In 2019, GSK started to explore the role of an AI Self Care Coach that you can interact within a retail healthcare environment. An initiative ahead of its time and the foundation for a new digital and in-store strategic direction that is more important than ever before, in our increasingly contactless world. This is a story that will take you through our experimentation journey, where we played with different research techniques to get beyond the obvious stated Purchase Intent or Engagement and into the potential of technology in the store of the future...which is today!
IKIGAI - the reason for being. How research techniques can uncover this for your business and personal brands. Join me to hear the way to apply simple research techniques to start the road to IKIGAI.
There is little consensus on what the unconscious mind is, and how to measure it. This because the unconscious is not one thing but many. By understanding the full structure of unconscious mind, and using the right tools to measure each part of it, we can fully and accurately answer our research questions. To understand consumer behaviour in full, most projects should set out to measure three key parts of the mind: System 1, System 2 and System 3.
Most people now agree that storytelling is the key to communicating market research insight and that the target is to create impact. However, there is much less agreement and material about the problem of how to find the story in the data. Some people are good at intuitively finding the story in the data, but in most cases they are unable to teach others how to imitate them, especially when teams need to work together. This presentation shows how techniques like frameworks can be used to create methods for reliably and efficiently finding the story in the data. The presentation will illustrate the problem, show the solution, and then use a case study to provide an example of the method.
For the traditional researcher, this issue of Research World may turn out to be the most heretical yet. Our contributors this month suggest that not only is our concept of research being challenged, but that it may also be a very good thing. Paradoxically, the last five years have probably seen more innovation in the world of market research than the previous 60. The concept of traditional research is being challenged by the very people who not only form our main resource and asset but also are the subject of our study: our 'respondents. In fact, people are no longer 'respondents because they have told us in no uncertain terms that they do not wish to participate in traditional surveys where the model is interrogatory questions within a framework that we lay down. Rather, they want to interact with brands and manufacturers on equal terms or, more to the point, their terms. And that means: in their environments (eg, social networks), at their convenience. For researchers, this means rethinking many of our precepts about how to intercept people.
In this issue, we unabashedly celebrate the creativity of research. This time, we are rummaging through the toolboxes of anthropology, ethnography, behavioural economics and the neurosciences and allying what we find with new technologies to produce new methodologies that are capable of providing insights that otherwise would have remained hidden. But, to prove our case, we need to define what we mean by creativity.
The world around us seems to be in meltdown. While banks collapse and the credit markets freeze up. governments are scrambling to avert a replay of the 1930s. In the centre of the storm, middle classes around the world shiver and wonder what the effect will be on them and their livelihoods. As the scenario unfolds. I would venture to suggest that research will need to be on hand as never before to understand and tell the story of how the lives of ordinary people will change. How will values and behaviour mutate in the new reality? What will this mean to the relationships that people have with brands? How will societal interaction change? In short, how can we understand this tsunami of change, react to it in real time and make sense of it? To do so, we will need to do more than just ask questions. We will need to listen to stories, understand their context, observe them, retell them and interpret them. Enter qualitative research, with all its abilities to observe, probe, interpret and immerse. Qualitative has long had the power to transport us into the world of the people we study and has had an impressive history of innovation, based on psychological and social sciences, with which to do so.
Although it has become a cliche to say so, the advent of online research has changed the face of our industry and will continue to do so for years to come. Indeed, I believe that we are only at the very beginning of the innovation cycle that online has begun to unleash. As it does so, however, there are many deep questions that need to be answered. In this issue. Bill Blyth examines some of the major questions that surround mixed mode research. We also examine how J&J is moving its marketing online for a number of important categories and brands. The question is: what role should and could research have in the process?
Much of innovation has been occasioned by the impact of the internet on our business, as we seek to come to terms not only with the power ofthe web itself but the amazing societal and generational changes that it has created. As social networking has established itself in multiple layers of society, so the potential of networks and communities is beginning to be discovered for the purposes of research, ideation and innovation with the customer. As Maria Rapp of Communispace says in this issue, its all about listening. And thats what makes it truly exciting - researchers and their clients are rediscovering the art and science of listening to people in new and challenging ways. Even more refreshingly, one of McKinseys latest benchmarking studies provides significant evidence that companies that use these and other research innovations are more likely to succeed. We should not be surprised that good, innovative research definitively leads to high market and financial performance, but it is always good to see it in black and white and to be able to share it with the world. According to McKinsey, high-performing companies adopt more innovative research techniques, embed them in the heart of the organisation and align their consumer insights functions as a whole with the strategic direction of the company and with senior management. That, in a nutshell, is what successful research is all about and what makes it such an exciting - and potentially cool -industry in which to work. We need to celebrate our innovations and our successes and evangelise them to the world, to business, to universities and to government. Over the next few months, you will see more of that in these pages and we hope you will join us in our evangelical mission!
The demarcation between what is currently regarded as qualitative or quantitative research has been blurring for some time now. So-called non-traditional methods of research are on the rise. Two apparently opposing undercurrents dominate current developments, or so it would seem. On one hand, researchers are aiming for more proximity with the consumer by closely observing actual behaviour in the home and in-store. On the other hand, there is also a tendency to move away from physical contact with the consumer and this is leading to the growing use of remote research. However, a more pragmatic attitude has slowly become more accepted in the world of research with the view that it is possible to obtain sound evidence through different methods. Furthermore, the essential feature of research is and remains the number, the N: the definition of the random sample size. An acceptable number of perceptions is a prime condition for good quality interaction and its dissemination through the interviewer - or should we call these co-workers something else? Relevance determines what is reasonable. What remains certain is that reports cannot go only in the direction of statements based on N=i or the projection of primarily the researchers prejudice. The objective is deep consumer understanding, not the expression of ones own opinion.
Research - more than any other discipline - provides objective insight into the domain-specific dynamics of business, that it reduces uncertainty, helps to solve marketing problems, and makes a contribution to improving effectiveness and performance. Or that it helps to anticipate, or even explore the near future. Greater emphasis is now being given to accountability and demonstrating the real added value of market research. We witness a stronger emphasis on the speed of work and enormous growth in online and other possibilities for collecting real-time passive data. In addition to more do-it-yourself research, a range of small-scale techniques such as observational research has become much more popular. It can even sometimes appear that these approaches and their visible outcomes are better received and more accessible than those of the more abstract classical research tools. Whatever the case may be, every definition of marketing will normally contain the concept of being centred on satisfying needs. Only by focusing on needs can individual and organisational objectives be achieved. With this as our point of departure, we question the extent to which market research satisfies the needs of marketers. Are they satisfied? What other information sources do they use? What should be different? We make an initial exploration of this subject in this issue of Research World.