Esomar Congress: ‘Thank God for MR'

GERMANY-- The theme of this year's Esomar Congress – ‘excellence' – is so all-encompassing that it's more of a non-theme. It's given the organisers a free rein in choosing their speakers for the Berlin event, and the speakers a free rein in what they say.

First up was Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, director of the Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others. A pretty cool keynote, granted, but one couldn't help wondering what he would have to say about research.

As it turned out he had a great story to tell, revealing that he was more star struck by his audience than they were by him.

If it wasn't for market research, says Donnersmark, his phenomenally successful film would never have seen the light of day. After being knocked back by every distributor he approached, it was only when Buena Vista Germany got a research team to identify his target audience and run screenings with carefully selected groups, that he got the backing he needed.

The whole thing was more like a nice chat over a beer than a conference speech, and Donnersmarck's rousing “Thank God for market research” left the audience feeling all warm and fuzzy – just in time for the afternoon keynote, philosopher Lou Marinoff, to go all deep on them.

The ‘excellence' theme allowed Marinoff to fit in Buddha, Aristotle, the cosmic significance of rectangles, and table hockey. Not everyone could pull this off, but Marinoff has a PhD and a beard. But despite managing to work in plugs for at least three of his books, Marinoff's attempts to relate it all to the world of research were tenuous at best, making his contribution entertaining but missable.

The rest of the first day's sessions brought audiences back down to earth, and the reality of research.

Three papers looked at the emerging markets of India and China. The message was not quite ‘everything you believe is untrue', but rather ‘everything you believe probably is true… and so are all sorts of other things that you didn't realise'.

The double-act of David Lee and Edvin Babic of Ipsos were particularly entertaining on the subject of ‘local jewels and global heroes' – how brands can succeed in a globalised environment. However, there was little in these presentations that the audience hadn't heard before.

The day's highlights were perhaps the more practical, business-like papers. Amy Ricketts of Motorola and Anette Bendzko of GfK spoke on how to make sure research survives beyond the debrief, while Kristin Hickey of the Leading Edge spoke on ‘research alchemy', making a convincing case that turning lead into gold is possible, as long as your client is willing to take the time and effort.

Author: Robert Bain