Ups and downs – Greg Clayton

The best advice I’ve had is… when my father said, “Treat everyone else on the road as an idiot.” My daily cycling commute through the mean streets of Singapore would surely have resulted in my premature demise if I didn’t carefully heed this advice every morning and evening. Thanks Dad, I owe you one.

…and the worst advice I’ve had is to start every pitch with the year the company was founded. The year 1984 will forever be synonymous with Big Brother and was a great year for pop music (The Smiths’ eponymous debut, Prince’s Purple Rain) but I never quite grasped what made it a year of such momentous reference for the market research industry.

A campaign that grabbed me recently is… the L’Oréal Men Expert advertisements that work on the subconscious of the avid Asian football fan. Cunningly displayed under the score in live Premier League games and integrated with full TV spots at half time and full time, these ads unobtrusively demand the attention of their target, achieve a high cut-through due to lack of competition and introduce men’s grooming products to a new audience who might otherwise be reluctant to compromise their macho, football-loving images by buying cosmetic products.

…and campaign that needed more research is the FIFA campaign to sell the World Cup rights to Singapore. SingTel’s overvaluation of the Premier League rights meant that FIFA’s market value expectations of the World Cup in a football-mad country have been inflated to an unrealistic degree. The nightmare scenario of living in the one country in the world that is without the rights to show the World Cup woke me up every night with cold sweats. Thankfully a deal has now been struck and by the time this appears in print I’ll be enjoying what promises to be a fantastic World Cup from the comfort of my front room - or one of the local drinking establishments.

One thing this industry could use more of is… banking crises. The market research industry has long suffered a brain drain because of the fnancial allure of other industries, but the banking crisis has made bright young things re-evaluate how they want to earn their money. I’m hopeful that the relatively modest but conscience-clean rewards of the market research industry will help attract high-quality, ethically motivated, straight-talking graduates who are turned off by the lack of transparency in other industries.

…and one thing this industry could use less of is desk-bound, introverted data crunchers. To move forward in this business it’s essential to be a good communicator - listening, assimilating, reflecting, creating and always understanding your audience’s needs. I’m constantly amazed by the introspection displayed by many researchers who, so impressed with their own cleverness, completely lose sight of the commercial picture and what the client has actually asked for.

One thing I hope to do is… solve the riddle of increasing margin within the industry while maintaining high-quality standards. Does this involve re-positioning as management consultants? Or maybe just reverting to the old fight - demonstrating the value that consumer insight can bring to an organisation more convincingly?

…and one thing I wish I hadn’t done is try deep-fried fermented tofu in a Singaporean hawker centre last Wednesday. Other than that, I believe regret is a destructive emotion. Positive growth and learning from every experience is a skill that I forced myself to develop from a young age and there’s nothing I’ve done that I’d choose to undo.

If I hadn’t become a researcher… I’d be living in Asia anyway, running a company that organises adventure cycling tours across the continent.

…on the other hand if I hadn’t become a researcher I’d almost certainly have a lot more free time, and possibly more money. But would I really be more contented? Not a chance.