Six Sigma, a method to permanently optimize company processes. Focusing mostly on the ‘mean’ part of ‘lean & mean’, Lean Six Sigma can be used to increase the efficiency of company processes, although, admittedly, the implementation of this method on marketing research agencies is yet to be seen.

Creativity & innovation

To challenge the current status quo and get out of the crisis, Maarten Boer of small creative marketing agency BUUTVRIJ for life called for a creative, fresh and cheeky approach. In an enthusiastic and well-received presentation, Boer showed that courage to take unconventional paths might be one of the solutions. Boer and his small team worked entirely for free for 40 days, completing over thirty client projects, not just to expand their portfolio, but also to show that trust and creativity are needed to get us out of this crisis. As Boer said, one of the goals was ‘exchanging fear for trust’ (and, he added in Dutch, ‘met gestrekt been de crisis de nek omdraaien’ – this could be translated as: kill the crisis without lenience).

Creativity and innovation as drivers of positive change were also mentioned earlier in the day by Thimon de Jong, as the ‘long-term crisis mindset’ might actually prove to be fertile ground for new ideas, products and services to flourish. Examples are the growing P2P (peer to peer) business, such as the digital Bitcoins and consumers renting out their homes and cars to other consumers online. Auto-customization is another interesting and promising innovation, allowing marketers to specifically target consumers by offering tailor-made content to website users. In other words, expect increasingly more online initiatives, some of which might contribute to steering us out of the crisis. This raises a question which remained unanswered at the congress: What can we, the market research industry, learn from these developments and what can we do with them?

Towards a bright(er) future?

New reality or not, for now the crisis continues. As an industry, not only have we already adapted to this new situation, we also continue doing so. Lean and mean if necessary, but hopefully also by being creative and innovative.