Conversations with corporate researchers

Jessica Irwin

Director, CMI Consumer Group, Verizon 


Do you have any tips for researchers who are struggling to adapt to the constant change within the marketing research industry?  

I believe it is really important to continue to learn new skills and be open to new and different ways of doing research. That requires us to be humble and admit that we may not always know everything about everything. It takes a lot of confidence to admit you don’t know something but that is what helps you continue to grow as a researcher and a leader. We also have to hire people with different skill sets from our own and be able to work with different types of researchers with mutual respect for each other’s specialties.  

What is the most important skill to look for in a new MR hire?   

Resourcefulness. It is so important to be able to do things proactively and be able to figure things out independently. And, of course, a great aptitude for uncovering the why as well as how facts and findings and hypotheses come together. 

When looking ahead to the next five years, what do you think will be marketing research’s biggest challenge?   

I think it is going to be understanding, accepting and evolving the industry to be inclusive of all kinds of insights – whether it’s traditional market research, big data or design research – it all plays a role in understanding the customer and the business. We as researchers have to embrace it all and find a way to work across the different types of data and the different mind-sets. 

What new tool, methodology or technology do you hope to use in 2020? 

I’m so excited for 2020 – we are building a lot of new capabilities at Verizon. Some other parts of the team are building out a bigger, better futurist specialty and new tracking methodologies. But my team is building on top of our digital store experience to include eye-tracking. In addition, we are expanding our in-house toolkit, so we are leveraging some of the new DIY offerings. And, we are doing research-on-research through our user testing team to leverage neuroscience. Â