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Market and consumer research surveys have a reputation of being boring. Obviously, that’s not a tradition any of us want to maintain because of the negative impact it has on completion rates, data quality, and costs.

 

Fortunately, we have solutions!

 

In this month’s issue of Quirk’s magazine, Annie Pettit, our Chief Research Officer, shares our perspective on how anyone can create more playful questionnaires that people will actually want to answer. You can read our article on the Quirk’s website here or check out the entire Jan/Feb 2023 issue on BlueToad here.

 

And if you’re really passionate about creating a better research experience, join Annie for an Esomar workshop where you’ll get hands on instruction and practice creating kinder, more respectful, and more playful questionnaires. Whether you’re a junior or senior agency or corporate researcher working in healthcare or mobile gaming, you’ll leave the workshop with practical knowledge you can start implementing immediately! Learn more about the Esomar workshop and register here.

 

Enjoy!

Researchers want people to feel comfortable when they’re answering questions so they will share complete and honest answers about their public and private lives. This can be difficult because you first need to create a research environment that shows them they are trusted and respected.

 

If this resonates for you, then please join our Chief Research Officer, Annie Pettit, for a 3-day (2 hours per day) questionnaire design workshop hosted by Esomar on February 21, 22, 23, at 13:00 UTC.

 

In this highly interactive masterclass, you will learn about the psychology of answering questions and how to apply that knowledge in a practical way to questionnaire design. You will learn to create questions that make people feel valued and respected, that accommodate normal human behaviours no matter how strange those behaviours may seem to you, and that make people look forward to participating in the next research project.

 

Registration is now open on the Esomar website!

 

 

What will you learn?

 

After completing this training, you should be able to:

• Understand how human psychology interacts with the questionnaire experience and how to write questions that accommodate normal behaviours
• Write questions that are kind and respectful towards people who are marginalised, and people who are embarrassed to share personal aspects of their lives
• Write questionnaires that people want to answer this time and the next
• Write questions that are fun and playful

 

By the end of the workshop, you will have built a set of resources that can be leveraged in a range of future questionnaires.

 

 

Programme at a glance

 

Session 1: Understanding human nature

• How does human psychology impact how people interpret and respond to questionnaires
• What are some basic rules for creating respectful questionnaires
• What mindset do we need to take when building questionnaires

 

Session 2: Making tough topics more comfortable

• Creating compassionate screener questions
• Writing respectful data quality questions
• Asking about embarrassing or private issues
• Eliciting truth when it comes to unethical and illegal behaviours

 

Session 3: Creating a playful experience for everyone

• How to write playful questions that excite and make people think
• Incorporating play into serious topics

 

Please click here to register on the Esomar website.

 

 

About Annie Pettit

Annie Pettit is Chief Research Officer, North America, at E2E Research, an ISO 27001 certified, ESOMAR corporate member company that offers market research, data analytics, and business intelligence solutions to help research leaders understand their buyers, brands, and businesses. Annie is a research methodologist who specializes in research design and analysis, data quality, and innovative methods. She holds a PhD in experimental psychology from York University in Canada, is a Certified Analytics and Insights Professional (CAIP), and is a Fellow of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC). Annie is also Chair of the Canadian ISO Standards Committee (ISO 20252), and the author of “People Aren’t Robots: A practical guide to the psychology and technique of questionnaire design.”

Hi and welcome!

 

On Tuesday, September 20th, Rupa Raje and Annie Pettit ran a session at Esomar congress on designing more playful questionnaires. In preparation for that presentation, researchers were invited to complete a very short questionnaire incorporating a range of innovative question designs.

 

That questionnaire is now closed but you can read some of the results in our article on Esomar’s Research World. Enjoy!

So you’re coming to Toronto! I hope you’re planning to come for a few extra days because there’s lots to do while you’re here! And there’s something for little kids, teens, parents, and grandparents. Come one, come all!

 

The time to travel from the Sheraton to the attraction is listed with each event. Toronto is a huge city with lots of traffic so we’re used to “close” attractions being an hour away. Take advantage of the TTC, our transit system, if you can.

 

If you have any questions about any Toronto attractions, please email me or message me on Linkedin. I’d be happy to help make sure you have a great time in my home town!

 

 

First, I will be personally leading four tours!

 

Coming to Esomar congress alone? Want to hang out with other Esomar delegates? Would rather not get lost? Then these tours are perfect for you! If you’re interested in attending any of these four tours, please enter your name and email address in the following google docs form.  If you have any trouble with it, let me know and I’ll add your name for you. I’ll connect with all the attendees close to the date to confirm details.

 

Walking Tour of Bakeries and Local Sights: This tour will run Saturday, September 17 leaving the conference center at 10:30am. We’ll walk about 6 km visiting at least 9 bakeries (including 3 of my favourites) and seeing lots of interesting sights. As long as we’re walking, any baked goods you buy have zero calories. It will take 3 to 4 hours depending on how much bakery buying you do and how fast folks walk. I’m even happy to spend the rest of the day showing folks around. If it’s poor weather, instead I will help people get to a museum of their choice. Sign up here.

What’s on the agenda?

• Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Danish, French, & Vegan bakeries
• Chinatown
• Old and new city hall
• Provincial parliament buildings
• University of Toronto
• Art Gallery of Ontario
• Eaton Centre
• Shopping and local neighborhood streets

 

 

Paint Night: Show off your amazing or dismal painting talents! We’ll go to a studio where they will show us how to paint something. Canvas, brushes, paint, aprons are all provided, and you’ll go home with a finished canvas that easily fits in your suitcase. You’re welcome to bring food and drinks. This will run Saturday or Sunday evening from around 5pm to 9pm. More specific details will follow. PLEASE PRE-REGISTER for this. If not enough people sign up, this event will not run. ~$50.

 

 

Visit to Filming Location Casa Loma: Sunday, September 18 from 12 noon to about 5pm. If you’ve seen  X-Men, Chicago, The Tuxedo, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Crimson Peak, Twitches, or Titans, you’ve already seen Casa Loma! It’s a beautiful “castle” with secret passageways and an underground tunnel. It was built with extravagant conveniences that people had never experienced before – an elevator, telephones, indoor pool! Head up the creeky wooden stairs into the turret for a great view of the city! I’ll lead you there on our subway system and you’ll probably want around 3 hours at the venue. $40 entry. Sign up here.

 

Visit to Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada: Oh, beautiful big and large fishies! Come say hi to all of them at our aquarium. We’ll leave at 2:30pm, just after the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday. Tickets are are $44. We will walk there together. If you wish, you can visit the CN Tower (Please don’t say Canadian National Tower) next door when you’re done. Sign up here.

 

If you’re interested in attending any of these tours, please enter your name and email address in the following google docs form. I”ll connect with all the attendees close to the date to confirm details.

 

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Play

Toronto Islands / Centre Island

Enjoy playgrounds, gardens, lovely beaches for swimming, walking trails, small zoo, children’s amusement park, and an amazing view of the Toronto skyline. There are food options but you might still want to bring a packed lunch and snacks. Don’t worry if you forgot your swim suit – there’s a separate nude beach!

If you want one recommendation for how to play all day, this would be it.

Access to the island is free but you must buy a ferry ticket to get there.

20 minute walk or 15 minute transit to get to the ferry.

Family. Outdoors. Full day.

CN Tower

Take a couple of hours and head half a kilometer up the elevator. Walk on the glass floor, eat at the revolving restaurant, and peer out for 160 kilometers on a clear, sunny day! Thrill seekers might like walking outside on the roof!

20 minute walk.

Family. Indoors. Half day.

 

Rogers Centre baseball games

At the base of the CN Tower, enjoy a Blue Jays baseball game at the Skydome, the white dome in the picture (only outsiders call it the Rogers Centre)! We’ll be playing against Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, and New York Yankees from Sept 14 to Sept 28.

Tickets required.

20 minute walk.

Family. Indoors/outdoors. Full day.

 

Ripleys Aquarium

Admire sea creatures from around the world at the base of the CN Tower next door. Great for a rainy day!

Tickets required.

20 minute walk.

Family. Indoors. Half day.

 

Toronto Zoo

Spend the entire day visiting animals from around the world in an vast woodland park. Bring a lunch or eat there.

Tickets required.

45 minute drive or 100 minute public transit.

Family. Outdoors. Full day.

 

Canada’s Wonderland

Adults and teens will enjoy a full day of death defying rides, rollercoasters, and shows.

Tickets required.

45 minute drive or 90 minute public transit.

Family. Outdoors. Full day.

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Museums

Royal Ontario Museum

We only refer to this museum by saying the acronym as a single syllable word – ROM. If your kids love dinosaurs and mummies, this is the place to go! The building is loved or hated depending on whether you like the combination of historic and modern architecture.

This is my top museum recommendation.

Tickets required.

25 minute walk or 10 minute subway ride.

Family. Indoors. Full day.

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Art Gallery of Ontario

We only refer to this gallery by saying the three letters of the acronym – A – G – O. No one will know what you mean if you say the acronym like this word: “We went shopping two days ago.” Paintings, illustrations, sculptures, modern art, Canadian art. Enjoy!

Tickets required.

15 minute walk or subway ride

Adults. Indoors. Full day.

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Bata Shoe Museum

Yes, for real. This is a world class museum that specializes in historic and modern shoes from around the world.

Tickets required. Free every Sunday!

35 minute walk or 15 minute subway ride.

Adults. Indoors. Half day.

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Hockey Hall of Fame

If you’re a fan of hockey at all, this attraction is a required pilgrimage. All hockey, all the time!

Tickets required.

15 minute walk.

Family. Indoors. Half day.

 

Fort York

Visit the remains of a historical fort! Check the website to see if there are any special activities planned.

Free!

35 minute walk or 30 minute subway ride.

Family. Outdoors. Half day.

 

Black Creek Pioneer Village

See how pilgrams lived in Canada in the 1800s.

Tickets required.

40 minute drive or 1 hour transit ride.

Family. Outdoors. Full day.

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Shop

Distillery District

This historic pedestrian area of Toronto is regularly used in TV shows and movies is full of little shops, restaurants, and art galleries. There’s often live entertainment in the streets.

Out of all the shopping, this is what I’d recommend.

35 minute walk or 25 minute transit ride.

Adults. Outdoors. Full day.

 

Kensington market

A beloved area with a mix of unusual shopping, food markets, and restaurants. It’s right next to Chinatown so stop there before or afterwards to enjoy fantastic, authentic restaurants and shopping.

25 minute walk or transit ride.

Adults. Indoors.Outdoors. Half day.

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St. Lawrence market

A meat and vegetable market upstairs and outside with flea market style shopping downstairs. Enjoy quaint shopping in the neighboring streets, or head over to the Distillery District for the evening.

20 minute walk or 15 minute transit ride.

Adults. Indoors. Half day.

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Eaton Center

Shoppers will easily spend an entire day here! You’ll find all the major brands plus plenty to eat and drinks.

5 minute walk.

Shoppers. Indoors. Full day.

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Queen Street West

From Yonge Street until you get tired of walking, this street is full of quaint shops and eateries. Enjoy the stroll!

Easy walk from the congress hotel.

Shoppers. Outdoors. Full day.

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Nature

High Park

Bring a lunch and spend a whole day meandering through nature trails and gardens, and enjoying ducks and wildlife. You’re not supposed to feed the ducks but you could bring unshelled peanuts to entice the chipmunks. Kids will enjoy a fantastic playground and a tiny zoo.

Free.

45 minute transit ride.

Family. Outdoors. Full day.

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Tommy Thompson park

Walk or bike this peaceful park constructed from landfill. It’s now a protected breeding zone for birds with lots of wildflowers and ponds full of ducks. Bring food and water as there are no services. There are a couple of porta potties so use them if you see them. When you get to the end and if it’s a hot day, take a swim in your clothes. That’s how it’s done! Serious walkers and nature lovers only. You’ve been warned.

This is my top park recommendation.

Free.

75 minute walk or 45 minute transit ride.

Adults. Outdoors. Half/full day.

The first thing I think of when I hear the name “President’s Choice” is chocolate chip cookies. Thirty-five years ago, when this store brand first appeared on Canadian Loblaw’s shelves, it packed more chocolate chips into their cookies than any other brand. Even more than the name brand cookies. (Even more than my mom’s home baked cookies.) It was the only “brand” of cookie that any Canadian kid wanted.

 

The President’s Choice brand was the brain child of Dave Nichol, the president of Loblaws Supermarkets, a premium supermarket chain. His strategy was to increase the company’s options by creating top quality products at better prices than the leading brands, products that couldn’t be purchased anywhere else but Loblaw’s. The plan wasn’t to create good products. It was to create great products. The President’s Choice brand, Dave’s choice, launched. The no name brand was launched around the same time, but we’ll get to that story in a minute.

 

The PC brand started with ground coffee. As planned, they made a coffee product that was better than the leading brands. Along with its competitive pricing, it quickly became a top selling item.

 

The beloved chocolate chip cookies followed soon after and it didn’t take long for them to became the best selling cookie in all of Canada. When the competition was known for having just a few “chocolatey” chips (i.e., not real chocolate) in each cookie, a cookie made with real chocolate chips that comprised nearly half of the cookie was a huge success.

 

These two amazing products created a trustworthy foundation for people to want to test out all the other President’s Choice products.

 

The PC marketing strategy was also very focused. Unlike traditional store flyers/circulars which incorporated a multitude of competing brands, the PC team created a print magazine to showcase only their products. Now in digital form, the magazine boasted large tantalizing photos, tasty recipes, household tips, and details about upcoming new products. They also ran many campaigns featuring Dave Nichols as the stereotypical Canadian spokesperson – quiet, kind, and helpful.

 

By 1990, the PC product line had increased to 500 brands including environmentally friendly products, low-fat products, organics, banking, and household items, often innovating in categories before their competitors. Their magazine was read by nearly 60% of Ontario households. PC was 20% of Loblaw’s revenue and generated $1.5 billion in annual sales.

 

In the early 90s, PC products had expanded outside of Canada to the USA. Australia, Hong Kong, UK, Sweden, and South Africa.

 

In 1993, Dave Nichol left the Loblaws team, but when Galen Weston joined as Chair of Loblaws in 2006, he resumed the spokesperson role, also as a stereotypical quiet, kind Canadian. The brand continued to grow and in 2014, PC was named one of the top 10 most influential brands in Canada. In 2016, Strategy chose PC as the Brand of the Year.

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Today, there are more than 3500 PC products on the shelves at Loblaws and other affiliated stores. Canadians no longer view PC products as a store brand, and PC chocolate chip cookies are just as loved as they always were.

 

And what about No Name products?

 

Well, no name products have also been around a long time. Since 1978. It’s always been the value priced brand in the conspicuous yellow package with minimal messaging that frugal shoppers like myself fill their cart with.

 

For many years, no name was just another low-priced option on the shelf. They did only a little bit of marketing. But, in the last 5 to 10 years, people have become much more open to discount shopping. The stigma of buying the store brand was going away. It was time for the no name brand to really shine.

 

In 2019, the brand embraced the minimalism normally associated with store brands and actioned it with a much loved marketing campaign. It included a bright yellow website, a deadpan funny Twitter account, and cheeky minimalist messaging.

 

They even created “merch.”  Confusing to outsiders and humorous to Canadians, we’ve been able to buy bright yellow beach towels that say beach towel and bright yellow t-shirts that say t-shirt. Three years later, the no name marketing campaign continues as a huge success.

 

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If your brand needs some inspiration on how to grow, look no further than the product and marketing strategies of these two Canadian brands. Be singular in your product goals and take risks with your marketing strategies. Bringing real people and humour to people’s lives can make all the difference.

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Learn more from our other blog posts

• Getting started with consumer, customer, and market segmentation
• How to conduct a journey mapping research project
• Tips for the First-Time Conjoint Analysis Researcher
• What are customer personas and why does your brand growth depend on them?

 

Questionnaire design looks easy but when you get into the nitty, gritty details, you will come to a very different realization. In this 50 minute Esomar webinar, I shared a few of my favourite theories and tips to help those new to questionnaire design build more engaging questionnaires.

 

Watch the recording and enjoy the technology glitches we experienced. As the saying goes, we made lemonade out of lemons and there was even a prize at the end. Too bad the contest only applied during the live event!

 

I hope you enjoy it and perhaps find a couple little tidbits you can apply in your next questionnaire.

 

Click here to watch the webinar on LinkedIn.

Are consent forms slowing you down?

 

Say hello to Inscribee!

 

Most businesses have moved their standard contracts, including NDAs, MSAs, and SOWs, from paper and pencil signatures to digital signatures. Electronic or digital signatures are secure, legally binding, and traceable. And, they speed up business processes immensely.

 

We can easily do the same with research participant consent forms, whether in-person or online. For fieldwork managers and vendor managers, digital signatures are particularly convenient for handling lots of forms across multiple projects and facilities. Rather than trying to store reams of consent forms and other paper contracts in filing cabinets or gigabytes of files across multiple client folders, digital signature tools allow you to prepare, maintain, and track thousands of contracts in one spot.

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How can market researchers benefit from Inscribee?

In order to encourage openness and honesty from participants, researchers want the research experience to be as personal and friendly as possible. However, we also need to ensure that both the researcher and the research participant understand what will happen and what is expected of each party. Even though they feel formal and sometimes off-putting, contracts are unavoidable. What we can do is make sure the contract process is as simple and straightforward as possible.

• Mid-Survey Consent: Researchers often need to gain consent during the survey experience. However, traditional signature tools require participants to exit the survey, check their email, complete a form, email it back to someone, and then return to the survey. Ultimately, this leads to unnecessary dropouts as some people will simply quit or get distracted never to return to the survey. By embedding Inscribee within a questionnaire, participants can remain in the questionnaire throughout the entire research experience. You can collect hundreds or thousands of consent forms without forcing participants leave the survey.

• In-Person Consent: When people participate in mall intercepts or visit central location facilities to participate in focus groups, interviews, or other in-person events, researchers can avoid creating mounds of paper work by using Inscribee digital signatures. Inscribee allows the research team to collect signatures on the spot even if participants don’t have their own data-enabled digital device with them. Participants sign the document digitally on your device, whether that’s a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop computer. Participants can also provide an email address where they will receive the fully signed document.

• Reinforce Confidentiality: It’s nearly impossible to ‘force’ research participants to not share confidential information about products or concepts they see during research. However, creating a legally binding contract is a professional way to remind participants that the only way brands can continue to invite them to participate in these kinds of research projects is if they maintain confidentiality. A short one-page document signed by the research participant midway through a research study can remind them of what they agreed to prior to participating in the study.

• Supplementary Consent: Some exercises completed during a research study may require additional consent beyond what was originally planned. Perhaps you’ve decided to incorporate a video or audio question and need to confirm that participants understand how that data containing PII will be used. Or, perhaps a segment of people may be asked to participate in a follow-up interview. Inscribee can be embedded into the questionnaire prior to the supplementary ask to gain appropriate consent in a convenient way.

 

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How can business leaders benefit from Inscribee?

On top of being great for research fieldworkers and online questionnaire researchers, Inscribee simplifies the contracting process for business leaders, people leaders, and business development executives. It offers a full range of flexible features.

• Supports traditional PDF documents such as NDAs, SOWs, MOUs, MSAs, and SLAs
• Supports documents requiring one signature or many signatures
• Supports documents requiring multiple signatures within one company or across many companies
• Supports documents where the signees names and email addresses are known or not known
• Can be easily embedded onto websites to accept signatures from hundreds, thousands, or millions of website visitors, users, or customers
• Traceable, real-time tracking of signatures
• Accepts signatures on any internet enabled device without downloads or registrations

From pitch to repurchase, Inscribee speeds up and simplifies signature processes for business leaders.
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Comprehensive document management	Credentials and Technical Specifications
Easy document management on both mobile and desktop devices Unlimited number of documents Automatic invitations, reminders, confirmations, and notifications Document sharing with other account users Standard and customized fields and branding Bulk email uploads and sending	Easy to deploy in any survey scripting tool including Qualtrics, Confirmit, Qualtrics, Decipher, Sawtooth and more Mobile-first, device and browser agnostic Legally binding mobile/digital signatures via emudhra, a registered certifying authority Proprietary software developed by E2E Research, an ESOMAR corporate member and ISO 27001 certified company

Click here to start your first free Inscribee document now!

By Satish Pai, MBA (pictured right) and Annie Pettit, PhD

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A few months ago, an academic tweeted about the lack of available learnings from market research agencies about predicting market behaviours. Surely, an agency that carried out dozens of econometric marketing mix modelling studies should have discovered and been able to share quantitative patterns and learnings by now.

 

This was a fair request, a valid claim, and a healthy discussion followed.

 

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To Share or Not To Share?

One perspective was that agencies such as Nielsen BASES, Millward Brown, and Kantar have already shared some of these learnings, though not necessarily in academic journals. Much of their research learnings could be found in their own internal publications, in industry journals, as white papers on association websites, and as part of industry conferences. Seek and ye shall find.

 

The other perspective addressed the lack of sharing as an appreciation for intellectual property, proprietary data, and client privilege and privacy. Almost all research conducted by industry requires significant investments in terms of time and talent, as well as participation from commercial clients who share their privileged data to help test and validate such research products.

 

Given the significant investments required to test and validate learnings, it makes sense to recover the financial investment as early as possible. Doing so requires the protection of intellectual property (IP) to ensure they maintain their unique selling proposition (USP). Pursuing publication in an academic journal could easily prevent this from happening.

 

For industry researchers, the true test and validation of commercial research is not publication in academic journals, but rather success in the market with measurable financial ROI across dozens of products and categories. This external validation is sufficient, particularly since prospective clients can witness research outcomes in the marketplace themselves or follow-up on testimonials from satisfied clients.

 

The academic researchers, however, felt that any research learnings should be subject to the academic process of peer review prior to publication in either academic or industry journals. Peer reviews require multiple experts within the field to scrutinize the methods and processes to ensure quality standards were upheld.  They argued that since agencies generally do not do this, their research isn’t validated and doesn’t pass academic rigour.

 

The conversation concluded as both perspectives had merit.

 

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Where Should Research Results Be Shared?

There soon followed another Twitter conversation wherein a media agency head wanted to share their agency’s learnings on marketing ROI. They asked for suggestions on how to share those findings in an academic journal.

 

Many academics pitched in with advice. The popular suggestion was that the agency should instead try out industry forums like ARF, ESOMAR, IIEX, and MRS. Those forums would be quick to publish and offered an excellent platform to reach the industry.

 

Despite the original request, there wasn’t much encouragement to publish in academic journals. The agency was warned that the process from submission to publication could take as long as 18 months (though with edits and revisions it could take up to 3 years). Further, journals seen as prestigious have rejection rates as high as 95% meaning that even great quality research may not be published. Along with these warnings to avoid academic publication, several journals that covered the areas of interest were suggested, along with ideas on how to go about submitting.

 

The contrast between these two discussions was striking. The first discussion was grounded in a premise that industry learnings fall short as the commercial vetting process isn’t the same as the academic vetting process. The second discussion was a realistic admission that sharing industry learnings via the academic route would entail several challenges and ultimately might lead to the learnings never being shared.

 

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Where Should Researchers Publish?

Stepping back, it’s interesting to see the variety of publication sources that marketing and affiliated industries use today. There is social media (e.g., Linkedin, Medium), dedicated media (e.g., Adweek, Admap, Marketing Week) as well as industry publications, dedicated channels, and conferences.

 

Mainstream media also offers considerable opportunity. Long-form columns in diverse publications such as The Guardian, New Yorker, and Financial Times can have greater impact and currency, and some would agree that they offer the best viewpoint on industry developments and learnings.

 

Further, there are a few publications, such as Harvard Business Review, that have bridged the gap and offer opportunity to both industry and academics. If an academic or industry researcher were to publish in such journals, they could be assured that a good number of projects from paying clients would ensue.

 

In the end, however, it would be fair to say that mainstream media dominates by far, and outdoes the limited impact that both academic journals and industry publications have on marketing and related industries.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

These discussions demonstrate an ongoing divide between the working lives of academic and industry researchers.

 

Is there one best vetting process to identify rigorous research studies that generate valid and reliable outcomes? Clearly, there is merit in both peer review and external validation.

 

Is a publication process with high Type 2 error rates (rejects many great papers) preferable to a process with low Type 1 errors (accepts some poor quality papers). Again, there is merit in both being assured that every result has been validated, and preventing the loss of potentially important findings.

 

Academic and industry researchers are on the same team. We strive to better understand the inner workings of consumers and markets but, we do so from within different contexts. Our target audiences are different – corporate end clients or other academics. Our definitions of prestigious career achievements are different – multiple Journal of Marketing publications or multiple ESOMAR awards. The KPIs that determine our raises and promotions are different – publish or perish, or monetize or perish.

 

Let’s continue the discussions and let’s keep the gate open.

 

 

Satish Pai, MBA is a freelance consultant, author, and PhD Candidate who specializes in advertising, branding, strategic management, and insights. He writes the Insights about Insights blog and can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.

 

Annie Pettit PhD CAIP FCRIC is the Chief Research Officer, North America, at E2E Research, an ISO 27001 certified, ESOMAR corporate member. Annie is a marketing research author, blogger, and regular conference speaker. She can be found on Linkedin and Twitter.

Collision 2021 was a four-day, North American tech conference that drew more than 38 000 attendees. I was fortunate to be one of those attendees this year thanks to a ticket kindly donated by ESOMAR. This year, the Collision Conference hosted more than 600 speakers from all walks of life. Just a few of those people included:

 

• Celebrities: Cindy Crawford, Meaningful Beauty; Maria Sharapova, Therbody; Ashton Kutcher, Sound Ventures; Ryan Reynolds, Mint Mobile
• CEOs and CMOs from global companies: Geoffrey Hinton, University of Toronto; Ukonwa Ojo, Amazon; Fiona Carter, Goldman Sachs; Martin Wildberger, Royal Bank of Canada
• Local and global community leaders: Jagmeet Singh, Leader of Canadian New Democrat Party; John Tory, Mayor of Toronto; Katie Porter, Representative at US House of Representatives; Lori Lightfoot, Mayor of Chicago
• And 13-year-old whiz kids whose expertise and speaking skills rivaled the most experienced speakers in attendance!

 

With hundreds of sessions running simultaneously (and literally colliding with each other!), it was easy to create a personalized stream of content, particularly since no matter the time, a great talk was always just beginning. The stream I created for myself focused on artificial intelligence, robotics, and innovation. Here are the key themes I took away.

 

 

Technology Leaders Must Prove Their Trust

People love their devices. We trust them to help us discover and buy products, make and take phone calls and text messages from our loved ones, and remind us about confidential meetings and doctor’s appointments. We trust our devices will work as expected when we need them to work. However, there is a trust problem and it doesn’t lie with the technology itself. It lies in the fact that we don’t trust the people behind our devices, neither the people building the devices nor our government leaders, to create and hold appropriate boundaries around privacy and security.

 

Companies build trust by having clear values and a clear mission grounded in being authentic, empathetic, transparent, and relatable. We learn to trust companies that shape our experiences in ways that are personalized but at the same time not creepy. We also learn who trust by witnessing which companies hold themselves fully and immediately accountable when they make mistakes. Companies that abuse these expectations will quickly find themselves speaking to a declining audience. A great way to think about trust is that every interaction a company has with a consumer is either a deposit or a withdrawal. You do good or you do bad. There is no neutral.

 

 

Robot, Cobots, and the Inevitable

Did you realize you already have robots in your home? If we follow the strict definition that any automatically operated machine that replaces people is a robot, then your electric toothbrush, your toaster, and your vacuum cleaner (even if it’s NOT a Roomba) are robots. We’re slowly getting used to the idea that robots don’t have to take a human shape to be called robots.

 

A newer take on robots is the idea of cobots. Unlike a lot of robots that run behind the scenes, collaborative robots are designed to interact directly with or next to people. While you may be nervous that robots or cobots will take your job, there are many good reasons to be excited about working with them. Not only do they easily take on jobs that are dull, dirty, and dangerous, they augment our skills and abilities and help us do our work better and with more agility. Robots make us physically stronger and mentally more agile. If we let them, they help us make truly better decisions.

 

As in the case of robots and cobots, if something is inevitable, get enthusiastic about it.

 

 

The Language of AI

One of the main complaints about artificial intelligence comes when it’s used as a substitute for people. For instance, researchers are actively working on building AI tools intended to serve as personal companions for people who are elderly or disabled, and counsellors for people who’ve experienced trauma. Isn’t that impersonal? Isn’t that disrespectful? Well, let’s consider it from a different angle.

 

Think about people who’ve experienced a life of trauma, a life wrecked by abuse, trafficking, trauma, or addiction. A life where people have repeatedly let them down and shown that they can’t be trusted. Those who’ve experienced trauma may find it particularly hard to trust new people and may be far more comfortable beginning their healing process by working with AI.

 

Think about people who have experienced a brain injury or deal with communication disabilities. Or people who aren’t using their native language. Or people who feel more comfortable communicating via email or text. We constantly hear that people should be treated in the way they want and prefer to be treated. That we need to increase accessibility. This could easily be AI.

 

Regardless of the initial need, we need to ensure that these AI communication tools demonstrate empathy and show respect. AI can’t replace human judgement but it can and should reflect good judgement.

 

 

What Does It Mean For Researchers

The research industry talks about trust all the time. We need research participants to trust us enough to share their most personal opinions, their most private click-paths, and their most unusual purchase behaviours. We need research tools that can effectively automate dull and error-prone research tasks leaving us with more time to do our jobs even better and make better decisions.

 

And we really need to focus on language. So much of our work revolves around language – writing questionnaires with respectful wording that everyone can understand, moderating focus groups that accommodate every participant, making the research space accessible to all.

 

I may not have attended a single market research talk but I did indeed come away with new perspectives that will make me rethink how I have conducted research in the past, and what I will do in the future.

On March 31, 2021, ESOMAR hosted a flagship series webinar on trust which was moderated by Fiona Blades from MESH Experience and Maya Kantak from Disney Parks.

 

The speakers defined and described trust in a number of ways. Paul Neto described it as “consistency over time with positive experiences.” Jeff Marshall and Rogier Verhulst shared that people who trust a brand are more likely to defend it, advocate for it, buy from it, and stay loyal to it. On the other hand, they explained that people can trust a company because they do what they say they will do but, at the same time, they might not trust other aspects of the business. Rob Key clarified that having trust with the brand or the company doesn’t equate to them being right or wrong, or good or bad. For instance, we trust that Amazon will deliver our package tomorrow but we might not trust how they treat our data.

 

Ann Constantine shared that in their company, they build trust from the bottom up through a consultancy process of creating ownership with the people who implement those processes every day.

 

Paul Neto discussed trust as it applies to the research industry. Right now, only about a third of people trust market research. The consequence of insufficient trust is that a third of people will refuse to participate in research and a third will limit the information they share. By building trust, researchers and marketers can unlock more consumer data. We need to be more transparent about the research experience by telling people what’s happening with their data, why they were screened out, and why the survey and incentive weren’t the length they expected. We need to step away from privacy by compliance and move to privacy by design. When we don’t meet these basic expectations, we lose trust and we lose valuable data. An interesting idea Paul raised is whether our attempts to improve the research experience are simply patchwork fixes. Perhaps if people trusted us more, we wouldn’t have to enforce shorter surveys or worry about mobile-first designs. People would trust our words and follow our advice.

 

Nicolas Pochart shared a fascinating example of GSK’s  “Consumer Closeness Program” wherein their research & development scientists spoke directly to consumers using virtual qualitative tools. Though they didn’t see any cost savings and it was actually extra work, talking directly to consumers was a huge success. The scientists were nervous ahead of time because they’d never talked to consumers before. However, they enjoyed the experience and confessed they will remember those consumers’ words forever. It changed how they think about their work. In 2021, GSK will have 500 R&D scientists talk to consumers. It won’t replace their regular qualitative research, but it definitely helped to put consumers at the center of the conversation, it created empathy with the scientists, it helped them understand consumer language, and it was vastly more impactful than receiving a 200-page PowerPoint file.

 

Jeff Marshall and Rogier Verhulst shared how they measured trust at LinkedIn. In 2020, LinkedIn registered the most digital trust among social networks. This trust is at least partly because of the individual authentication that is built into the network. People have to behave well to ensure their career and company are successful. Further, LinkedIn doesn’t allow open APIs and they don’t share their data with third party publishers. To measure trust, they conducted a major research study using narrative analytics and machine learning models to discover the best trust metrics. They followed that up by building a trust tracking program with interviews, focus groups, and surveys. The model is very important because it allows them to identify up and coming problems and be prepared to resolve those problems before it becomes too difficult. This is particularly important because of halo effects – when another social network experiences a trust issue, it can easily be reflected onto other similar brands.

 

Duncan Southgate and Gonca Bubani shared their thoughts on trust in the media. They’ve identified that trust is correlated with purchase and the growth of a brand’s value growth over time. Right now, traditional media, like TV ads, receives the highest trust scores but it’s still very low. When it comes to media channels, Google is the most trust media channel followed by YouTube and Instagram. As we’ve heard so often, people feel the media is biased. A single opinion can have extremely far reaching implications quickly leading to a loss of trust. Media can improve their trust scores by being more relevant, useful, authentic, innovative, fun and entertaining, and ensuring advertisers using their platforms are trustworthy.

 

Speakers and topics from this webinar included:

• Ann Constantine, Direct Line Group: From Top Down to Bottom up: Transforming Direct Line Group’s Measurement Approach
• Duncan Southgate and Gonca Bubani, Kantar: Trust in Media – The New Publishing Battleground
• Jeff Marshall, Protagonist and Rogier Verhulst, LinkedIn: Building and Measuring Customer Trust at LinkedIn
• Nicolas Pochart, GSK Consumer Healthcare: Transforming our Organisation Through Consumer Closeness
• Paul Neto, Measure Protocol: Exploring the Use of Trust Principles to Unlock the Next Generation of Consumer Data Collection