Risk and reward

Everyone likes to talk about the successes of their research techniques and methodologies, but we often tend to brush the failures under the carpet,” wrote Jon Puleston, head of GMI Interactive, in a comment piece last month.

The idea came to him while reflecting on a conference he attended where he sat silently, listening to a presenter discuss a survey concept that Puleston had himself tested a few years earlier to little success.

Looking back, Puleston said he felt “a bit guilty that we did not publish the findings from this failed experiment at the time”. The comment piece, he said, is a gesture towards encouraging more open collaboration on what works and what doesn’t in survey design.

This is a bold move by a recognised innovator: work by Puleston and colleagues in the area of survey gamification has bagged them a nomination for Best Innovation in the Research Magazine Awards and the prize for best methodological paper at this year’s Esomar Congress. We at Research encourage other researchers to follow his example.

Writing for our website, brand consultant Anthony ‘Tas’ Tasgal said: “We must legitimise and encourage fruitful error, so that we can learn from mistakes in a way that generates genuine innovation and eliminates the fear of the unknown”.

Innovation is what research buyers are looking for, according to Procter & Gamble’s Joan Lewis, who told Esomar delegates that agencies need to stop being “ideological” about methods. “I don’t care where insights come from,” she said.

Lewis believes the industry is being too slow to move away from traditional research products – and when you listen to the likes of psychologist Richard Wiseman you can understand her concern about the old ways of doing things, surveys in particular.

But as some of our readers have pointed out, there is a dichotomy between what clients say in public and what they are asking for behind closed doors. Tim Phillips, the author of our cover feature on return on investment, reports that research suppliers risk being penalised through budget cuts if they can’t show the business impact of the insights they provide.

Yet new innovations are often unproved; their business impact potentially a long way removed from the money they need to support their development. If buyers want more certainty upfront about what they’re going to get for their money, and agencies need to be sure they can deliver on those expectations, it’s understandable both are more likely to want to stick to what they know.

Encouraging innovation ultimately requires both buyer and supplier to be willing to risk failure.