Disrupt yourself: Fostering a culture of innovation
The market research world is changing – and fast. With artificial intelligence advancing rapidly, agencies find themselves at a critical moment of reinvention. At the MRS Agency Leaders Conference late last year, a panel of industry representatives delved into the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, sharing their insights on how research agencies can adapt to these changes by integrating new technologies and rethinking traditional methods.
The panel, chaired by Phil Sutcliffe, managing partner at Nexxt Intelligence Inca, featured Abigail Stuart, founding partner at Day One Strategy, Richard Owen, co-founder at QualifyAI and head of innovation at Firefish, and Luisa Gibbons, global head of innovation strategy at MMR.
Integrating innovation into agency culture
Stuart discussed the necessity of embedding AI into the agency’s core practices to drive innovation. “Our approach to innovation is to integrate AI and other tech into a best practice, tried and tested, research project workflows,” she explained.
Stuart detailed how her agency uses AI to create customer personas and analytical agents that work alongside human researchers. These AI-driven methods enable the agency to ideate, analyse and activate insights more comprehensively. “It’s about going further, faster, wider and deeper in terms of sources of insight and brain power at each step,” she noted.
The spin-off approach to innovation
Owen shared an alternative strategy for fostering innovation within large agencies by creating spin-off divisions that operate with a start-up mentality, adding that “the most successful approach has been to create a spin-off division or offering”.
Owen described how Firefish introduced QualifyAI as a separate entity, allowing it to innovate quickly without disrupting established processes. A key challenge here is reintegrating successful spin-offs back into the main agency so the entire company benefits.
Owen explained that management must ensure alignment between the main agency and the spin-off’s goals. At Firefish, they established a parallel AI centre of excellence supported by QualifyAI.
Balancing evolution and revolutionary change
Gibbons emphasised the importance of balancing evolutionary and revolutionary innovation within her agency. “From an evolution perspective, we ensure a focus on where tech can help us become more efficient,” she said.
MMR uses AI to streamline processes, such as using AI-powered platforms to analyse qualitative data. These improvements are essential just to keep pace. Beyond incremental enhancements, Gibbons stressed the importance of pursuing breakthrough innovations that enhance consumer understanding and experience.
“Innovation can help deliver better insights, enhanced consumer connection and an improved experience for our clients,” she explained, citing MMR’s development of Sensory Bot, which runs in-home product testing through AI-moderated conversations.
Understanding client expectations and needs
The panel explored changing client expectations in light of AI advancements. Owen noted that “AI has dramatically shifted this within clients, because the expectation is now set that everything should be cheaper and faster”.
This shift creates new opportunities for agencies to introduce innovative methodologies. However, Owen acknowledged that clients remain focused on data reliability, especially for significant projects. “It’s about packaging things up effectively,” he said. “Clients have a problem and they want an answer so they can decide and move on.”
Gibbons highlighted that client receptiveness to new technologies varies widely. Some clients have dedicated budgets for exploring AI, offering agencies the chance to collaborate and experiment. “It’s vital to be open and transparent with our clients – approach an experiment with an open mind with no guarantee that it will ‘work’,” she added.
Fostering a culture of curiosity within agencies is essential for embracing technological advances like AI. Stuart noted: “Innovation is primarily a people issue. For every £1 you invest in AI, you need to invest £2 in the people side of things to inspire and train people.” She emphasised encouraging proactive self-learning and experimentation.
Owen added insights into fostering such a culture by supporting ‘internal entrepreneurs’ and incentivising experimentation through recognition programmes. “The key is to set the expectation that experimentation is encouraged, supported and rewarded,” he said.
Strategic decisions: To build or partner?
A significant question for agencies is whether to develop capabilities in-house or partner with external tech providers. Owen suggested this decision depends largely on an agency’s resources and scale: “This is about the scale of your business. A big beast will have the resources to bring in house and build. A smaller one just won’t.”
Gibbons described MMR’s flexible strategy, which involves building tech solutions when they leverage proprietary knowledge and partnering when it aligns with strategic goals. This ensures innovations are both technically viable and strategically valuable.
Navigating the technology landscape
Given the array of potential tech partners, deciding which technologies to evaluate requires a strategic approach. MMR uses specific criteria to align potential partnerships with its objectives. Gibbons explained: “We have a honed suite of criteria we use to assess fit, including commerciality and assessments of shared ethos.” This method allows MMR to ensure new technologies deliver promised value and feasible applications.
The panel discussed funding innovation and whether agencies should set a budget for it. Owen suggested avoiding fixed budget percentages, as they are easy to cut. Instead, he advocated rewarding innovation by reinvesting a percentage of sales.
Gibbons added: “There’s also lots that can be achieved through experimentation that doesn’t require a large budget. At MMR, we co-fund with clients, which reduces direct costs, particularly when partnering to leverage tech suppliers’ capabilities.”
As AI continues to disrupt the market research industry, embracing these changes is crucial for agencies. By fostering curiosity, experimenting with new methodologies, and strategically choosing whether to build or partner, market research agencies can drive client value and ensure their growth and relevance in the AI era.
By Phil Sutcliffe, Luisa Gibbons, Richard Owen and Abigail Stuart

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