Lead up to the IIR TDMR Interview with Dr. A.K. Pradeep of NeuroFocus

This post is co-posted with Greenbook.

Next up in our series of interviews with presenters at the Technology Driven Market Research event (May 2-3, Chicago) is the Keynote Speaker: Dr. A.K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus. I was going to sit on this one for a bit longer, but based on the huge response to my post on the ARF NeuroStandards initiative it seemed like a good idea to go ahead and post it. We touch on the topic of the ARF program during the interview and getting a direct perspective from one of the key players in the debate strikes me as useful.

Dr. A.K. Pradeep and his lovely assistant showing off the new Mynd mobile neuromonitoring headset at the ARF re:Think 2011 Convention

Since I am tying this interview into the ARF post it seems only fair to give other stakeholders a chance to be heard too. With that in mind I have reached out to Keith Winter, CEO of Emsense and to Ron Wright, CEO of Sands Research to conduct interviews with them as well. Hopefully those will be forthcoming soon and will add to the dialogue on this important topic.

Now, how do I introduce Dr. Pradeep? I met him in 2009 in Cairo when I had an opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with him and his team during a Nielsen event I was attending. My impression of him was that he was part PT Barnum, part Carl Sagan, with a dash of Bollywood flair, a bit of Steve Jobs and a whole lot of intelligence wrapping it all together. At the time I told him that he reminded me of Jeff Goldblum’s “Rockstar Scientist” character from the Jurassic Park movies and I think that is an apt comparison. He is obviously passionate about his company and their business, and is deeply knowledgeable about the topic of neuroscience and it’s applications for research. Based on the success of NeuroFocus he is also a darn savvy business professional. I think all of this shines through in the interview below; I hope you enjoy it.
This interview was conducted via email over the course of a few weeks.

LM: Biometric techniques for research have been around for awhile, but Neuromarketing has really just begun to emerge as more than a niche segment within the broader market research space. Why now? What’s changed that has fueled the explosive growth of Neuroscience in market research and for NeuroFocus as a company?

AKP: In fact, biometric techniques are not the only biologically-based methodologies that have been in use for many years. EEG-based brainwave activity measurement has been conducted for decades in medical facilities and neuroscience labs worldwide.

That said, there are three key factors that have spurred the creation and rapid adaptation of neuromarketing today. First is the well-established fact that conventional consumer research methods have inherent, structural flaws and shortcomings. That doesn’t mean that they’re not useful or that they have nothing to contribute—but the fact remains that because surveys and focus groups must by definition rely on ‘articulated responses’, they are subject to certain core shortcomings. This is common knowledge among researchers, and it has driven the desire among marketers and researchers alike for improved means of gathering accurate, reliable information.

The second key factor in neuromarketing’s development and global application has been the technological explosion over the past several decades. It was possible to gather brain-based data before the advent of extremely fast digital data collection, processing, and large-scale storage—but the ability to analyze it was very limited, compared to what we can do with today’s computer technology. So it has been the amazing advances made in processing power, both on the collection and analysis side, that have helped drive neuromarketing’s birth and growth.

The third leg of the stool is the dramatic expansion of neuroscience’s understanding of brain structures and functions. The advances made in these spheres in just the last few years represent quantum leaps forward from where the state of knowledge was even fairly recently. We have gained amazing insights into how the brain works, in many cases in very great detail and specificity. That’s not to say that we don’t have much still to learn—but what we already know now enables us to capture the brain’s activity in real time, understand key aspects of it, and distill that knowledge into accurate, reliable, and actionable market research findings.
As always, it’s ultimately the marketplace that determines if, how, and when a breakthrough technology like today’s EEG-based, full-brain measurement will be accepted and successful. Clearly, the marketplace is giving it a very enthusiastic endorsement, exemplified by how many of the world’s leading companies are rapidly integrating this research into their operations, from new product design and packaging to branding, retail marketing, advertising, and more.

LM: Looking ahead 3-5 years, what does the market research space look like to you and where will Neuromarketing fit into the new scheme of things?

AKP: I’d use my last point as a springboard in answering this question. What we’re seeing already is a large-scale adoption of neuromarketing by many companies across dozens of categories in every region of the world. The growth rate is exciting and frankly, a little amazing even for us who have been involved in the field for the last few years.

I think it speaks to the basic need that I mentioned above: the desire for improved accuracy, reliability, and ‘actionability’ on the part of marketers everywhere. It is so expensive—and risky—to invest in new products, brand extensions, new package designs, new ad campaigns, store designs, logos—the list goes on and on. And we’ve all seen high-profile examples very recently where major marketplace failures have occurred in some of these categories.

The scientific foundations of what we at NeuroFocus do—EEG-based, full-brain measurements of brainwave activity—address that need, and offer solutions to those problems and challenges. It is possible now to know, with very high degrees of precision and confidence, how consumers respond at the subconscious level to literally anything that they can experience through any and all of their five senses. I’m often asked, why is measuring the full brain at the subconscious level so critical? The simple answer is 95%. That’s a widely-accepted scientific estimate of how much of our daily decisions are made at the subconscious, not the conscious, level of our minds.

As marketers and researchers gain understanding of that fact—and the extremely important corollary, that fundamental marketing objectives like initial product interest, purchase intent, and brand loyalty are formed at the subconscious level—they are turning to neuromarketing in fast-growing numbers. What we’re seeing is marketers and researchers responding to a clear and very significant advance in the field of consumer insights. We don’t see any impediments to that rapidly-growing acceptance—quite the opposite, in fact. As neuromarketing findings become integrated into these companies basic operations, it will be more and more an ‘organic’ process for them.

LM: With much of the focus within market research shifting towards “listening and observing” rather than “asking” through channels such as communities, social media analysis, mobile ethnography, etc.. where does Neuromarketing fit into the new continuum of techniques? How are your clients integrating it with other methods?

AKP: We describe what we do as ‘listening to the brain’. When you realize that the subconscious is the source for as much as 95% of our daily decisions, it becomes clear that measuring neurological responses to stimuli at the subconscious level, before they are affected by the external factors that can influence and distort ‘articulated responses’, is the most accurate, reliable, and actionable form of marketing research.

EEG-based full-brain measurements can be and are relied on exclusively, and they are also part of some companies’ overall approaches to marketing research, combined with other research means. There really is no ‘one size fits all’ that accommodates every business category, different market needs, areas of interest, corporate strategy—the ultimate point is that marketers now have a modern, neuroscience-based tool that can give them deep insights and actionable findings which are sourced at the subconscious. There are an almost infinite number of ways in which companies make use of neuromarketing, but that underlying core is the connective tissue among all of them.

LFM: There is a lot of debate in the industry regarding best practices and optimal approaches, with you and your primary competitors all laying claim to the “best model” for utilizing Neuromarketing within a research context. Even the ARF has gotten involved with their initiative to standardize and codify best practices, an effort that NeuroFocus has sidestepped by releasing your own guidelines. For clients who might not have the appropriate experience or depth of knowledge to decide for themselves who really does have the “better mousetrap”, how can they make an informed choice with so much competing information out there?

AKP: The best answer is direct: seek out the best science. Look at the foundations of companies offering neuromarketing services—are they built upon universally-recognized and applied forms of brainwave activity measurement that the world’s leading neuroscience laboratories use? Do they measure across the full brain—which is absolutely essential for valid and meaningful neuromarketing research results? Do they have highly-acclaimed neuroscientists on staff and on Science Advisory Boards? Have those neuroscience experts published papers in their field of expertise? Is their technology, equipment, and methodology endorsed not only by the world’s largest companies, but also by major independent science-based organizations? Do they operate NeuroLabs that adhere to and are certified to strict Six Sigma standards?

Those and other basic questions are ones that companies considering using neuromarketing should ask, because they are directly indicative of the quality of the underlying science. Without the best science, it follows that the research findings will not be the best in terms of accuracy, reliability, and actionability.

In fact, I’ll take a giant step back and recommend one even more fundamental question for potential clients to pose: do they measure the brain itself, and not biometrics exclusively?

LFM: You might recall that when we met in Cairo in 2009 at the Nielsen “Next Big Thing” event I told you that you reminded me of the “Rockstar Scientist” character Jeff Goldblum played in Jurassic Park and you took it as a compliment (which I meant it as!). That persona and dynamism has seemed to work very well for you and the company, even earning you a place on his team during President Obama’s “bridge building” trip to India last year. It has also earned you some criticism from folks who claim your very accomplished showmanship overshadows the substance of what NeuroFocus offers. How would you respond to those critics?

AKP: NeuroFocus was founded on one bedrock principle: the highest neuroscience standards. It stands to reason that without that at our core, we would not have attracted the caliber of neuroscientists that we have, for both our own staff and our Advisory Board. Without those world-class experts, and our market-proven technology and methodologies, we would not have attracted the caliber of clients that we have—who demand the highest standards, and who in several cases have conducted very stringent due diligence before selecting NeuroFocus as their neuromarketing research partner.

Nothing overshadows that fact. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but we have a policy to stick to the science, stick to the facts. Being the leader always means you’ll come under criticism from some corners. We don’t let that interfere with our focus on what matters most to our clients, which is harnessing neuroscience to help improve their brands, products, packaging, retail marketing, and advertising.

Web Seminar: Silencing the Voice of the Customer (VOC): Focus on the "job-to-be-done" and create breakthrough products and services

Date: Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
Time: 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT

Reserve your Webinar seat here.


About the webinar:
Over the past 30 years, innovation experts have led companies to believe that it is impossible to know all their customers' needs. They content that customers can't articulate their needs, and that customers have latent needs - or needs they don't know they have. What if it turns out that this thinking is wrong?

There is a new way of approaching your customer needs but it's not with the Voice of the Customer. Over the past 20 years Strategyn has created and refined an innovation process called Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) that invalidates this old thinking. In addition, a ten-year track record study reveals that when the world's most respected companies silence the voice of the customer and gather the right inputs for the innovation process, the experience an 86 percent success rate. This is a complete turn-around in the innovation industry.

In this webinar, Strategyn founder and CEO, Tony Ulwick will demonstrate how thinking about innovation and customer needs from a "jobs-to-be-done" perspective enables companies to create winning growth strategies and breakthrough products and services.


What you will learn:
* The shortcomings of listening to the "voice-of-the-customer"
* How to define a market from the customer's perspective
* How to create a growth strategy using the right customer inputs
* How to organize the innovation process around the right customer insights

Why measurement, analytics and optimized resource allocation are driving market strategy?

Many companies have yet to make the link between increased spend on data and analytics and the delivery of increased revenue and profit through the resulting improved strategy and tactics. They would all like to make the link without spending any money, but those of us that work in this field everyday, realize that will never happen. It takes time, money and management commitment to be able to factually connect marketing investments to increased revenue. My experience, based on the thousands of marketers that I’ve trained around the world, is that still about 50% of all companies (both big and small brands, both B2B and Consumer marketers) still spend significantly less than 1% of their marketing budget on marketing data and analytics. - Which really means they aren’t spending anything. No wonder they’re like ships lost at sea with a broken mast.

With the increasing competitive pressures they all face, marketers around the world are learning that marketing analytics can be a strategic weapon. They’re finding that a key component of success in analytics and then the derivative success in marketing requires that little four letter word, ‘data’. With the right data and analytics in place marketers can be more confident in the success of their tactics and can begin to make bolder and bolder moves to stay ahead of the competition and improve their marketing strategies.

This is not only true of traditional media but is also now becoming true of social media. With the overwhelming success of Facebook, marketers are now looking to determine the success of their exploding Facebook investments and our analytic results show that these have been very beneficial to the bottom line. With the right data and analytics in place - across the entire marketing mix - marketers are able to improve their allocations and with social media in the mix can start to shift investment out of other non-performing traditional media into these hot new social media channels (check out our new website at www.ROIofSocialMedia.com).

With the right understanding of the drivers of success marketers can build better strategies and execute better tactics to stay ahead of the competition. As a consultant in this area, we’ve seen increases in revenue due to analytics of up to 10%, increases in profit of up to 25% and increases in share of 2 to 4 percent. I would love to hear about your experiences in this area. Just let me know what you have also been able to achieve.




Guy Powell is the author of "Return on Marketing Investment" and founder of DemandROMI, a Marketing ROI consulting firm. Hear more from Guy at this year's Measure Up event, June 6-8, 2011 in Boston, MA

Lead Up To The IIR TDMR: Interview With Warren Sukernek of Alterian

With a month to go until until the Technology Driven Market Research event in Chicago, I'll be posting a lot more of the interviews I have been conducting with various presenters at the conference. I have 6 wrapped up already, and hope to finish a couple more prior to the event. To start off this next wave of posts, we have an interview with Warren Sukernek, Senior Director of Social Media Services at Alterian.

 

With a month to go until the Technology Driven Market Research event in Chicago, I’ll be posting a lot more of the interviews I have been conducting with various presenters at the conference. I have 6 wrapped up already, and hope to finish a couple more prior to the event. To start off this next wave of posts, we have an interview with Warren Sukernek, Senior Director of Social Media Services at Alterian.

This interview was conducted as a series of email exchanges over the course of a few weeks; so it is a complete and accurate record of all exchanges.

I was introduced to Alterian in 2009 and have followed them closely ever since. I’ve written about them several times here on the blog as an example of the “new competition” for traditional market research, and so far they remain one of the best examples of a technology driven company from outside of the MR space that is making an awful lot of smart decisions in crafting a highly competitive offering in our industry. I continue to be impressed by the exceptional quality of their team, the vision of their senior leadership, and their continual focus on innovation. They are aggressively positioning themselves to be a major player in the future market research ecosystem, and frankly I think many firms will have a hard time winning against them; their value proposition is simply far more in alignment with what clients are asking for from us.

I have never met Warren, but I am looking forward to sitting down with him at the TDMR and changing that. I certainly enjoyed our interview, and I think you will as well. I also think after reading this you’ll agree with me on the point that Alterian is a company that really does change the game in market research; hopefully this will help inspire more firms to adapt to the new rules!

LM: Alterian seems to be making a big splash with your rollout of new products and is generating a lot of interest within the market research space. Why do you think that is? 


WK: The research industry somehow knows social is a critical source, but hasn’t worked out how to sustainably integrate it into what they do, how they think and what they deliver; ironically, researchers are happiest when they have one data set, but often struggle when they have two e.g. groups and a quant survey. Our response has been to set up a business that is organized around all the datasets wherever they come from and use them as needed to generate the right insights. Tools like web journey and SM2, and particularly Alterian Alchemy  give clients access to real time data about their customers and the ability to slice and dice the data into actionable segments.  Thus they can then embed insight practices into both tactical and strategic initiatives using technology.

LM: What do you think are the major drivers of change in the market research space right now and how is Alterian planning to take advantage of those trends? 


WK: Most of the industry doesn’t understand social yet, so they tend to define it and access it through what is easy to see and analyze e.g. Twitter. Our view is that to understand online culture you have to acknowledge its complexity and look to understand what people are saying/ doing/ thinking whatever the platform or source. That’s why we invest in human based investigation and analysis rather than just counting what’s easy to count. We’re therefore guided by the knowledge that people live lives online and in the physical world and that to truly address a client’s needs we have to understand both of these realities to create a complete view of markets to drive the right behaviors and perceptions/ support innovation etc. As one of the first social media platforms to acquire insight skills within its portfolio, Alterian is leading the way in building insight thinking and traditional research metrics into our tools.  We are providing a reporting and insight service that not only looks at public data (social media), but also integrates it with internal and custom data.

LM: I love the model of data synthesis and delivery via online tools that Alterian has embraced although, as you said, it’s a fairly radical concept for the market research community to embrace. How have you overcome resistance to this idea within MR organizations, or have you sidestepped it by focusing on the CMO or Brand Management organizations? 

WK: As you know, Alterian has had many long term relationships with big brands and partners.  Thus, our primary focus has been discussion of our solutions with our core constituencies, marketing organizations.  However, there have been several forward thinking MR organizations that gotten very excited about our offerings.

LM: You’re referring to your acquisition of Intrepid when you discuss having those internal insight skills, correct? I thought that was a bold (and smart) move by your company and as a result I often use Alterian as an example of the type of firm that traditional MR suppliers should model themselves after or risk being replaced by. I think we’re seeing a similar trend playing-out with the recent spate of M&A activity of Marketing/PR Agencies absorbing MR-based firms and/or building out more insight-driven offerings. Thinking of your own evolution and in light of similar developments in related sectors, what do you think the market research space will look like in the next 5 years or so? 

WK: Thank you very much.  As you probably know, I joined Alterian as part of the acquisition, although my focus was on social media rather than market research.  However, given the proliferation of data that currently exists due to social media, there is a significant demand for actionable insights and the ability to analyze this dataset, particularly in the context of integrating with other data.  We have seen that social media can be very disruptive, not just to brands, but to the agencies that support those brands. Therefore, I think that the successful MR firms will embrace social media as part of their expertise and insight-driven offerings.  The agencies that apply strong insights to all datasets, regardless of origin will be the ones that thrive, in my opinion.

LM: Are you seeing more traditional MR companies just licensing the SM2 platform, or are more going for the broader Alchemy package? Also, for those that don’t know, can you outline the various products and services that Alterian offers? 

WK: I think that a lot of MR companies are dipping their toes into the water and trying to get a better understanding of social media monitoring and its fit with their traditional solutions.  Thus, we are seeing more interest in licensing the SM2 platform.  As agencies migrate from crawl to run, I am sure that we will see many focus on the broader Alterian Alchemy framework so that they can integrate multiple data sets into their analysis seamlessly.

LM: OK, last question: it seems that more and more we’re seeing clients leveraging social media to both create deeper relationships with consumers while also gaining strategic insights, an approach that has traditionally been anathema to market researchers.  What are your thoughts on the “blurring of the lines” between marketing engagement and market research that social media has helped create? How are clients using Alterian’s offerings in that respect? 

WK: I’m kind of a purist in this area.  I feel that engagement should best be left to the client as they know their product and customers best.  Thus, by responding directly to customers, they can develop those deep bonds with their target audience.  Correspondingly the strategy and insight agencies have the expertise to do the heavy lifting and make sense out of the unstructured data in a cogent, strategic manner.

This blog is co-posted with The Green Book.

Who is already signed up for Technology Driven Market Research?

Why do you need to attend Technology Driven Market Research taking place this May 2-3, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois?

You can:

• -Hear presentations focusing on the groundbreaking tools and technologies being used NOW and on the horizon, covering neuromarketing, virtual shopper behavior, social analytics, mobile research and more.
• -Gain the insights and knowledge from industry leaders who've already seen success implementing these technologies, including: General Motors, Nestle, Procter & Gamble and more. 
• -Network with these companies already registered to attend:

20 20 Technology * Advanis Incorporated * Alterian * American Honda Motor * Amway Corporation * Anderson Analytics LLC * Bain & Co. * Bovitz Research Group * Brand360 * CareerBuilder * Civic Science Inc. * Crimson Hexagon * CT Marketing Research * Cutting Edge Research * DavidDalka.com * Delmonte * DemandROMI * Disney Destinations * Dole Fresh Vegetables * ESPN Inc. * Flamingo Research * General Motors * Gongos Research * iCharts * Illume * Infosurv * Intel Corporation * Interviewing Services of America * Intuit * JD Power & Associates * John Deere * Kao Brands * KL Communications * Knowledge Networks * Kraft Foods * Land O Lakes * Leo Burnett * Luth Research * MARC Research * Market Strategies International * MarketVision Research * MedPanel * Millward Brown * Morpace * MSW Research * Nestle USA * NetBase Solutions * NeuroFocus * Newell Rubbermaid * Next Stage Evolution * NORC at the University of Chicago * One Point Mobile Surveys * Procter & Gamble * Pureprofile * Qualcomm * Qualvu * RSG Inc. * Sam's Club * Samsung Electronics * Schlesinger Associates * SJR Group * Smith-Dahmer Associates * Socractic * Southwest Airlines * Sterling Rice Group * StrategyOne * Survey Analytics * Symphonetic Insight * Symrise Inc. * Takeda Pharmaceuticals America * Techneos Systems * The American Institute of Architecture * The Cleveland Clinic * The NPD Group * ThinkVine * TNS Infratest  Forschung GmbH * TXTEAGLE * Vision Critical * Vistaprint * Wells Dairy * WL Gore & Associates * Wm Wrigley Jr Company * Zynga

As a reader of The Market Research Event blog, we’re offering you an exclusive discount of 20% off the standard rate when you (or a colleague) register for TMRE & Technology Driven Market Research! Mention code TMDRBLOG.  Register here.

The Private Brand Movement: Call for Presenters Extended!

UPDATE:

The Private Brand Movement

Building Brands at Retail. Insights. Strategy. Design. In-Store

September 19-21, 2010 • Wyndham Hotel • Chicago, IL

OFFICIAL CALL FOR PRESENTERS

Submission Deadline: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Friday, April 1, 20011



About the Event

From the producers of FUSE & Shopper Insights in Action, we present the 2nd annual Private Brand Movement, the first and only event to focus on the strategy of store brand design and development. New for 2011, we’re expanding the content to deliver the most comprehensive agenda on branding at retail covering everything you need from insight to creation to selling in-store.

With an unprecedented collection of client-side practitioner perspectives than any other event of its kind, it quickly became an industry choice, where retailers attend to focus on building branded portfolios that really connect with their distinct customer needs and brands attend to think differently about their retail partners and to seek new ways to collaborate in a more holistic business sense.

Full details here.

Facebook, J&J, Allstate & more to Share New Marketing Analytics - Plus Save $300 this Week

In a world where social media is growing at an overwhelming pace and online is driving the marketing department, it is becoming more and more difficult to measure analytics and ROI of your marketing efforts.

How are you measuring the success of your marketing campaigns?

Measure Up, June 6-8 in Boston, MA, is the world's most comprehensive cross-dimensional view of marketing measurement best practices. With a focus on return on investment (ROI) as it relates to the integration of traditional, online and mobile activities; specifically Social Media, this event is designed to answer business critical questions of today and tomorrow:

• How customers are using social media to drive their marketing activities?
• How can companies measure, manage and improve social media activities?
• How can companies incorporate the results into improved marketing strategies and tactics to drive higher revenue, profit and brand share?
  

Hear Insights in B2B Social Media Metrics, New Generation Marketing Mix Modeling, Corporate Strategy, Marketing Modeling & Analytics Techniques, Social & Mobile Analytics Integration and Operational & Resource Allocation From: Conversation, LLC, Foiled Cupcakes, ProfitStreams, Radian6, AbsolutData Technologies Inc., Allstate Insurance, Chadwick Martin Bailey, Digital Influence Group, United Federal Credit Union, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, EmpowHER, SABMiller Plc, TiVo, Cisco, EmPower Research, Johnson & Johnson, MarketingNPV, Shell, WebEx, Do Something, Facebook, Forrester Research, Location-Based Marketing for Dummies, Microsoft, Verizon, Kirkland's, Marketing Operations Partners, Marketing Operations Works, Redpepper, U.S. Army, and VisionEdge Marketing

Download the brochure for details.

Join us this June for a collaborative meeting of the minds to explore the New World of Marketing Analytics. As a reader of The Market Research Event Blog, we’re offering you an exclusive discount of 15% off the standard price when using discount code TMREBLOGMU by Friday, March 18, 2011. Register here.

Visit The Measure Up Event Page to learn more.

Are you Leveraging Neuromarketing? Technology Driven MR Will Show You How

A recent article in Fast Company has highlighted the growing use of market research technologies across industries, most notably in film production through the use of neurocinema. Neurocinema uses "neurofeedback to help moviemakers vet and refine film elements such as scripts, characters, plots, scenes and affects". This technique of capturing insights in real time is allowing film makers to capitalize on consumer preferences.

Interested in implementing neuromarketing tools and more of the latest technologies in market research?

Find out more this May at Technology Driven Market Research. Brought to you by the producers of The Market Research Event, TDMR tackles not only the technological advances in market research, but also focuses on the truly innovative, next generation techniques, that are shaping the future of business in general.

Featured Session on neuromarketing:

Dr. A.K. Pradeep, keynote speaker at this year's Technology Driven Market Research Event, was quoted in the article as saying, forecasting "real-time instant consumer brain response-based personalization" as the eventual evolution of this technology". You can hear more from Dr. Pradeep about the future of the industry this May, as he presents: Avatar 3D Comes to the Store Aisle.

Download the brochure for details and the complete agenda.

Lead up to the IIR TDMR Interview with Greg Heist of Gongos Research

This post is co-posted with The Green Book.

For our latest interview with presenters at the upcoming IIR Technology Driven Market Research Event the IIR and GreenBook bring you an interview with Greg Heist, Vice President of Research Innovation for Gongos Research.

I had the opportunity to spend 2 days with Greg and the team at Gongos Research last month, and I have to say that he and the entire Gongos team are some of the smartest (and nicest!) folks I have ever met. Gongos is a great example of a company firmly rooted in the absolute best of traditional market research while also reaching towards the unlimited potential of the new research paradigm. I was impressed by the innovative thinking and creativity of Greg, the way the entire organization is embracing the ideas he is championing, and their commitment to transform their business. I expect the success Gongos has had to date is just the tip of the iceberg; this is a company that will help lead our industry in the years to come.
This interview was conducted over several days via email. I think you'll find it interesting, enlightening, and maybe even inspiring. Without further ado (or gushing!) here is my interview with Greg:


LM: Gongos Research has been coming on strong with your roll-out of new products that are generating a lot of interest within the market research space. Why do you think that is?

GH: As an organization, there are three things that get us excited to come into the office everyday: the opportunity to work with our fellow employees, our desire to help our clients understand their customers in new ways by doing great research and our drive to leverage technology and innovation to create a new norm for marketing research.

I’d like to think that the products we’ve been developing—and in particular the ioCommunities mobile app we launched last September—are generating excitement for the same reasons we’re so excited about them: because they tap into an exciting new frontier for our field. Devices like smartphones have untethered consumers from their computers, and products like ioCommunities mobile are in sync with this cultural shift and truly create a real-time conversation with consumers wherever they are.

LM: What do you think are the major drivers of change in the market research space right now and how is Gongos Research planning to take advantage of those trends?

GH: Without question, the two major drivers of change in the research world are the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablet devices and the explosive growth of growth of social media as the primary way we engage with one another online. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that each of these is a revolution that has permanently changed our culture.
From my perspective, the fact that these two megatrends are happening simultaneously is sending shock waves throughout the historically “staid and steady” marketing research industry. It’s an exciting time to be in research because it is challenging all of us to either modify how we approach traditional methods or else rapidly create entirely new approaches. It’s personally fun to see all of this innovation going on and I’m constantly impressed by all of the great work various firms in our industry are doing.
From a Gongos perspective, we have made the smartphone revolution a core part of our innovation strategy. To that end, as I mentioned, we’ve launched the ioCommunities mobile app for iOS and our smartphone-based online survey platform (which works across all smartphone platforms). We’re diligently at work on the development of ioCommunities mobile for Android and plan to roll that out in the coming months.
In the social media sphere, we’ve been providing MROCs for our clients for over 5 years, and continuing to make our communities more “social” is another core thrust for us in 2011. We have various initiatives going on in that regard right now and, as I meet with employees working on them, I’m amazed by the excitement and the number of powerful ideas that are being generated. I really look forward to seeing how they all take shape!

LM: I couldn’t agree with you more, and it’s great to hear of a leading established firm like Gongos embracing these new trends and actively working to leverage them, rather than fight them! Based on your current plans regarding integrating mobile, MROCs, and other social media elements into your research offerings, what do you see as the next major development that you’ll be looking at? Gaming, text analytics, social media market mix analysis, or…?

GH: To be quite honest, we are either currently looking at or working on capabilities in all of these areas right now. There are a lot of interesting ideas kicking around amongst our team and we are working hard at prioritizing them based on our longer term innovation strategy. Personally, I’m really intrigued by the possibilities of applying gaming within an MR context. It’s probably the area that has spawned some of the most innovative ideas and everyone is really energized about them!

LM: Applying the “gamification” model to MR is one of the areas I’m most excited about as well. It would seem to be a great fit for Gongos based on your MROC product and internal data collection platform. Are you thinking of applying the gaming engagement model to your ioCommunities or are you actually exploring developing gaming interfaces as a data collection tool?

GH: At the moment, we have teams actively investigating both of these areas of gaming. Developing a game interface that delivers valid and meaningful research insights across product categories and brands while simultaneously being fun and engaging for players is a considerable challenge. If we ultimately decide to go down that path, it will be because we think we have a legitimate chance of achieving both of those objectives. To get something like that really “right” is going to take some time, but we are definitely interested in exploring it further.

LM: Gongos seems unusual in that you are more of a traditional Full Service supplier, yet seem to have an advanced in-house innovation and development team. Most of your competitors use 3rd party solutions. What drove you to go down the custom development path and where do you see the company headed in the future as a result?

GH: We started down the path of creating proprietary research platforms primarily because of some of the unique requirements our core clients had relative to data collection and analysis. When we looked out there for off-the-shelf solutions to meet these needs, we didn’t find any so we committed to develop them ourselves. Over time, that has continued to be true and we have been able to tightly integrate our community, survey and mobile platforms to provide some really robust capabilities for our clients.
We really like what we have created so far, but also see lots of areas where we can (take) these platforms individually and collectively. My team is focused on trying to both expand the capabilities of our existing technologies as well as developing new capabilities that will integrate with them. I certainly see us continuing to invest in this area since they really provide us with flexibility and unique capabilities that we wouldn’t have if we were solely reliant on 3rd party solutions. Needless to say, our developers aren’t lacking things to work on…

LM: Gongos is one of the few MR firms that I know of that has a senior level role, plus the infrastructure to support them, dedicated to innovation. Why did the company choose to invest in innovation as a core strategy and why do you think the industry as a whole struggles with the concept of investing in innovation?

GH: The reason we continue to invest aggressively in innovation is actually pretty simple: we’ve seen it help us deliver new kinds of insights for our clients and be a catalyst for our company’s growth. But, our experience also speaks to why it’s a struggle: it’s hard to create—and pay for—that infrastructure. Getting clients to embrace innovation requires extra work because we often need to educate them about what we have created and demonstrate why it results in good research. Finally, innovation requires constantly rethinking our assumptions about what marketing research is. It’s tempting to “go with the flow” and be content with doing things the way they have been done.
Internally, we are also focusing both on methodological innovation as well as technological innovation. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make both happen, and so I’m fortunate enough to have the opportunity to help rally the organization around both areas and ensuring that—at the end of the day—we are delivering purposeful innovation to our clients rather than simply innovating just for the sake of innovating.


LM: Based on your inclusion on the Honomichl list, it appears that you achieved the miraculous feat of growing during the Great Recession; how the heck did you pull that off?

GH: Well, first of all, we certainly feel fortunate to have gone through such an incredibly tumultuous time without experiencing a significant downturn in our business or laying off any of our employees. I think our company’s focus on long-term strategy coupled with the great work our employees have done with our client partners successfully helped us navigate through that time. During this period of time we also began some new client partnerships that quickly grew beyond our initial expectations, so that clearly had a positive impact on our growth, as well. We were also really transparent with our staff about how we were responding to the crisis and I think that helped our employees understand what we were doing and why we were doing it

LM: Thinking ahead 2-3 years, what do you think the Market Research industry will look like? What type of companies will be successful, what capabilities will be needed, and what new types of companies will be a part of what we think of as MR?

GH: I’m literally blown away by how rapidly things are changing in the research industry. There have been more disruptive innovations in the past 5 years than in the previous 15, without question. And, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. So, looking ahead 2-3 years, I see social media and mobile research quickly becoming a mainstream part of how companies gain insights from consumers. With that will come a continuing re-definition of what marketing research is and how it is used. I also see more and more technology companies entering the mix and offering specific research solutions and becoming even more formidable competitors for traditional research firms.
Going forward, I think we are all going to be increasingly challenged to embrace change and create change in how we help our clients succeed and grow. If our industry wants to remain relevant and viable long-term, I think our very future depends on it.
At the same time, I don’t want to end on a doom-and-gloom message! This is—I think—an extremely exciting time. There is so much good work being done and an incredibly innovative spirit is flourishing throughout the industry. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds and excited and proud of the fact that Gongos is a part of it.

LM: I agree; it’s an exciting time and I’m actually really optimistic about where the industry is going, thanks in no small part to companies like Gongos! OK, last 2 questions: can you give me a “sneak peek” into your presentation at the TDMR? What are you covering and what do you hope for the audience to get from it?

GH: My colleague Joyce Salisbury (Senior Manager, Global Market Research –New Methods, General Motors) and I are discussing the topic, “The App is Where It’s At: The Power of Untethering Online Communities”. In our session, we are going to be sharing our perspectives on how the powerful intersection of the smartphone revolution and online communities opens up an entirely new spectrum of ways to engage with and learn from consumers. We also will be talking about what we feel this means for the research industry from a generational perspective for Gen Y and beyond. We’ve learned a lot in the six months since the launch of ioCommunities mobile, and we’re looking forward to sharing our thoughts about where this rapidly emerging technology may lead us in the future.

LM: And finally, what’s next for Gongos Research in 2011? What new tricks that we haven’t covered do you have up your sleeves?

GH: Lenny, if I told you that it wouldn’t be much of a trick then, would it??? Seriously, though, since this interview has been about TDMR and what Gongos has been working on in the technology innovation space, we haven’t really talked about what we are doing on the methodology end of things to support the technology we’ve been developing. As researchers, we are really committed to helping our clients understand how they can best take advantage of these new technologies to produce great research. In light of that, we’ve got a “research on research” initiative right now using our mobile survey platform to conduct some very statistically rigorous comparisons of data collected online and via smartphones. Michael Alioto, Ph.D,our VP of Marketing Sciences, is leading this initiative and we feel as though it has the potential to strongly challenge some of the accepted “givens” about how mobile surveys and may help shape a new paradigm for them. We’re really passionate about what we are doing here and are looking forward to sharing the results of this later this year.
Great chatting with you, Lenny! And looking forward to seeing you at TDMR!!

About Greg Heist: Vice President, Research Innovation & Technology at Gongos Research
As the Vice President of Research Innovation for Gongos Research, Greg is responsible for guiding the innovation strategy at the company. From white-board concepts to product development, Greg and his team ensure that technology and innovation support a primary role – to make the research process more engaging for consumers and more meaningful and powerful for corporations.

A practitioner and moderator with over 16 years of research under his belt, Greg is a visionary at heart. He believes we are in the midst of an evolution in the way we conduct research, and he plans to help pave the way. As an industry speaker at events produced by the IIR & AMA and author published in Quirk’s Marketing Research Review, Greg has examined how advanced platforms such as virtual shopping and online research communities are increasing respondent engagement, while providing customizable, forward-thinking solutions for clients.

Greg received his BS in Industrial Administration from Kettering University, and his MS in Humanistic and Clinical Psychology from the Michigan School of Professional Psychology.

Capture Insights in Real-Time at Technology Driven MR

John Dick of CivicScience says that "consumer opinions are changing faster than they have ever before. Quarterly or monthly research is stale by the time the report is printed. We need to find new ways to measure consumer sentiment in real-time or we'll just be guessing."

What are you doing to capture insights in real time to understand your consumer in the moment?

Consistent with the quality of TMRE, Technology Driven Market Research delivers real-world experience-based presentations from the industry leaders and big brands together, sharing the tools and technologies that are being used NOW and those in the future to more clearly understand consumer behavior.

Featured sessions include:
* Avatar 3D Comes to the Store Aisle
* The Future of Market Research in 2015
* App Based Mobile Research Panel

Download the brochure to see the full agenda and session details.

Join us this May 2-3, 2011; in Chicago at the Technology Driven Market Research Event as we discuss, explore and debate the latest technologies and the resulting impact they are having on the market research industry. As a reader of The Market Research Event’s Blog, we’re offering you an exclusive discount of 15% off the standard price when using discount code TDMR11Blog. If you have any questions about this event, feel free to contact Jennifer Pereira at jpereira@iirusa.com. Register here.

The Private Brand Movement: OFFICIAL CALL FOR PRESENTERS

The Private Brand Movement

Building Brands at Retail. Insights. Strategy. Design. In-Store

September 19-21, 2010 • Wyndham Hotel • Chicago, IL

OFFICIAL CALL FOR PRESENTERS
Submission Deadline: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Friday, April 1, 2011
[Note: Papers are accepted on a rolling basis so early submissions are encouraged.]

About the Event
From the producers of FUSE & Shopper Insights in Action, we present the 2nd annual Private Brand Movement, the first and only event to focus on the strategy of store brand design and development. New for 2011, we’re expanding the content to deliver the most comprehensive agenda on branding at retail covering everything you need from insight to creation to selling in-store.

With an unprecedented collection of client-side practitioner perspectives than any other event of its kind, it quickly became an industry choice, where retailers attend to focus on building branded portfolios that really connect with their distinct customer needs and brands attend to think differently about their retail partners and to seek new ways to collaborate in a more holistic business sense.

Presenter Qualifications
We are seeking retail and CPG practitioners - who work to deliver unique brands across any and all retail channels including C-store, club, dollar, pet, mass, apparel and grocery- who can share best practices in the form of real-world case studies, stories of what's worked and what hasn't.. We also encourage you to submit team presentations, where two members of cross-functional teams co-present.

The Audience
In 2010, this event attracted more than 150 senior-level executives from the world’s leading retail, brand and design firms, mostly director level and above with expertise in strategy, package design, strategic planning, customer experience, innovation, product development, marketing strategy, brand management, structural design, consumer insights, shopper insights, shopper marketing and design research. Industries included Retail, CPG, Durable Goods and Consumer Healthcare.

Suggested Topic Areas:
• Customer Insights
• Shopper Insights
• Strategy Development
• Design
• Product Development & Innovation
• Packaging
• Go to Market
• At Shelf & In Store
• Shopper Marketing
• Consumer Trends
** We are also happy to consider topics not listed here that you feel would add value and be appropriate for the audience.


Submission Guidelines
Those who wish to be considered for the PBM speaker faculty should send the following via email to Amanda Powers, Program Director at apowers@iirusa.com no later than Tuesday, March 15, 2011:

1. Benefit-oriented title of session
2. Summary of session along with three audience key takeaways (no more than 150 words)
3. Full contact details for speaker including name, title, company, email, phone and mail
4. Bio of proposed speaker (no more than 100 words)
5. Speaker headshot jpeg (optional)

If your submission is selected, portions of your bio and summary will be used to promote your participation. In an effort to ensure the utmost quality, all final presentations will be subject to review by our content review board one month prior to the event.

Past Speakers from 2010
Maurice Markey, VP, Private Brands, SAM’S CLUB, Michael Ellgass, Senior Director, Grocery Marketing, WALMART, Annie Zipfel, Director of Owned Brands, TARGET, Kim Coovert, Brand Manager, Own Brand Food & Drug, KMART, Vassoula Vasiliou, Director of Creative Private Brand Development, OFFICE DEPOT, Nancy Cota, VP Innovation, Consumer Brands, SAFEWAY, Melissa Smith-Hazen, Director Strategic Design, Corporate Brands, AHOLD USA, Angie Hunter, Marketing Department, BLOOM/DELHAIZE AMERICA, Mary Rachide, DVP Private Brands, FAMILY DOLLAR STORES, Marcia Minter, VP Creative Director, L.L. BEAN, Moira Cullen, Senior Director, Global Design, THE HERSHEY CO., Kit Hughes. Art Director, PHILIPS

Speaker Benefits
Each speaker receives the following:
1. Free pass to the event including access to all pre-conference symposia and workshops
2. Continental breakfast and lunch
3. Admittance to exclusive speaker networking activities
4. Unique discount code entitling anyone who uses it to 20% off the standard conference rate

Attention to Vendors/Suppliers interested in participating in the event
This call is limited to client side presenters. If you are a vendor, consultant, solution provider, or technology provider and would like to speak at the Private Brand Movement or have a presence at the event, contact Sarene Yablonsky, Business Development Manager at syablonsky@iirusa.com or via phone at 646.895.7474.

How can you leverage NeuroCinematics?

As we get closer to the date of the Technology Driven Market Research Event (May 2-3, Chicago), it was interesting to read this article in Fast Company about the rise of neurocinema — especially in regards to market research while a film is in production.

Some may envision neurocinema research as something out of Clockwork Orange, but as we learn more about the way the human brain works and interacts with the world around it, the natural progression is to put this knowledge to work. In the Fast Company article Stephen Susco, author of the horror movie Grudge, says he sees neurocinema as the "natural evolution of major studios trying to maximize profit while making the early creative development, script and storytelling process more scientific as opposed to just based on experience and instinct."

Further on in the article, NeuroFocus CEO A. K. Pradeep, a keynote speaker at this year's Technology Driven Market Research Event, forcasts "real-time instant consumer brain response-based personalization" as the eventual evolution of this technology.

Indeed, if neurocinema is being used for script vetting or testing audience responses to trailers the further market research applications of this technology are obvious. How could you see this science applied to your industry? It may be logical for a producer to spend $100,000 on a scientific, neurological testing of a product, but at what point does this science become applicable to you? Have you begun using technology like EEGs and biometrics to measure responses already?

Share with us in the comments, or join us this May in Chicago to hear more from A. K. Pradeep and others about the future of neuromarketing.

Lead-up to the IIR Technology Driven Market Research Event: Interview with John Dick, CEO of CivicScience

This post is co-posted with The Green Book.

For the next edition of our ongoing series of interviews with presenters at the IIR Technology Driven Market Research Event, (May 2-3, Chicago), we’re talking with John Dick, CEO of CivicScience.

Last year I had the great pleasure to be introduced to John and his company as part of another venture I was working on. I was immediately impressed by the innovative approach to data collection and truly unique business model that the firm had developed. I’ve mentioned them in several other blogs as examples of the type of disruptive innovation that will help define the future of market research and I continue to be impressed by their ever increasing creativity and the potential applications of their technology for market research.

John is a great guy and it’s always a pleasure to speak with him. After reading this interview, I think you’ll understand why.

LM: Hi John, thanks for making the time to talk with me today.

JD: Hi Lenny. It’s my pleasure.

LM: Thanks John. So, CivicScience seems to be making a big splash and generating a lot of interest within the market research space. Why do you think that is?

JD: We're just a bunch of software engineers at our core, so we're still outsiders in the space. That novelty may have something to do with it. Or maybe, as someone once told me, it's because we're making survey research cool again. So much attention has shifted to social media listening because it's scalable and contemporary. But researchers still need to be able to ask direct questions, know the types of people they're talking to, and build a structured, quantitative set of data. Hopefully, we're helping researchers meet that challenge.

LM: What do you think are the major drivers of change in the market research space right now and how is CivicScience planning to take advantage of those trends?

JD: We see two big catalysts in the market: First, consumer opinions are changing faster than they ever have before. Quarterly or monthly research is stale by the time the report is printed. We need to find ways to measure consumer sentiment in real-time or we'll just be guessing. This can only be solved by engaging people during their daily lives, on a website they visit, on their phones, when they 'check-in' at a retailer, over their TV remote, gaming console, or anywhere else in their digital footprint. Our engineers are building the technology to power this engagement.
Secondly, customer demands are changing. Research buyers expect more accountability. We're even hearing about "pay-for-performance" models infiltrating the market. The winners in this new paradigm will be the companies that can best leverage crowd-sourcing, automation, and syndication to drive down costs while generating massive amounts of insights. Everything we do at CivicScience is geared toward these objectives.

LM: I agree with your assessment of the where the industry is headed, especially from an engagement standpoint. How does your technology help foster that new level of consumer engagement?

JD: One of our scientists likes to say that everyone time you add a question to a survey, you increase the level of bias in the people who will complete it. Lengthy surveys are a pain, which is why respondents often need payments or rewards. This is especially challenging with young consumers or busy professionals. So, our goal is to limit engagements to only one or two relevant questions at a time, delivered conveniently to people where they already travel online. Technology then allows us to connect all of those short answers, process millions of answers in seconds, and mine them for insights through automation.

LM: I think of your approach as being the quantitative equivalent to the social media firehose; can you explain your “macrosampling” technique and why it’s a viable alternative to a traditional online survey?

JD: We engage consumers in very short one to three-question polls inside third-party polling applications all over the web. Our engine delivers professionally-designed questions to users from a syndicated question library we manage. Initially, we match questions to the content of a website and deliver them to respondents at random. Then, by identifying return respondents through a persistent cookie or other digital ID, we can personalize the questions they see, based on their response history and proxy-based demographics.
Over time, we've cataloged millions of respondents who've answered sometimes hundreds of questions across multiple sites. By mining these massive data, we can begin to predict unobserved attributes, deliver questions with high information-yield, and target custom questions to specific users for paying customers. Web publishers love us because we achieve significantly higher participation than homemade polls and we give them deep audience analytics that they can't get from tools like ComScore or others...and we do it for free. In return, sites agree to let us aggregate their site data with others, from which we then sell custom and syndicated research products.
Because we don't pay respondents or pay to deliver the questions, we start with a very low cost structure, which enables us to produce low-cost custom research and daily syndicated research with high margins. We pass these savings on to customers who can now get access to real-time information from millions of highly-profiled respondents.

LM: That is certainly a fairly radical view compared to “traditional” research approaches; have you met with any resistance or skeptics? How do you handle the “classical” researchers when explaining the benefits of your model?

JD: Of course we've met with skepticism - and even some downright animosity. And frankly, we're not impervious to it. We have a long way to go to perfect our model. Right now we're really strong in a few consumer segments, like Millennials and others, and so we can deliver value to specific types of customers. But we've only scratched the surface at this point.

As for “'classical” researchers, we're really trying to involve them in our development. As you know, we have a number of formal advisors, business partners, and mentors ranging from political pollsters to anthropologists to economists to marketing research executives. We want the research community to challenge us, which is why we talk so openly about our methodology and technology. We want to be a utility for researchers, not a competitor. The more industry experts are involved in guiding us, the better our end products will be.

LM: You are on a panel discussion regarding Ethics and Privacy at the IIR Technology Driven Market Research event. What is your take on the current state of the industry regarding privacy and, considering your thoughts on the future of MR and profiling methodology, what will this issue look like in the future?

JD: Obviously, the issues surrounding privacy, particularly when you're dealing with digital types of data collection, are getting extremely complex. Companies like Facebook and Google have turned this world upside down. Our core philosophy is simple: First, people need to know what kind of information has been collected about them and what it's being used for. Secondly, that information should be made available back to them so that they can learn from it and be empowered by it. Beyond that, people will have to tune into the IIR panel discussion to hear more!

LM: That is a great core value John, and one that I think will resonate well with our colleagues. I can’t wait to hear more at the TDMR! I know you have a lot going on, so we’ll end with that. Thanks again for taking the time to chat. See you in Chicago!

JD: Great Lenny, I’m looking forward to it. See you there!

About John:

John is the Founder and CEO of CivicScience, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prior to launching CivicScience in 2008, he was the Managing Partner of GSP Corp, a government relations and business development company he founded in 2001. Under John's leadership, GSP grew to include 9 offices around the country before his successful exit from the company in 2007. John also serves on the board of numerous start-up companies and non-profit organizations, He is a frequent lecturer at the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business and Donald Jones Center for Entrepreneurship.

Lead up to the IIR TDMR: Who Is Lenny Murphy?

This post is coposted with www.tomhcanderson.com and The Green Book.

Boomerang Market Research Industry Interviews (On behalf of IIR's Technology Driven Market Research Event)

Leading up to IIR's Technology Driven Market Research Event, (May 2-3, Chicago),Leonard Murphy asked to interview me as part of a series of interviews with speakers at the event (on behalf of IIR and Greenbook). I agreed and suggested I interview him at the same time.

Many of you may already know of Lenny as he's quite visible in various market research related social media, most notably in marketing MRGA and Greenbook. While Lenny and I are both rather active on social media, our strategies and modus operandi are quite different. Lenny reached out to me several times about NGMR's participation in various initiatives including the GRIT (Greenbook Industry Trends Study). Initially I was very apprehensive to say the least. NGMR is a hobby of mine, albeit with definite benefits for Anderson Analytics. Still, I like the fact that it is not 'Pay for Play' like most of the other initiatives out there, and is totally non-commercial/free and without ads (even the FTO).

Still Lenny is not only relentless, but also extremely likeable. The more you talk to him the more likely he is to convince you that somehow collaboration is a good thing. Lenny is also extremely passionate about the market research industry, probably more so than anyone else I know. As he eats, breathes and dreams about research, he is also rather knowledgeable about industry trends. Therefore it was a pleasure conducting this interview with Lenny.

In terms of background we conducted the interviews simultaneously via email in a back and forth 'boomerang' type volley. So while the questions he asked me were quite different than those I asked him, I think you'll find they are also interestingly similar. [If you're interested you can also read Lenny's interview with me on Greenbook's blog or on the TMRE blog here.

THCA: Lenny, you're one of the more visible market researchers on various social media. Can you tell us a bit about what you do and why you do it?

LM: I guess that’s one way to put it! Really, I’ve somewhat fallen into this role.
In 2009 as I began to explore new business models based on what I saw happening within the market research industry and the transformation that social media and mobile has had on society and brand engagement I figured that I needed to explore those technologies more deeply myself. I quickly found LinkedIn Groups as an effective way to engage with colleagues to explore some of the ideas I was developing, and since I had been tracking the dominant trends in the industry for several years via the Research Industry Trends study it also became a natural way for me to share information that I found relevant.

Eventually the MRGA and the New York AMA/GreenBook both asked me to help them with their own social media efforts and out of that came the GreenBook Blog, which in turn created more opportunities like involvement with several events, and even a lively private consulting practice.
I’ve never been particularly shy about voicing my opinion, and although I am sometimes accused of being too visible, the reality is that lots of folks seem to find value in what I share across the MR-centric social ecosystem. As long as that stays true I guess I’ll keep doing it; if people get bored with me then I’ll stop!

THCA: I probably first became aware of you via Rockhopper research about six years ago. I remember seeing your ads, it was the same time Anderson Analytics started, and I liked your marketing and decided to add Rockhopper to the bunch of companies to keep an eye on. Can you tell us a bit about Rockhopper?

LM: Thanks Tom; it was a pretty cool brand concept, wasn’t it? That penguin logo alone opened more doors for us than just about anything else we ever did! So, the saga of Rockhopper goes like this: I had another company before Rockhopper called MDM Associates, which was primarily a research consultancy. I had developed a network of other small firms that I collaborated with on projects. Eventually some larger opportunities came along and we decided we needed to form a new company to handle it. At the time we wanted to be known as an insight consultancy focused on using cutting edge web-based methods, and I think we did very well in living up to that vision. We also lived up to our brand; the Rockhopper penguin is a very cool, scrappy little animal and we tried to be that type of company. We punched far beyond our weight class! We were early adopters of virtual focus groups, Flash-based surveys, dashboards, MROCs, etc... We even experimented with text analytics for a bit!
The rest of the story is a text-book case of growing too fast, lack of early senior leadership alignment, focusing on project execution vs. business management, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time!
We grew really quickly and that was sometimes challenging to manage, and there was an increasing amount of disagreement between myself and the CEO at the time about how to effectively manage the business. At the same time we took a few large financial hits in our first year due to clients not paying us and some very costly vendor-generated mistakes that had a severe impact on profitability. By late 2007 it became clear that we had a cash flow hole that was going to be challenging to deal with organically despite significant revenue growth, and the CEO became more interested in pursuing a different opportunity than in guiding the growth of the company. We decided to look for M&A options and had a few decent offers, but eventually decided that we wanted to plow forward as is. In early 2008 the CEO exited the company, I assumed that role, we negotiated a variety of deals to address the debt issue that had been dogging us and we started to grow again. The future looked very bright and our growth pains were behind us!
One of our strategies was to grow within a few key verticals and Financial Services had become our biggest segment from a revenue standpoint. We had grown to a $3.5M company by the end of 2008, with 2/3 of that coming from that space alone. Then the Great Recession hit and we took it on the chin hard and fast. Our core clients slashed all of their budgets and we began to see the commoditization of research happen in a big way. In 2009 we only generated $1M in revenue, but the awful thing was that it was based on the same number of projects as we had conducted in 2008!
So, suddenly we found ourselves in the unenviable position of our revenue having dropped by 2/3s, we couldn’t service the debt instruments we had negotiated as a result, we had the same volume of work at drastically reduced price points, and we were trying desperately to keep an incredible team of really wonderful folks employed. We tried everything from radical payroll cuts and non-essential staff layoffs to aggressively targeting new prospects and repositioning the company. But finally I had to accept that the business was just untenable under these circumstances.
I also began to realize that the model we had been using was flawed; any business that relies on labor-intensive ad hoc work with long sales cycles within a highly commoditized market is going to have serious growth and business sustainability issues. Eventually I and my entire team decided that the Rockhopper model just wouldn’t work anymore so last year we wound down the company. I began to look at new business models and opportunities based on everything we had learned and the paradigm shift that was happening both as a result of the Recession and due to the massive shift in consumer communications driven by social media and the mobile revolution. That has been my core focus for the past 18 months or so; creating a new business model that is radically different from Rockhopper and from most other companies in the market research space.
The good news is that Rockhopper was a tremendous learning experience for all involved and I’ve been able to put those learnings to practical use for my own new business ventures and in helping others with theirs.
Whew! Sorry for such a long answer, but you asked….

THCA: Because of your affiliation with so many different groups (MRGA, Greenbook, BrandScan, Cambiar, TMRD ... and most recently SurveyAnalytics), your frequent mention of many of these companies and your almost daily posts and tweets everywhere, some feel your social media style is a bit overly promotional. Also as it's hard to understand the relationships you have with these different companies it’s also hard to understand what bias if any there is to what you say in your blog posts.
What do you say to these critics?

LM: Well, I wouldn’t call those affiliations, at least not any more than anyone else who serves on the Boards of multiple companies, trade orgs, or events is affiliated with them. As a matter of fact, I think you and I both are involved in about the same number of various organizations and in many cases we both are involved with the same things! Is that confusing for your contacts? And who ever said blogging is unbiased? I am not a journalist; my blogging is my opinion, thoughts, biases, likes, dislikes, blind spots, etc... All thrown out there for the world to see! I am incredibly gratified that others find value in my ramblings, but I have never claimed to have any special objectivity or position of neutrality.
I am the CEO of BrandScan 360; that is my primary role and I rarely discuss BrandScan 360 publicly or within my social networks. I may mention some of my ideas as they relate to that concept when it’s appropriate within the context of a specific interaction, but I never promote my company via my blogging.
I am also a consultant to the New York AMA/GreenBook and function as the Editor of the GreenBook blog. I have chosen that platform as my primary blogging channel for the same reason you developed NGMR; to create a place to express my views on what’s happening in the industry and hopefully engage others in the debate. That is also the core reason I post on multiple groups; to stimulate discussion on the topics I think are of importance to the research industry.
I accepted that role with the GreenBook because we shared a vision of what was needed to help the industry through this transition period, and I’ve been very lucky to have been given a platform through that relationship to do that. Every effort that I have undertaken with them has been designed to benefit the MR industry, while of course to also create a solid business model for GreenBook. I see no conflict between those goals. Of course my personal brand has benefited from the activity, as would anyone who has done the same thing. That is a very nice by-product that I try to be appreciative and protective of.
Because I try to stay abreast of everything that is happening within our industry and I tend to blog about my take on that, it often means that I write about companies that are doing things that I think are innovative, interesting, or impactful. That is NOT promotion; that is news with context. I guess I am the social media equivalent of an op-ed columnist for the MR industry! I admit that when I become a fan of a company I talk about them, but that is because I think they have something to teach the rest of us, not due to any conflict of interest or bias. Since I am a natural networker, I also try to align people and companies that I think have synergies or that I simply like. I am paying it forward when I do that, not looking for a payoff.
My LinkedIn and Blog bio are very clear about the various things I am involved with, but for the record I am the Executive Editor (and creator) of the GreenBook Market Research Industry Trends Report, I am on the Board of the MRGA, I am Chairing the IIR Tech Driven Market Research Conference and Merlien Institute’s 2nd International Conference on Market Research in the Mobile World, I am on the Board of Advisors for the MRGA and NewMR Virtual Festival. In the case of everything but GRIT, I was invited to participate due to my blogging activity and emergence as an influencer in the debate on the future of market research. Of course I advocate for those events when appropriate, but it’s because I believe in them, not because I am shilling for them.
I have no “affiliation” with Cambiar other than profound respect for the experience of their team. They are also one of many contributors to the GreenBook Blog. I am pursuing some opportunities related to BrandScan 360 with Survey Analytics, but I’d be a fan even if that wasn’t the case because I think they are doing some very cool things, especially in the mobile realm. I have posted the results of a few of their pilots I’ve been involved with because I thought the project was interesting, not to promote their brand. If it had been another company doing the same stuff I would have been just as supportive.
Last but not least while I’m on a roll, I am utterly convinced that the model for engagement for business social media is identical to that of any other media; if you deliver a consistent stream of quality content, you will build a following. If that flow of content is inferior in quality, intermittent, or limited in some other way then it decreases engagement. The response to my social media activities has been consistent growth of followers/readers and a high level of engagement from them, so that means I am doing something that folks like. Also, since LinkedIn appears to be the platform that most of the industry has adopted for discussions, knowledge sharing, etc… and we know that the 80/20 rule is a huge factor in LinkedIn, I am simply leveraging my position as a “core user” in the same way that virtually every other core user is doing it, including you buddy!
OK, how about a question that I can give a short answer to next?

THCA: In regard to Rockhopper, would you do it again, why or why not? And if you were to do it again, what would you do differently?

LM: Cool, this one is short and sweet! Probably not. Launching a traditional boutique MR firm in this climate would be slow financial suicide. To be successful in the future MR firms must have some combination of either true strategic consulting bench strength, proprietary and cutting edge technology offerings or a unique use of existing technology, and recurring revenue streams via highly desired and critically useful products or services. Some firms may be stronger in one area than others and that will power their growth and guide their evolution; in some cases they may not even be what we think of as MR firms. Being a “me too” company, regardless of how you spin it, won’t be a recipe for long term growth and success. The deck is being reshuffled now across the board, and we’ll see an awful lot of winnowing out, consolidation, and repositioning over the next few years in response to those trends. We already are, although it’s early still.

THCA: Fair enough, and couldn't agree more. But indulge me in a somewhat silly question for a moment though. Knowing what you know now, if you had $1,000,000 and you had to start a market research consultancy, how would you spend it? What would your staff look like?

LM: Well, since I have been working to raise capital for a while now for BrandScan 360, it’s not that hypothetical! The majority would go towards technology infrastructure to support proprietary products and services, followed by developers, data analysts, and visualization engineers. Then comes marketing, sales, and support staff, preferably recruited from outside the MR space. I’d certainly want some heavy hitter consultants as well, but they would be doing double duty in business development and helping clients understand implications and outcomes. And by the way, we’d be focusing on emerging markets more than the U.S.; that is where the greatest opportunity lies, especially for emerging techniques like social media research and mobile.

THCA: Well you watch the industry rather closely, how exactly do you think it will look different say just 2 years from now? Which type of companies will be the first to disappear?

LM: I see the industry segmenting into Tech Providers (including DIY and field services), Insight Consultancies, and Niche Providers (Neuromarketing, Advanced Analytics & Modeling, etc..). The vast majority of the current MR supplier space is already working to reposition themselves as Insight Consultancies, and failing due to their commodity positioning with clients. I think this realignment of the MR industry will take 2-5 years, possibly less as the forces of social media and mobile migration speed up the pace of consumer cultural change and the concomitant demand from clients to engage with and understand global markets using insight generation methods that offer real ROI across the organization.
We may see the largest firms combat these trends by purchasing these new tech firms in order to replace their rapidly shrinking primary research revenue streams and having two different internal divisions: data collection technology services and strategic insight consulting. Many smaller MR firms will find it difficult or impossible to compete effectively under this scenario and will either:
1. Be absorbed into the corporate Goliaths
2. Refocus on niche market offerings
3. Develop their own innovative offerings that capitalize on the evolving needs of clients
4. Fold up shop

I suspect the fourth option will impact many of the current small to mid-size data collection-centric suppliers.

THCA: Also related to this, how do you see offshoring of market research affecting our industry?

LM: Offshoring is a business reality, an integral part of the global economy, and a viable model for many functions such as data processing, analysis, and IT services like programming, development, etc… For me the issue is not whether we should outsource, but like you with FTO, being transparent about it. Especially if it is primary data collection or customer service functions. I actually expect the pace of outsourcing operational elements to increase and focus on BRIC countries as well as other emerging markets. That will create an opportunity for firms in established markets to focus more on innovation, developing consulting expertise, and integrating with broader marketing organizations. That said, mobile and social media are wild cards in emerging markets and we may see a whole slew of advances coming from those countries driven by those technologies that could change the “balance of power” between established and emerging markets significantly. That will be interesting to watch unfold.

THCA: Honestly now, what do you think about the ISO thing ESOMAR and especially CASRO is now pushing? It's so far removed from my business. Is this something that would have been useful to you at RockHopper? By the way, did RockHopper Offshore, and if so how did that work out for you?

LM: I’ve been very public in not supporting the ISO initiative; if you are doing big standardized web trackers its fine I suppose, but that is not what MR is about and it won’t be a key driver of our future evolution. There will always be that type of need and for those firms that focus on that business it may be useful. MR is not about production models anymore, so I think it’s about 10 years too late really. It would not have been useful to me at Rockhopper, it’s not meaningful to BrandScan 360 and I don’t imagine a scenario in the near future that would cause me to sign-up for it.

THCA: The collaborated media effort between you, MRGA and Greenbook, it's quite different than NGMR which is completely not for profit. MR co. ad dollars these days are limited, so I'm wondering who do you view as the competition for content, advertising, directory listings etc.? Quirks, MRB, ESOMAR, MRA, ARF... or all of the above?

LM: Again, to be clear, I am simply a consultant to the GreenBook and an advisor to the MRGA. I do not play a direct role in their efforts; I just help them develop strategies based on my experience and insights. I do not directly promote their brands or products, although if I think they are doing good work that can benefit the industry I certainly will say that. I have done the same for lots of other organizations, even some that could be considered competitors for ad dollars.
For such a small industry, we have a high number of organizations, mostly trade orgs, that each offer targeted products and services for their members including directories and other publications, all of which are supported by ad sales. Honestly, I think it’s too much and I wish we would see some more consolidation (or at least cooperation!) between these organizations, but our industry is so fractured and politically motivated that it probably won’t happen. The GreenBook is somewhat uniquely positioned due to their connection with the NY AMA to work across all of these organizations from a content publication standpoint and that is what they are doing. They are choosing to focus on emerging technologies, new trends, and “next generation” research models as the core of their content strategy, and I think that differentiates them from the crowd of other publications. Ultimately the success of any of these organizations will be based on how well they serve the evolving needs of their readers/members/advertisers. I am sure each of the other organizations will find their own niche area and will either thrive or not based on how well they meet the needs of their constituencies.

THCA: You certainly are big on "collaboration", and I have to give you credit for your relentless efforts in this area. As you know, I can be relatively competitive, even in areas I don't consider core to my business. That said, how realistic is it to expect collaboration in an industry as fractured and ultra competitive as this one? It seems obvious to me that there simply isn't room for us all, curious, what specific issues if any do you think might actually encourage broad cooperation? It seems to me that every issue that comes up, is so quickly grabbed and tagged by the trade orgs, take "online privacy" (whatever that means) for instance. Do you agree with organizations creating their own committees to create rules for their members and hopefully the rest of the research community to follow? Do you feel an MR company be innovative and do what is necessary to compete in the future of research by signing onto various "We will not" clauses? It seems that's certainly not a strategy any leading edge company would take, would they?

LM: Thanks! I do believe in collaboration as an effective strategy and I work hard to build alliances with like minded folks to achieve mutual goals when I can. Sometimes it works great, sometimes not so much. I can be competitive, although I agree that you have me beat Tom!
As I said earlier, I think our industry is too fractured; I’d love to see a smaller group of trade orgs that represent our interests, and I also think they need to have a wider purview to include many of the newer processes that fall into the broad “strategic business intelligence/insights” function. In my opinion the AMA would be ideal since they have the widest perspective all of the components necessary for the successful reintegration of the research function into marketing organizations, and also have the largest client-side membership. In that scenario the MRA, CASRO, etc… should merge with AMA and they could be special focus organizations within the AMA. I’m not sure what the corollary organizations would be internationally, but I would hope to see the same thing happen between a large international marketing body and ESOMAR as well as the smaller national organizations. I think until we get to the point of having just a few trade orgs globally that can truly represent the interests of our very diverse (and getting more so every day!) industry, it’s just going to be a confusing mess and leadership will come from individual companies charting a new course, not industry associations. As those companies are successful, the rest of the industry will have to follow or be left behind.
I do think it is necessary to self-regulate and industry associations are an ideal way to do that, but too often we fall into protectionism and limited thinking rather than developing best practices and supporting innovation for the good of the industry. During this time of unparalleled transformation for market research, I think hobbling creativity and inspiration is a bad idea, and that is what I think could happen if we’re not very careful. It’s the Wild West out there and I think it’s way too early to define standard approaches and rules since we’re making this up as we go along and the industry will look radically different in a few years anyway. We can certainly work on ethical boundaries, but even those may be different than we have traditionally thought of since the walls between “marketing’ and “research” are becoming increasingly blurred by social media, MROCs, LBS-based mobile, gaming, etc… It’s those trends that will force new types of collaboration between various stakeholders as successful companies push the boundaries of what market research does, is, and can contribute to business growth.

THCA: "One Trade org to rule them" all eh ?

LM: Yes! We need more hobbits running the show since they resist the corrupting influence of the trade orgs better than the other races of market research! And I don’t think I can take that analogy further without really stretching and also embarrassing myself terribly!

THCA: OK, last question, as so many of these interviews get boring when they're too much about business and research. So I'm going to switch it up a bit. I believe sometimes you can tell a lot about a person from the simpler things, like what they like and don't like. So, if you don't mind we'll end with: What's your favorite movie? A good book you've read recently (business or leisure)? Two countries, one high on your list of places you'd like to visit and one low on the list.

LM: Well, based on the last question it should be no surprise that The Lord of the Rings would rank up there, but it would tie with The Empire Strikes Back, The Matrix, and Hellboy. Yes, I am a geek. The best book I’ve read recently was the latest Repairman Jack novel; it’s a great series by F. Paul Wilson, kind of a mash-up of crime/horror/thriller. Again, I am a geek a heart. I would love to visit India; I have a real affinity for that culture. I have no desire to visit any of the lawless nations in South America or Africa.


THCA: Thanks Lenny, look forward to seeing you and everyone else at the Tech Driven Market Research Event in Chicago

Follow Tom Anderson on twitter at@TomHCAnderson