Q&A with a client-side researcher
Editor's note: If you're an end-client researcher and interested in participating in a Q&A with Quirk's, please e-mail me at emilyk@quirks.com.
What led you to a career in research and insights?
It was my junior year in college, and I was taking my first marketing course. The professor enlisted us to assist in an in-person project interviewing customers at a local swap meet. It was then that I realized I had a curious nature and enjoyed asking questions. This followed with learning to program in SPSS, how to design questionnaires and how to analyze and report on the data.
Do you have any tips for researchers looking to better understand and engage with Gen Z consumers?
A lesson that I first learned in college applies to researching the Gen Z audience – keep it simple and keep it fun. This applies to all aspects of the research process. It is also important to ground yourself in this generation’s nuances. There have been plenty of studies documenting how they like to consume media, shop and ultimately buy the products they are interested in.
If you are just entering the Gen Z space, you might consider partnering with an agency – we’ve used Knit – that specializes in this audience. I worked with Knit to get an assessment of Gen Z’s thoughts on chocolate milk as a post-workout recovery beverage. They will tell you to keep your surveys short and to the point – not bad advice for any audience. Given this generation’s use of technology, you may also want to incorporate video responses in your survey.
How do you see yourself leveraging AI in the next six months?
I have read and watched too much science fiction to not be somewhat skeptical about AI. With that said, I have used it here and there to help provide foundational knowledge on topics I am researching, such as dietary changes among GLP-1 users. Going forward, I will use AI as a pre-survey design tool to help me focus my thoughts, as well as a theme extraction tool for unstructured data. As with any innovation, you still need human eyes on the output to make sure it aligns with expectations.