Here’s a quick recap of some of the highlights from a busy first day of the ARF’s Re:think event!
• “Traditional” methods appear to have some surprising resilience, according to data presented by SSI’s Kristin Cavallaro and Jay Meyers. In a research-on-research study, SSI asked consumers how they wanted to be surveyed and 55 percent preferred online; 18 percent chose phone; 16 percent said mail surveys; 6 percent said mobile and 5 percent said in-person. While acknowledging that mobile certainly is growing and will become more acceptable to respondents, they noted that the industry’s level of excitement about it appears to be out of synch with that of consumers.
• In a talk on the use of social media for marketing, J. Walker Smith, executive chairman of The Futures Company, said that brands and companies have it all wrong. Their job is not to use social media and other tools to engage with consumers. Rather, they should employ social media to foster and facilitate the relationships that people have with each other. Under what he called the kinship economy, brands should give consumers social currency (in the form of information) that they can use to interact and share with other consumers. He cited as an example a Lowe’s Facebook app that helped consumers trade tips with each other, not the brand.
• At a morning session called “Embracing Change Before Change ‘Embraces’ You,” panelists offered some advice for how to survive in our rapidly-changing industry.
In terms of having the right mind-set to stay ahead of the pack, Kathy McGettrick, vice president of market development, sales and distribution, IBM, talked about viewing the research process as requiring what she called a new trinity, made up of primary research, analytics and a social media component. To capitalize on big data, every researcher doesn’t need to become an analytics expert, as long as you can find the analytics guru in your organization and make friends with them. She also said one of her demands of her research team is for “no more naked research” – that is, all research studies must have, or be able to be tied to, a solid and defined business context. “Nice-to-know” isn’t an option anymore.
Nielsen’s EVP and CRO Paul Donato said that research today requires a range of new skill sets but that one of the ways for MR to have its place is to serve as a kind of general contractor who can bring together all the disparate parts into a useful and cohesive whole.
The Wharton School’s Jerry Wind echoed that idea, saying that researchers have two options: become a specialist in one area or become an integrator and bring them together.
McGettrick offered another hopeful and helpful way to view the researcher’s role when she likened it to alchemy, playing off the idea of researchers as insights alchemists who can take the raw materials of various types of data and bring them together to create a precious metal: the useful insight. But the insight itself isn’t enough, she hastened to add. Along with saying “Here is what we learned” researchers must also say “Here is what we should do.”