Tea and Sympathy
RLF is back - Raiders of the Lost Art
So the RLF are back and this year they are asking for contributions from everyone from the world of research…. Please join in and visit them on their website:
http://researchliberationfront.com/
This year they are turning the spotlight onto the creativity of research…. As they say:
“We are providing a showcase for all the creativity and treasure that the world of research has produced. This is the work that gathers dust under desks or that you trip over when it’s leaning up next to the wall or something you felt was so good it deserves its share of the limelight. We’re talking work lovingly prepared by participants; collages, videos, mood boards, diaries etc., something put together by an agency, be it a hero chart, a slide from a presentation, or something produced by a client! Ultimately, we are looking for anything, nothing is too small, too big or too weird – we are raiding the industry for lost treasure as the RLF asks, is this ART?
In this vein, the RLF are setting up a gallery close to the location of the party at the end of the first day of the conference. We plan a viewing event that will be easy for any conference delegate (or anybody else for that matter) to attend.
So here’s the brief. We are approaching the leading research agencies and clients in the country to ask them to submit a piece which they feel deserves to be considered as an artwork. We are approaching art professionals to review the works in the exhibition. And yes, there will be prizes awarded!”
Do go to the website for more details (click on the events bit) and hopefully see you there for a glass of something and a look at what our industry can turn up in the name of art!!
Farewell Peter Cooper
Just saw the sad news about Peter Cooper’s death. I didn’t know him well but knew his reputation, had read a paper or two and seen him speak which was a pleasure. He once made a point of coming up to me after one of my first conference speeches to say ‘well done’, a simple gesture but one that was genuinely appreciated and made me feel very much better having started out a nervous wreck!
I suppose all I can say is that he was definitely a great researcher, seemed like a very good guy and someone we should all be very pleased to have had the benefit of in our profession. Thanks Peter, you left our industry better off than you found it.
Friendship groups are fun!
Just finished running some friendship groups with housewives for a major yoghurt brand. We recruited a main respondent hitting specific criteria and then helped them recruit some of her friends with similar profiles. The groups were then held in the main respondents home.
We have done this type of thing before but this was the first time in a few years that I have moderated them and I was reminded of why they are such a good approach.
Firstly they are great fun. The group of friends needs no warm up or introduction, they just launch into general banter about themselves and their lives. They laugh at, challenge, criticise and hassle each other and the moderator the whole way through.
Secondly they keep each other real. It is very difficult to pose, exaggerate or be economical with the truth in front of friends. They pick you up on stuff! If you say you go to the theatre every weekend they will laugh and say you are more likely to be seen at home watching TV! All the pretences you can go through with ‘normal’ groups just fade away.
And finally they get to the point much quicker and better. There is no pussy footing around the issue, they tell you exactly what they feel and why, often without any prompting at all.
So I am now advocating friendship groups whenever I can, and as I am now amongst friends does anyone agree?!
Who is the Steve Jobs of research?
Just back from running some groups in the US where Apple came up a lot (guess the category!) and while I was there Steve Jobs launched the new Apple iPad. It struck me that Steve Jobs himself launched the product, not an internal inventor or a marketing guy but the CEO himself. Of course we have come to expect this from him and other technology CEO’s, they are often very innovative individuals with a passion for their products.
But where is the equivalent in research? Most big research company CEO’s strike me as good (or bad) business people, more deal makes than innovators. I must admit I don’t know many personally so that is just my impression.
If I am right then this may help explain the lack of innovation our industry suffers from, direction tends to come from the top and if they are focussed on deals and accounts then of course that will be what the rest of the people worry about.
Any ideas? For starters I would have said Adrian Chedore at Synovate but he has now retired, John Kearon at Brainjuicer qualifies as an innovative CEO but they are still relatively small. I would love to be proved wrong!
A good client briefing
Just back from a business briefing at T-Mobile. It was for about 10 or so research agencies and was all about their plans for the year and how we could hopefully help out. I have been to these types of things before but not enough, they are a great way of understanding clients key objectives and also getting to know them and their issues better.
Besides, this being the small industry it is we also got the chance to catch up and gossip with some friendly competitors. It helps us see the bigger picture and fosters what clients are always after, integrated thinking across agencies for the good of the business.
On the train back it did make me wonder why we don’t do this more. Of course these things take time and resource, are not urgent priorities and can easily be put off. The payoff isn’t immediate and probably not obvious. But it does make a difference. Certainly from our side we know the wider business issues better and so can make more realistic suggestions and recommendations but more than that we will be generally more engaged.
But before getting critical of other clients not doing the same thing it did make me think what the equivalent would be for us as an agency to do. Presumably we should invite all our suppliers over, discuss with them and staff the vision for the next 12 months, listen to what they think before pushing ahead. Oh dear, better start arranging some more meetings then!!
Happy 2009?
Well that was quite some year. Personally it has been a drift from blind panic to mild optimism. From an industry perspective this year must be the worst on record. But with most of the bad news being in the first half of the year perhaps we can look forward to better things in 2010.
Of course there have been quite a few victims, people laid off and lots of poor graduates not being able to find roles. I have particular sympathy for them as I graduated into the recession of the early 1990's and know how hard it can be to find that first job in tough times.
Also there has been a lot of talk about how the research industry will look coming out of the 'Great Recession' as I believe it is now called. Public sector work will obviously take a hit next year, perhaps the huge brand tracking / customer sat studies will be looked at even harder in terms of ROI and what about clients doing their own surveys using online panels or communities?
Either way there will of course be opportunities for us agency types. As long as we add value then we should get through the upheavals. But I didn't really want this to be a piece about next year, lets just say thanks for getting through this one and enjoy Xmas!
Cheers
Steve
Awards night
Feeling largely OK today, a little fuzzy from the wine last night but overall not too bad. We (MESH In this case) were up for a couple of awards last night but sadly they didn’t come through. On the other hand it was a good do and always fun to catch up with other people in the industry.
As Rita Clifton mentioned in her speech it does feel like the year has been a game of two halves. The last industry bash I went to was an ESOMAR conference in February where the mood was distinctly sombre (and those were the people who hadn’t cancelled!). But last night people seemed to be looking forward to 2010 and thinking that 2009 hadn’t been quite as bad as they had at one time feared.
It was also good to see a variety of different agencies win awards and some new companies coming through (the nominee list for Best Agency was particularly refreshing). Hopefully bodes well for the industry in the coming years. Having spoken to a few people outside research about their industry awards nights it also seems we have the best food!
Christmas Rush
We are in the middle of the traditional pre-Christmas rush. We have several debriefs and workshops this week, clients still calling to see if they can get a few groups done this year and the standard conversations about the fact that trying to recruit interviews for Xmas eve is not a good idea!
All this is what happens every year and I have spoken to several friends in other agencies who are of course going through the same things too. However, at the beginning of the year if you told me we would be facing the same pre-Christmas rush as we always do I would have been very pleased indeed. In fact the idea of any rush in what has been billed as the worst recession since the 30's was looking far away indeed.
So this year instead of moaning about the rush I am celebrating and embracing it. No complaints about running around the country like a mad man, instead just happiness (and a lot of relief) that our delightful rush is still here!
The Joys of Research
It may be freezing in Moscow but I am feeling pretty happy right now. We are doing a pan European project on bathrooms and so I am here to listen to bathroom customers and suppliers. Not a subject I knew much about before but one in which I am rapidly becoming more expert.
The thing I so enjoy and about research, and why I have stuck with it, is you get these opportunities to explore new categories, places and people. As ever I am struck by how much more binds us than separates us as I listen to bathroom buyers across Europe talk about themselves and their homes and tell their bathroom purchase stories. It reminds me, sorry to get sentimental but it is 20 years since the wall came down, of the old Sting line “I hope the Russians love their children too” which I can assure you they do!
It is always good to get these moments, especially in tough times, when you can honestly say that our industry is both fun and interesting. For anyone with a basic curiosity about the people and the world around them, there is not another profession to rival it!
Who loves procurement?
We have been having some interesting times with, and discussion about, procurement recently. My feelings about procurement within clients used to be a mix of fear and confusion. I don’t know any procurement people personally yet they do seem to be playing a greater role in my business life. So should I now try to embrace them? And what would that mean anyway?
Certainly the procurement concept has revolutionised marketing. Within the marketing discipline they seem to have focussed on media first, thus splitting up the media and advertising folks. Then they started on advertising and made them charge on a per day basis and now they are looking at research.
What does this do for our pricing model? What will they want from us and what will they offer? Of course there will be some pressure on margins as they are there to negotiate but surely they will be offering something else in return?
Also it must be hard for them coming to grips with the research industry. We are far more fragmented than either media or advertising, no big clients have just one research agency! So how can we educate them on the reasons for this or do we have to take a long hard look at why research is like this in the first place?
Anyway, at this stage I would just love some ideas or thoughts. I really am not sure what we should be doing but suspect doing nothing is the worst option of all…..
All for the client?
OK, so PR is all about spinning a good story, I know this. But it still gets a bit tired when you see another corporate announcement of a JV, merger or acquisition in the research space that the CEO firmly states as being "all for the benefit of our clients". The recent sharing of back office tasks by two large US companies springs to mind, sharing back office tasks makes sense and is clearly a way of reducing costs so why even try to spin the client angle.
Does anyone believe any of this, am I just incredibly cynical? To be honest why can't we just say the merger / JV etc. is for the benefit of shareholders as it will reduce costs and so increase profits. Is that so bad? Surely the industry is mature enough to accept this as the key reason without having to spout the same platitudes about clients.
My old company (which shall remain nameless) used to do the same thing as we bought up company after company across the world. Of course we didn't buy them for the sake of our clients but because we wanted to expand.
We know scale can help in some situations but we also know that CEO's of major companies think first about their company / share price and secondly about clients (as a way to increase their share price). Again, is this so bad that we need to pretent something else is true?
Prince Charles and his faster horse
Prince Charles has recently asked for local residents to have a say in planning permissions for new buildings in the wake of his objections to the Lord Rogers designs for the Chelsea Barracks. He objected to these plans on the basis that they were “unsypathetic and unsuitable” for the area. His idea seems to be to ask local residents in the hope that they would object to ‘new’ designs.
He is probably right in the sense that people often object to new things in research surveys if asked the right (wrong) questions. Henry Ford famously said that if he had asked customers he would have designed a faster horse.
These are the typical faults attributed to market research but seem to me to be not a criticism of research but instead a criticism of bad research. Of course people often ask for more of the same but only if the question is posed in the wrong way.
Ask people if they are proud of the London skyline and wish for a truly international and cutting edge city and they would probably say something different. Look at their motivations for living in London and why they are proud of where they live and I suspect great architecture would feature highly.
So lets not give reactionaries the excuse of research for repeating old designs and products and instead lets focus research on understanding basic human motivations and beliefs. In that way we will be able to inspire new designers (of buildings and products) instead of stifling them. That is what research should aim for.
Green shoots?
So how are things with you now that everything is supposedly feeling better? One of our fieldwork suppliers told me the other day that they had their busiest August ever. We are certainly seeing some things pick up and at the Research Club event last night the research community seemed both lively (helped by the free booze of course) and upbeat.
Of course the typical project is still smaller and costs more scrutinized than a year or so ago but at least we seemed to have turned the corner. Some of the results coming out from the big guys recently seem very poor with revenue declines of 10% or more but these are presumably old news and things will look up from here. I for one am certainly optimistic that things are and will continue to pick up but, as with the consensus, probably that the pick up will not be exactly ferocious.
So, being a Friday, I will toast green shoots this evening and just hope that everyone is feeling the same way, as that will of course make it true!!!
Delay days
We recently received two emails in one day from different clients delaying work they were about to commission and saying that they will revisit things in a few months. This seems to have been the pattern of the last 6 months and of course it is frustrating for both us and the clients themselves.
I was talking to an old business hand who has been through several recessions and what he said seemed to crystallise the situation: “In a recession your competition becomes ‘do nothing’ and not the other firm.” Similarly I was having a drink with an old friend who also happens to work in research on the client side, but he works for a low-price food manufacturer in the US. Now, as market positions go, being on the low-price staples side is a pretty good place to be right now and they are in fact seeing significant growth. But even they have caught the recession mood and have a pay and hiring freeze on, largely because they can.
So I suspect delay days are here for a while, at least until budgets become clearer. The question in the back of my mind is how much is delay and how much is cancellation; it’s this lack of knowledge that is most difficult as it makes planning so hard.
But on the bright side, a project that was almost commissioned four months ago but then delayed has finally come through. So perhaps they really are delays after all….
Shift to in-house research?
There seems to have been lots of talk recently about clients moving to doing research in house. With the growth of online research and software programs for questionnaires that are nice and easy to use, the argument goes that clients can save money and get things done quicker by doing it themselves. In testing times like these that makes a lot of sense, why not miss out the middle man?
To be honest I am pretty ambivalent about this. There is a lot of research where this seems to make sense – anything where the questions are simply repeated wave after wave or surveys testing a number of different and very simple options. Suppliers should be concentrating on adding value, either in the form of ideas, scale or analysis. If all we do is manage the research process and program a questionnaire then of course there is little point in us being around.
But of course this isn’t most research. Most projects aren’t fully defined from the beginning; we add ideas, techniques, insights and our experience throughout the project, from design to execution to output. So it isn’t a threat to our core business but it probably will reduce some work for some agencies.
A similar trend that seems to me to be more interesting is the number of clients splitting research projects. We have come across a few clients recently who talk about getting another company to do the basic project management and fieldwork while they ask us to focus on design, analysis and outputs. This keeps both companies focused on their core task, avoiding many of the problems associated with large scale projects where clients complain of overlong reports and lack of direction. The reality all suppliers know is that the type of person or team that is good at managing a large fieldwork project is not the type of person or team that is good at communicating the results in an engaging manner. These are different skill sets and despite larger companies saying they have both skills in house these are rarely in the same team.
So expect to see more of both clients doing research themselves and clients splitting projects across multiple agencies. Both of these should keep all us suppliers on our toes…..
Looking forward to 2009
So this will be the year when we test the old adage about research spend holding up in a recession. Of course for us, a small research agency focussed on ad hoc work, it is not just the overall industry spend that matters but the type of spend. Will clients move more money to syndicated research, will they play safe and stick with the larger companies? Will they try and save money by shifting to new techniques?
All of these things are possibilities and different clients will of course do different things. Also our competitors are likely to change their behaviour as well. Sadly, there will be less M&A (big companies crashing together in a merger always seems to help the rest of us) but on a day-to-day level will other companies go out and sell more and innovate more or will they become inward looking and retrench quickly?
Then there is the issue of what we will do. We worry about cash flow, clients going under, sectors being hit hard, a move away from our core qualitative offering and ways of working that made sense in a boom. However we also have a strong client base, decent pipeline, an international focus (praise be to the falling pound) and some new offerings under development.
I suspect we are where most people are right now; confused, a little scared, a little hopeful and looking around nervously at what will happen next. It might feel a little out of our control but we will plough on regardless. We need to innovate, experiment and compete – but we must decide where to focus our efforts. So, with the arrival of the New Year and with hope that the economic climate will continue to push innovation within the research industry, I raise a somewhat tentative glass to 2009! Cheers!
