On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast host Michael Howard (the Head of Marketing at Infotools) was joined by Oscar Carlsson, Chief Innovation Officer at Cint. Cint is a market research technology company that provides innovative solutions for businesses to conduct research quickly and efficiently. Oscar oversees innovation in new business areas as well as Cint’s presales and sales engineering team and is involved in M&A activities and thought leadership. He also focuses on delivering the highest data quality and mitigating fraud in the Industry. In this episode, we discussed the role and usage of AI in the workplace, with a particuar focus on those in the insights industry. The two main talking points were around its usage, which frighteningly, is often more prevalent than managers may realize. The second was around its use in the research world and how it is affecting data quality and fraud. As always, employees need to be careful of the outputs it provides, checking them like you would a junior employee. We hope you enjoy the show. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover, a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

This latest episode of Now that’s Significant, has host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools, interviewing John Ziegler, CEO of Acclaro, a consulting firm that delivers targeted insights for the investment sector. Acclaro helps middle market clients in the M&A ecosystem focus on the right companies and helps management teams focus on the best options for growth, post-close. In his role, John uses his deep experience in management consulting to drive Acclaro’s strategic direction, focusing on the firm’s continued transformation. In this episode, we give market researchers some inspiration for broadening their approach to their insights operations, particularly in light of the rise in data quality and fraud issues the sector is facing, which even includes the removal of incentives! While Acclaro's sweet spot is in merger and acquisition space, there are definitely some learnings that can be applied for other industries as well. We hope you enjoy the show. This latest episode of Now that’s Significant, has host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools, interviewing John Ziegler, CEO of Acclaro, a consulting firm that delivers targeted insights for the investment sector. Acclaro helps middle market clients in the M&A ecosystem focus on the right companies and helps management teams focus on the best options for growth, post-close. In his role, John uses his deep experience in management consulting to drive Acclaro’s strategic direction, focusing on the firm’s continued transformation. In this episode, we give market researchers some inspiration for broadening their approach to their insights operations, particularly in light of the rise in data quality and fraud issues the sector is facing, which even includes the removal of incentives! While Acclaro's sweet spot is in merger and acquisition space, there are definitely some learnings that can be applied for other industries as well. We hope you enjoy the show. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a market research podcast, host, Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools is joined by Dan Wasserman, Chief Operating Officer at KJT. KJT is a full-service, strategic market research and consulting firm that is focused on the healthcare industry. Dan has worn many hats at KJT for the past 13 years. He has run a research team, focused on both market research as well as health outcomes research, and has served as an operations leader, overseeing KJT’s information security management, research compliance, research operations, analytics, and general business operations. He has led the implementation for professional services automation, and more recently has gotten deep into the rise of generative AI. He’s presented at IIEX.AI and also developed a prompt engineering course available to anyone in the insights industry. In this episode, we talked about Dan's experience with generative AI in market research, with a focus on prompting. Themes that arose in the conversation included: > How different prompting generative AI tools is to your standard Google searches. > Advice on how to prompt well, in order to get the best out of the large language models. > Why prompt 'engineering' sounds technical and over many people's heads, but why it actually is relatively straight forward when you know the ins and outs. > The need for high-quality data with LLMs as well as having a good combination of primary and secondary data. > Confidence levels with what is presented by generative AI platforms and having a level of explainability - understanding how the AI arrived at its output. > Some insight into Dan's 2-hour, asynchronous prompt course that he wrote. Click here for the link to the prompt course. We trust you enjoy this episode. Please feel free to leave a review or share this with others. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools, was joined by Alex Culshaw, Head of Qualitative Research at SparkMR. Alex has 20 years’ research experience in both the public and private sectors – in particular, the healthcare, B2B and consumer industries. Experienced in using traditional and new methods to bring rich and actionable insights to leading brands, such as 3M, SC Johnson, Husqvarna, Nestlé and many others, Alex specialises in online market research communities and the commercial application of Qualitative research, including models and frameworks for interpreting results.  On this episode, we discussed: The book qualitative research experienced when it comes to online communities, accelerated in part by Covid.  The boom is good news, but there are some unexpected difficulties requiring agile problem solving from researchers with this methodology.  Alex covers three common pitfalls that could trip up even the most experienced researcher plus how to avoid / overcome these. And they talked about a few tricks for accessing human truths in online qual research. We hope you enjoy the show. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

On this latest episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools was joined by Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing. With a wealth of knowledge and expertise in helping market research teams maximise the ROI they have within their organizations, Priscilla provided some excellent insight and food for thought. Centred around her new book, Collaboration is the new competition, Michael and Priscilla jumped into the themes of the book - which even included a reading. Check out the book here Home - Priscilla McKinney We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did recording it. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

Fresh off the back of ESOMAR Congress, Ray Poynter joined us on this latest episode of Now that's Significant to talk about the big challenges facing Chief Market Research and Insights Officers within corporate organizations. Host Geoff Lowe, the New Zealand ESOMAR representative and Director at Infotools, bring two different perspectives on this critical topic. The discussion began with the changing nature of the head of insights within an organization, particularly around the need for leadership, coaching, and mentoring, rather than more skewed to order taking and commissioning of the past. Check out the full episode for the whole picture. We trust you'll enjoy it. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

This episode of Now that’s Eignificant, a Market Research Podcast. has host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools interview Holger Geissler, Managing Director of Succeet GmbH, organizer of the leading European trade fair for insights, data, analytics. He is also managing director and founder of Smart News Publishing House, which operates the business portals marktforschung.de, the German word for market research, and CONSULTING.de. Holger previously worked for over 20 years as a market researcher including as member of management board for the research agency YouGov. Holger came on the show to talk about the optimism he has for the insights industry in Germany (and Europe) as well as the biggest European trade show for the insights industry, Succeet, which will open its doors on 25th to 26th of October in Wiesbaden near Frankfurt in Germany. We hope you enjoy the episode. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us on this latest episode of Now that’s significant, a Market Research Podcast. This is your host, Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools. Today, we’re joined by Lauren Demar, Chief Sustainability Officer & Global Head of ESG at Ipsos.  Lauren came on the show to talk about matters of environment, social, and governance in relation to business - through the lens of market research. We discussed: - What ESG is and what it isn't. - How ESG plays out in the work and operations of Ipsos - What market researchers can do to help their organizations' ESG initiatives - Some of the traps and pitfalls organizations are prone to regarding the rollout and adoption of ESG principles and practices - How organizations can embrace profit and planet - they're not mutually exclusive like they once were. - And finally some of the wins that Lauren has seen on the ESG front. We hope you enjoy the show. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover is a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

On episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Charlotte Hearn, the Business Development Lead at Infotools, takes the host responsibilities for her first time. She was joined by Jane Frost CBE, CEO at the Market Research Society. Jane has over 30 years of experience in board level marketing and strategy positions in major blue-chip companies and public bodies. Impressively, Jane holds over 150 awards for advertising, branding, and design, as well as being executive producer of a double platinum record. She’s currently leading radical change at MRS to enable it to improve its profile and expand its membership. Jane came on the show to discuss the recently updated MRS Code of Conduct and how adhering to it can benefit individuals, organizations, and the society. Jane and Charlotte covered several areas in this discussion, including how it isn't beholden to any technology or methodology. We hope you enjoy the show. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, we make it easy for to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover, a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool. Feel free to check out our platform and services at www.infotools.com

Thanks for tuning into this latest episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast. Host John Bird, EVP Client Development at Infotools is joined by Ed Keller, Executive Director of MRII, The Market Research Institute International. Ed is also the CEO of The Keller Advisory Group. He is widely recognized as one of the foremost experts in word of mouth, influencer marketing, and consumer insights. Ed is an inductee into the Word of Mouth Marketing Hall of Fame as well as the Market Research Hall of Fame, was an ESOMAR Insight250 awardee in 2022 and a judge in 2023. Ed was a Social Intelligence 50 honoree in 2023. He is also an author of the book, The Influentials, which has been called the "seminal moment in the development of word of mouth." Ed joined us on the show to discuss the importance of an always-learning mindset that market researchers need to possess, which can help them be even more successful in their roles. Ed shares some insights into a recent study the MRII undertook, which provides insight into the career paths and job satisfaction, skill gaps and training opportunities, and opinions on the industry as a whole. Interestingly, most people felt they could benefit most from data visualization, followed by AI, advanced analytics, text analytics, and Generative AI. He also uncovered that only 1 in 5 market research professionals planned on a career in market research before entering the industry. And only 39% of those whose first job was in market research are still in the industry today. Additionally, Ed also spoke about the benefits organizations can access when they prioritise learning and development, unlocking the potential of people in this ever-changing working environment. We hope you enjoy the episode.

This episode of Now that’s Significant, a market research podcast sees host Keri Vermaak, Regional Engagement Director at Infotools joined by Arundati Dandapani, Founder of Generation1.ca, a social enterprise media platform and community that places North America’s newcomers at the forefront of data and insights innovation globally.  Arundati has been thinking a lot about the future, and how we shouldn’t be afraid of the change that is required to be successful market researchers in the years ahead. We shouldn’t be afraid of our identities either or think of them as limiting boxes of what we know and what we don’t. She goes on to discuss the level of culture shock, that is connected to coping with all the change that is coming, the innovation and disruption taking place in our sector. This is softened by the incredible level of productivity and quality of insights available to us now, and the type of talent and skills we can harness for success. And Arundati also shares some ways we can maximize our individual and collective potential in this podcast. Here are some links from the episode: Skills study - https://generation1.ca/2023/05/18/fighting-the-data-deluge-less-understood-truths-about-insights-and-innovation-today/ Career fair - https://www.airmeet.com/e/d6d5f5c0-241a-11ee-987e-815357f1e2f7 Correction: In the episode we mentioned "Bill C-24", when it should have been "Bill C-27". We hope you enjoy the show.

This episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast was hosted by Michael Howard, the head of Marketing at Infotools. We were joined by a familiar name for those of you who have been following the podcast, someone who has just the study we need to help us understand what’s going on in the mind of consumers in these incredibly uncertain economic times we’re travelling through. And that person, was Lilah Raynor, the CEO of Logica Research. Lilah and her team have produced the Future of Money Study, tracking the behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets of consumers since 2017. The study is showing how different generations are reacting to the large, seismic disruption we are facing from the fallout of the pandemic, the Russia-Ukrainian war, and more. Lilah goes into detail some of the findings of the study, including a new micro-generation she calls Zillennials, and gives some great advice for researchers and employers alike on what matters to these younger generations. We hope you enjoy the show.

This latest episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, sees host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools, talk to Pam Goldfarb Liss, president and Big Brain of LitBrains-Igniting Ideas!, a full-service qualitative research agency. Pam Goldfarb Liss is a 25-year-plus veteran qualitative research consultant and moderator who has moderated and interviewed kids and teens from now three generations – Millennials, Gen Z and now Gen Alpha. Her many years of experience includes work with subject matters that range from soda pop and hamburgers to diabetes, urinary tract infections and hospitals. Pam loves the never-know-what’s-coming next insights that come from not just working with this growing demographic, but understanding the context and impact of their ideals and needs. Pam joined us on the show to discuss how market researchers often ignore one of the most important demographics, which has some potentially significant long-term impact. And that demographic? Children and teens consumers. She shares what some great advice on what is necessary to have success in market research studies with young consumers.

With all that's happening in the world today, from a political perspective, the upcoming elections taking place around the globe, the recent year we've witnessed in pre-election polling and current perceptions of polls, we were lucky enough to sit in and record a panel discussion on this very topic. It took place after the Research Association of New Zealand's AGM. You'll hear from industry experts on why polling matters in society. There's also a Q&A section that took place at the end of the episode to just before we do crossover. **Please note** We wanted to set an expectation from an audio quality point of view. Unfortunately, it's not quite as clear in some parts as we would have hoped since this was recorded in an external facility. But nevertheless, there is some great food for thought in there, and we highly encourage you to hear the episode out, and I'm sure you will enjoy it, too.  This discussion's genesis came about as a result of a recent opinion piece published in the NZ Herald, where Mike Hosking wrote “…the polls as they currently stand are not particularly accurate.” But as we know, political polls are an essential part of maintaining open democratic systems like ours. They tell us the mood of the electorate at a particular point in time and allow people to vote in that context. Panelists are as below. Representing the pollsters: Founder of Curia Research. Pollster to Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders… David Farrar Representing Academia: Deputy Director, Healthier Lives National Science Challenge. Associate Professor (Honorary), Department of Statistics | Waipapa Taumata Rau / The University of Auckland. Managing Director iNZight Analytics. And co-author of “Understanding Public Opinion Polling in New Zealand (May 2023)… Andrew Sporle  Representing the Fourth Estate: With NZME, working on the BusinessDesk team's election coverage, focusing on political parties’ policies and plans to address issues facing New Zealand… Dileepa Fonseka And representing the Research Association: Founder Baseline Consultancy. RANZ Life Member and RANZ Political Polling Spokesperson. Masters degree in Geography, graduating, in fact, at the same time as me with the same degree but with much better marks… Murray Campbell The episode covers: A response to the claim that the polls as they currently stand are not particularly accurate.Looking at various failures and sources of errors in polling from around the world.The influence certain events can have on polling and electoral results.The changing demographic makeup of the electoral roll.Impact of advanced voting on polling.The role of political polling in society. We hope you enjoy the episode.

This episode of Now that’s Significant, a market research podcast features Diana Lucaci, the Co-Founder and CEO of True Impact. Diana is a Board Member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), Canadian Representative of ESOMAR and Committee Member of the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). She holds a degree in Neuroscience and Psychology from the University of Toronto.  Diana and host Michael Howard (Head of Marketing at Infotools) discuss the value that market researchers can bring, regarding the increase of customer loyalty, when they help their organizations to better understand attention and emotion. In this episode, we talked about: The effect and the need to understand attention and emotion to pull on these things, to draw on these things as well, to understand consumers and to be able to use neuroscience and other means as well to give those traditional methods to try and predict market behavior and help consumers to move through, whether it be your website, your product to choose you at the store, etc., as well.We briefly touched on the value of loyalty on a brand as well.We touched on the role of traditional research in terms of helping improve the overall neuroscience projects that we're going through as well, and then vice versa as well.We had to look at it's not enough just to use things that typically pull on emotional strings, but we have to, I guess, use some carefully and thoughtfully in a way that is contextually relevant to the consumer as well, but also relevant to your brain, too, if you've just got something there for the sake of it, then people do start raising questions and they can quite easily switch off as well. If it isn't that relevant.We had a look at some of the content scientist, so they had the concept testing and how it evolved over the years as well in response to innovation and being able to do things now and ours that used to take a lot of years as well, months rather, or days to some really shortening of time and cost as well too, to be able to help marketers to make better decisions in terms of the projects that they're doing.You also shared about some of the big mistakes marketers can make are often trying to do too much. Whether that be key messages or CTAs call to actions being able to just focus on one main thing that is directly related to the strategic directives or objectives of the brand or the campaign as well is really key - which is ultimately about being more commercial.And lastly Diana touched on some of your favorite projects that you've done as well, We hope you enjoy the show. 

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools is joined by two esteemed representatives from ESOMAR in North America. The first is Bob Birdsell, ESOMAR’s Membership Development Director for North America and the second is Dan Fleetwood, President of Research Suite at QuestionPro and the chair of the North American Representative team for ESOMAR. Bob and Dan share in the episode some great insights into the impressive growth and potential that they're witnessing out of Canada and the United States. On the show, we discuss: ESOMAR reportsGrowth opportunities for the industryData quality initiativesESOMAR CongressThe AI TaskforceAnd more We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools is joined by Lauren Isaacson, founder of Curio Research, a market and UX research consultancy based in Vancouver, British Columbia specializing in the green technology sector. Lauren is a researcher with over 20 years of experience working as an in-house researcher for various companies and on staff at a number of advertising and research agencies over the course of her career. Now she helps companies improve the experience, accessibility, and messaging of their digital products for both the business and consumer sectors. On this episode, Michael and Lauren discuss: - How research accessibility helps companies hear from large, diverse, and growing market - Why we shouldn't be intimidated by the possibility of having someone with a disability as a participant or respondent. - The reason why we need to keep our processes simple and flexible - Asking participants what they need to fully participate in the group or interview - Defer to their expertise - Don’t use fancy question formats in surveys - How the industry needs to normalize incorporating people with disabilities in research, 20% of the population is significant  We hope you enjoy the show.

This episode of Now that’s significant, a Market Research Podcast sees host, Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools, speak to Steve Mossop, Executive Vice President of Leger Vancouver. Before this, Steve was president of Insights West who Leger acquired in late 2021, and prior to this, Steve was at Ipsos for 17 years managing 30+ client service staff in multiple cities after starting his career at the Angus Reid Group and TNS in earlier years. And what might give away what we’re going to be talking about today, Steve has, impressively, correctly predicted the outcomes of over 25 elections over his career.  In this episode, we discuss the crucial role of election polls, and notably, how they're actually far more accurate than many realize. We hear how Steve got into polling and some lessons he's learned along the way. Steve shares the role of polls and how they can be used to help gauge public opinion, and also encourage others to vote. We discussed how one of the best indicators of whether or not someone will vote is if they know the election day date. We talked about how the main pollsters got it so wrong in the USA over the past two elections. Steve shares how important it is to know your sample in order to minimize fraud and maximize the most realistic projections. We hope you enjoy the episode. Regards, Michael and the team at Infotools.

On this episode of Now that’s significant, a Market Research Podcast, host Michael Howard (head of marketing at Infotools) was joined by Kathy Cheng, founder and CEO of Nexxt Intelligence, the Toronto-based research technology company behind Inca, conversational AI purpose-built for market research. Kathy is an entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience in the market research industry.  Kathy's significant statement for the show revolved around how technology can make market research more human. One of the key ways Kathy saw this happening was through the use of conversational AI, being able to probe further into respondant's views or positions on certain subjects - which Kathy described as active listening. Probing for greater clarity wasn't the only positive outcome though, AI can also help to increase engagement and completes as well, plus, it can help avoid the painful coding process through advanced tech analytics. Ultimately, technology is helping the fundamentals of market research to become stronger in these three ways: 1.   Human-centricity, with tech such as conversational AI we can finally put our most precious resource, research participants at the center, and create experiences that are effortless or even delightful for them, we can actually listen to voice of customer, in their language with more colours and texture at scale. 2.   Better data quality – enaged participants --> considered responses. 3.   Researchers – we are better equipped and can become better storytellers. We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Daniel Berkal, SVP Research at The Palmerston Group was hosted by Michael Howard, Head of Marketing at Infotools. Daniel's team has conducted literally hundreds of energetic market research projects of various sizes, and specializes in immersive methodologies and hard-to-reach participants.  In this episode, we talked about the key role that creativity should play across the market research process, in order to get the best results for our clients, their customers, and consumers in general. Daniel spoke about a course he's running that focuses on injecting creativity in recruiting, methodology design, and reporting. It's not about doing things differently just for the sake of it, but to improve on our ability to understand people and achieve meaningful results. The discussion touched the role of technology as a way of approaching each phase creatively. We hope you enjoy the show.

This episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast sees Infotools' Head of Marketing Michael Howard speak to InsightsNow's Chief Research Officer Greg Stucky. Greg joined us again on the show, this time to talk about the one thing that people who are really good at innovation don’t really want you to know about. It really is the insider’s secret that you will likely never see in books or taught in universities. That secret is: The most valuable piece of information you have as an innovator is the size of the aspirational gap in a specific moment in a person’s life. If you know what the context of the moment is and what that gap is, then you are equipped to build a product for where people desperately want to go out and purchase.  The episode saw Greg and Michael discuss a couple of examples of how moments and the aspiration gap play out in the real world, and they being sustainability and breakfast. The latter of these two were discussed in relation to the context (it's not good enough from a product perspective to think about just food in the morning but to go further than that i.e. food in the morning when you're in a rush), needs (for example their needs states, goals, desires, aspirations), and their motivators. We also looked at some of the reasons why such a gap exists, and these can be quite varied. A big one of these being cost. Another being the benefit trade-offs. From a breakfast perspective, if you need to eat breakfast on the fly, something that's hand-held and not messy will likely trump something that is sustainable. We hope you enjoy the episode.

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, host John Birdis joined by Melanie Courtright, who serves as the CEO at the Insights Association, the leading voice, resource and network of the marketing research and data analytics community in the US.  Melanie and John draw on their extensive experience in the market research space to discuss some of the latest issues and challenges facing the industry. They also explored how the Insights Association is helping its members navigate the seismic changes that are impacting the world. In this episode, they touched on: Generative AI, what it means for market researchers, and how the industry needs to make sure it is not lumped in with Generative AI. If it is, then it will need to comply with impending AI legislation - rather than just a portion of it. Melanie discussed Insights Association’s Pillars (Protect, Connect, Inform, and Promote) and how it is help its members and the industry operate effectively. They talked about the global data quality initiative in which multiple associations and organizations are contributing. There was raised several ways for insights professionals to get involved with the Association's activities, including CRC, a must attend event for corporate researcher. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that's Significant, Host Geoff Lowe, Director at Infotools and Chair of the Research Association of New Zealand, was joined by two industry stalwarts, Paul Graham of Waka Kotahi, and Colin Yee of Glasshouse Consulting. Paul and Colin joined us on the show to talk about their sustained market research partnership in the road transport sector, which has spanned 25 years. Fittingly, this episode number shares its number with one of the most famous roads in the world - Route 66. Waka Kotahi, New Zealand's governmental transport agency, has a primary function is to promote an affordable, integrated, safe, responsive and sustainable land transport system. The episode explores all challenges and benefits that come from such a prolonged relationship, the significant team that it took to achieve the results it did, and some of the reflections both parties have had over the past two and a half decades. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, we’re joined by Karine Pepin, Sr. Vice President at 2CV, an insights solutions market research organization for a complex world. We discussed how market researchers need to rethink how they view their sample, treating it not as a commodity but rather as an asset. By taking this view, market researchers are better able to improve quality of the data going into the analysis process, rather than trying to fix what’s broken once it’s already in play. The intent is obviously not to dismiss the value and role of data cleaning tactics like fraud detection software, as well as in-survey and post-survey checks, but cleaning up sample before a question has even been asked is far more valuable for all involved. Karine discussed how being far more intentional in whom we recruit can be a big aspect too, with a potential swing back towards the previously written-off channel in social media. We talked about how we can start targeting the 95% of people who don’t engage in market research, to try and see how we can reach them in order to improve our representation. Ultimately, taking time to disrupt our ways of working and improve our overall attitude and approach to sample is worth the hassle. We’ll all be better off for it.  We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Horst Feldhaeuser, Group Services Director at Infotools hosts Anthony Ahiabuike. Up until September last year, Anthony was the Director Strategy & Planning: Consumer & Market Insights at Reynolds. Anthony came on the show to share some reflections after a commanding career in the insights world. He opens with a great sentiment on the beauty and connectedness of the world, and a reminder of how we need to live in harmony with one another. With that as a backdrop, Horst and Anthony discussed: - The speed of technology advancement and for market research this presents an opportunity to gain deeper understanding of consumers - The speed of human interactions and how this is relevant when communicating to consumers, as well as when interacting with internal and external stakeholders - They talked about the importance of being curious, showing interest and be fully engaged in your field, whether that’s as an external partner or internal stakeholder - The then discussed how this helps client teams to deliver better, more meaningful and actionable insights - They raised the point that we as insights professionals need to be aware that sometimes our information end users are focused on specific outputs only, while we might be able to help them to see the bigger picture and add additional value insights - Most importantly though they talked about how life is a collaboration of people and that we can choose lead it with kindness, love and inclusion. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that's Significant, we were joined by Dr Parves Khan, who has been working in the field of data analytics for almost three decades, leading the global insight functions across private and public sector companies including FTSE 100 businesses. As a board member of London Women in Tech, a group of over 5,000 members dedicated to normalising gender balance and equality in the UK’s tech industries and of the G100 movement, a global movement of women leaders committed to bringing about gender parity in the workplace and beyond, Parves is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. She has published several articles on women in leadership and has a book on leadership coming out next year published by Pearson Business Books - called The Power of Women: Stop blocking and start empowering women at work. You can pre-order this on Amazon now In May 2021, Dr Khan was awarded the accolade of being one of the UK's 20 top most inspirational women in Data & Technology by Women in Data which is a movement and a force for change in the realm of data science and analytics. In the episode, we talked about how we can get greater representation in leadership. Parves discussed some of the systematic challenges women are facing, but which aren't exclusively for women to solve - it's something everyone needs to address. After all, we're all siblings, parents, friends, etc. We looked into the benefits that businesses and societies stand to gain when there is great representation. We talked about how tokenism always fails, and how change needs to be permanent and authentic. And Parves closed with some handy advice for women looking to get into a leadership role.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast. Horst Feldhaeuser, Group Services Director at Infotools, hosted John O’Toole, a seasoned Director, CEO, Sales and Marketing Professional, Entrepreneur and Business Growth Consultant. John is the Lead Partner – Marketing & Innovation at Nudge Partners, a managing consultant at Brandbiz Limited and also the Chief judge for the REAWARDS, New Zealand’s bi-annual celebration of outstanding market research and insights work. Horst spoke with John spoke about the latter of these involvements, to reflect on the Research Association of New Zealand's Market Research Effectiveness Awards - REAwards. The episode covers: > How market research helps organizations to short cut to consumer wants and needs, understand challenges and opportunities, and make better business decisions faster and with lower risk. And that’s what the REAWARDS showcase in particular. > How being a small but highly innovative country gives New Zealand insights professionals an advantage and often also leads to better long-term relationships - a growing trend in the REAWARDS over the last few decades. > How REAWARDS judges can only judge what is put in front of them in the awards entries. We are rewarding research effectiveness, so showing impact from research clearly is crucial. > That to become a master research craftsperson today we need to train people on a much wider toolset, including ResTech, AI etc., but cannot forget our ultimate role of understanding people, brands and relationships. > That New Zealand is of the best test markets in the world to develop and prototype many things including research – so it’s great to be here. > That entering awards and conference submissions strengthens client relationships and can grow insights businesses and the NZ Research industry as a whole.  We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, guest host, John Bird welcomes Lenny Murphy - an advisor to 17 companies, a Board member of several Academic and NGO organizations, a consultant to many brands and supplier organizations, a facilitator of partnerships and investments, and a sought-after speaker globally.  He is the editor of The GreenBook Blog which is the most read industry blog in the world and the event series he produces, IIEX, has grown to become one of the top 5 industry events in the world. May 24 and 25 in Austin. He joins us on the show to discuss the latest release of The GRIT Report, one of the most-read and cited strategic planning report in the insights space.  We hope you enjoy the episode

This is a pop-up episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, which is in response to a recent development that happened regarding the previous episode's recording and its release. Hosted by Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools and joined once again by Rob Volpe, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and Empathy Activist at Ignite360, the episode dives into the pulling of Bud Light inclusivity campaign. Clearly not intending to cause offense to either parties in either the campaign or its removal, we're reminded how important empathy is in the entire process of creating such a campaign. Rob shared some insight into some ways to potentially avoid certain events from happening in the future. And we discussed the pivotal role that market researchers can play in helping brands succeed in the future. We trust this episode and the points discussed will help all parties avoid a similar situation in the future. [NOTE]: This episode was recorded in response to the prior episode we recorded on the 19th of April. The prior episode talked about a Bud Light inclusivity campaign, featuring two social media influencers. At the time of the initial recording, Bud Light continued to support the campaign. However, the campaign was pulled just prior to the airing of the former episode. This is another example of where a brand directs its empathy can have consequences in other places. And as the podcast talked about, you can be empathetic to one group, i.e. the LGBTQ community, and risk alienating others, and vice versa. We hope this podcast can give you as market researchers some food for thought when it comes to empathy for your customers and the communities in which you operate. The prior episode, which is also relevant for this pop-up episode covered: The dangers of too having much empathy in market research, and what that could result in from a business perspective. We briefly touched on what empathy - a human trait that's all about being able to see other people's perspectives, respecting them, and then be able to live in harmony. You may have a difference of opinion with them, but that’s okay.  We discussed how it's expected of brands to be empathetic with customers. Previously, we had one-to-many approach, but often now we're expecting as consumers to be one-to-one. It's not always going to be perfect, we as consumers expect that, but we need to be listened to, feel we’re heard, and that that brand is able to deliver things for me as an individual.  We talked about some of the ways that brands can be too empathetic and that in the main part losing sight of your business objective or alienating other parts of your audience.  We also asked if the world is becoming more or less empathetic. Rob has seen some studies where the world is actually becoming more empathetic, which is encouraging. So hopefully that trend can continue.  And then Rob shared the five steps to empathy from his book - Tell me more about that. It states dismantling judgment, asking good questions, actively listening integrating into understanding, and using solution imagination.  Finally, we covered a few points on how brands can ensure they aren't being overly empathetic as well.  If you want to find out more about Rob’s book, check out https://www.5stepstoempathy.com  We hope you enjoy the show. 

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools was joined by Rob Volpe, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and Empathy Activist at Ignite360. Rob is the author of Tell me more about that: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time.  [NOTE]: This episode was recorded on the 19th of April. In this episode, we talked about a Bud Light inclusivity campaign, featuring two social media influencers. At the time of the recording, Bud Light continued to support the campaign. However, the campaign was pulled just prior to the airing of this episode. This is another example of where a brand directs its empathy can have consequences in other places. And as the podcast talked about, you can be empathetic to one group, i.e. the LGBTQ community, and risk alienating others, and vice versa. We hope this podcast can give you as market researchers some food for thought when it comes to empathy for your customers and the communities in which you operate. We have subsequently recorded and released a follow up episode to discuss the cancellation of the campaign. Check out episode 60. The dangers of too having much empathy in market research, and what that could result in from a business perspective. We briefly touched on what empathy - a human trait that's all about being able to see other people's perspectives, respecting them, and then be able to live in harmony. You may have a difference of opinion with them, but that’s okay.  We discussed how it's expected of brands to be empathetic with customers. Previously, we had one-to-many approach, but often now we're expecting as consumers to be one-to-one. It's not always going to be perfect, we as consumers expect that, but we need to be listened to, feel we’re heard, and that that brand is able to deliver things for me as an individual.  We talked about some of the ways that brands can be too empathetic and that in the main part losing sight of your business objective or alienating other parts of your audience.  We also asked if the world is becoming more or less empathetic. Rob has seen some studies where the world is actually becoming more empathetic, which is encouraging. So hopefully that trend can continue.  And then Rob shared the five steps to empathy from his book - Tell me more about that. It states dismantling judgment, asking good questions, actively listening integrating into understanding, and using solution imagination.  Finally, we covered a few points on how brands can ensure they aren't being overly empathetic as well.  If you want to find out more about Rob’s book, check out https://www.5stepstoempathy.com  We hope you enjoy the show. 

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools is joined by Mat Wylie, CEO and founder of Customer Radar, a customer feedback and reputation management platform. We discussed the issue of how much we actually know about our customers (both internal and external), and how we can know far more if we approach feedback and surveys with a greater emphasis on customer experience. This discussion covered: - The vital role that CX plays in both customer feedback and market surveys. - We discussed the role of feedback and surveys, and how the former can be used to help drive the latter, plus some guidance on when to ask for feedback versus asking a survey. - Mat shared some best-practices around feedback and survey design, which help lift the overall level of customer experience. And this is perhaps best summed up by ensuring we’re respecting people by asking only what we need to take a specific action. - And we finished off with some of the benefits brands can expect when they get customer feedback and surveys right.  If you want to check out more about Mat and what his team offers, check out www.customerradar.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s significant, a Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools was joined by two representatives of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC) and the Certified Analytics and Insights Professionals of Canada. CRIC is Canada’s voice of the research, insights and analytics industry both domestically and globally. CRIC represents the highest standards, ethics and best practices in research that protect the public interest. Its members include research agencies, companies that rely on insights, and other industry partners. Certified Analytics and Insights Professionals of Canada, CAIP Canada, certifies professionals who have the unique combination of analytical and business competencies grounded in a solid foundation of strong professional ethics and behaviours relevant to the research, analytics and insights industry.  We were joined by John Tabone, CEO of CRIC and Director of CAIP Canada and Grace Woo, Manager, Communications, Events and Sponsorships of CRIC and Manager, Member Value & Growth at CAIP Canada. John and Grace shared some insights into the challenges facing the insights sector, and how CRIC and CAIP Canada are helping those to make the most of the opportunities in front of us. Enjoy the episode.

On this latest episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast. This is your host Michael Howard, the Head of Marketing at Infotools. Today, we're joined by Kevin Karty, CEO of Intuify. We talked about today surveys and how we need to ensure that we're producing the most engaging surveys as possible for the benefit of not just our customer, but our clients too. We touched on how when we do get improve our surveys, we can get better responses, higher quality data, and insights in which we have more confidence. We can even incorporate a whole lot of this design and modern thinking into historical traditional research as well. Kevin mentioned ways to increase engagement in our surveys, like creating five-point scale questions without them feeling like five-point scale questions, as well as the benefits of reducing the length of our surveys as well. We talked about the power of technology in all of this as well - how if we can get people responding on mobile phones, can help reach a more diverse range of respondents. To find out more about what we talked about today, you can check out Intuify | Market Research | United States Enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, the host Michael Howard (Head of Marketing at Infotools) was joined by Will Leach, founder & CEO of Mindstate Group, a behavioral research and brand consultancy and best-selling author of Marketing to Mindstates: a Practical Guide to Applying Behavioral Design to Research and Marketing.  In the episode, we covered: Using behavioral science to psychologically restage brains is really going to set us up for exponential growth. And it can do that by when we understand the mind state of what our consumers are and when they're in the moment needing to make decisions as consumers, as people, etc. The more that market researchers can get in and grapple with that, understand that, and then pass that kind of information on to other parts of the business, the better we'll all be, not just from a business perspective, but from us as a consumer as well. It's always an important thing to remember that that the customer, the person is the most important thing in this whole process. I mean, what you've talked about today, it's a whole lot of fun. But when you're doing it right, it's a win for us and a win for consumers. So just said we touched on what behavioral science actually is and mean. We had a look at some of the reasons why the industry is potentially broken. We also looked at some of the positives as well and what the two can learn from each other. And you also shared a little bit about the where the field of behavioral science is going from a research perspective anyway, the role of AI in how we as market researchers and businesses can use technology in a way to help rapidly iterate our offerings to the public as well. For those of us who choose to embrace it, a pretty exciting future awaits. Enjoy the show

In this episode of Now that's Significant, we're joined by Alex Smith and Polly Milne from The Sustainability Group. They're going to be talking to us about how market research influences sustainability trends. Check out their website for more details of the FuturePlus platform discussed during the episode. https://www.future-plus.co.uk We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that's Significant, we’re joined by Heather O’Shea, Chief Research Officer at Alter Agents, a full-service, strategic market research consultancy reimagining research in an era of shifting decision making. Heather is a passionate digital ad insights leader with over 16 years of experience in market research and consumer insights. She has held positions at media agencies, publishers, tech platforms and research companies. How brands need to go back to basics with their approach to market research. Reasons for this included the evolution of consumer data landscape (GDPR, Apple’s app tracking transparency, demise of third-party cookies); We’ve also seen decreasing viability of some of our existing media and advertising measurement techniques She touched on how we've seen a reduction in ability to rely on direct response attribution measurement for decision-making. Heather shared with us some thoughts on choosing the right mix of methodologies. And more. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that's Significant, we were joined by David Boyle, Director at Audience Strategies, Chair of TMRE, and co-author of the upcoming book PROMPT, which explores the power of artificial intelligence and human expertise in the field of marketing. Throughout the podcast, we discussed: > Something amazing that happened in early December that should impact everyone in a really profound way. An AI called ChatGPT came along that changes everything about how we all work. It has the power to make almost everything we do better, quicker and clearer. > The power of AI in marketing and how ChatGPT can help businesses generate ideas and content, streamline market research, and analyze data.  > We explored the importance of finding the right balance between automation and human creativity, > We discussed explainability and what that means for market researchers in their use of AI tools like ChatGPT > David shared with us some insights into what he learned from writing the book. > And we looked ahead at some of the most exciting trends and developments in the field. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that's Significant, we're joined by Barbara Gassaway, Moderator and President of The Research Group. Barbara also owns Observation Baltimore, a focus group research & recruiting firm. Barbara has decades of experience in the market research industry. A differentiator appreciated by clients and colleagues is Barbara’s comprehensive understanding of strategic marketing principles along with current trends and practices in qualitative behavioral science. In this episode, Barbara shares with us her perspective on the increase in qualitative research, as well as the deep need for recapturing empathy across our market research efforts. This point around empathy may not seem profound, especially considering today's customer-centric mindsets that have rightly pervaded organizations, but that doesn't make it any less important. Barbara shared some wisdom for recent entrants into the market research qualitative space. And she also gave us a hint at what we might expect from her first and upcoming book. Enjoy the show

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, we were joined by Mario Carrasco, co-founder and principal of ThinkNow, a technology driven cultural insights agency. ThinkNow enables companies and government agencies to discover the cultural drivers that influence consumer decisions. They provide insight solutions to help organizations thrive in a changing demographic environment. During his twelve-year tenure at ThinkNow, Carrasco’s expert knowledge of multicultural consumers and his passion for unveiling the story behind the numbers is evident in his editorial contributions to Forbes, eMarketer, Quirk’s Magazine, Online MR Magazine, and MediaPost. On the show: We discussed some pretty big technology challenges that are facing us or the world and particularly as marketers as well. The sunsetting of cookies, the rise of zero party data, which a lot of researchers are actually familiar with, with all of the surveys, etc., that they've been doing and the huge but the way that the US and a lot of the world is becoming increasingly multicultural. We talked about how these two big trends are rising at the same time and now related. And so our practices do need to amend and adjust for that in order that we can properly understand the world around us. We had a little look into ThinkNow. And also Mario's expertise in the world, particularly the multicultural research that he's been doing and how that is responding to a cookieless world. We looked at audiences as well and had that can be a great tool for helping brands to understand and navigate the various audiences and their markets better as well. Being a digital product too, which is good for access, etc. too. We also had to look at the importance of brand as well and how people are needing to incorporate and be mindful of multicultural research, and I guess our brands, our products, our lives will be all the richer for it as well as we understand the actual world around us, not the one that we think we're living in, if that makes sense. We hope you enjoy the show

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a market research podcast, we are joined by Febronia Ruocco, a Global Strategic Insights Director consultant, having worked for a number of notable companies and brands such as Cadbury, Diageo, Heineken, McDonalds, Mars, and Heinz. She is incredibly passionate about empathic leadership of high performing teams and currently also a mentor for both Women in Research and the Durham University Leadership Academy.  On the show, we discussed the vital role market research plays in turbulent times, and how dangerous knee-jerk reactions can be to economic slowdowns. We looked at how market research has changed and is changing to help us better understand our world.  We touched on the different types of turbulence and the market research tools to help us through each type.  Febronia discussed how market research can help organizations set sound strategic foundations, as well as guide tactical programmes of work.  And lastly, we covered how off a few easy wins that organizations can make to help them get through these times with greater confidence.  We hope you enjoy the show.

In this latest episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast we’re joined by Kayte Hamilton, Founder of The Social Question. The Social Question is a new research agency that offers a fresh perspective on social media research, specifically their methodology, which includes partnering with Instagram influencers to act as Question Hosts with their followers. During the show, we discussed: - How influencers can evolve their value to organizations and are perfectly placed to become research moderators on social media. - We looked at an engagement tool available to Influencers on Instagram - Kayte shared how Influencers can be hired to host questions to their followers and communities. - The differences between other social media research options compared to the service The Social Question offers. We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a market research podcast. I am your host, Michael Howard, head of marketing at Infotools. Today, we are joined by Emmanuel Probst, the Global Lead, Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos. He is an adjunct professor at the University of California.  In this episode, we talked about: - We talked about how brands need to transform in order to stay relevant and thrive. - You mentioned gave us some insight into what compelled you to write the book. - We had a look at Brand purpose and what market researchers can do to help in this regard. - We discussed what’s led consumers to switching off most of the marketing and advertising of today, with some ideas on how to rectify this. - You shared some reasoning behind why you looked at both large and small brands, to highlight what each to learn from each other. - You gave us some great insight into what assemblage is and why it’s so important for market research teams. - We talked about anti-heroes, saviors, and villains in regards to building brand relevance. - The mood shifted a little as we reflected on what brands can do to help consumers who never felt more lonely. - And lastly, we looked at what happens to brands if organizations kept building them like birds continually evolve and build nests.  We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, we were joined by Idil Cakim, Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Insights at Audacy. In this episode, we talked about... - The rise in popularity of audio in today’s society, including how it has helped change the media landscape of today as it has become somewhat of a ritual for consumers. - Idil gave us an overview of both her impressive career in insights, as well as the work Audacy is doing, which includes engaging with over 200 million people each month! - As part of the conversation around consumer audio rituals, Idil gave some perspectives into one study they carried out, with some fascinating behavioral insights around that to which we’re listening. - Two of the big findings from their quant, ethno, and IDI research was that 74% percent of respondents set time aside for listening to audio, in the various forms it comes. And the other finding being some of the ways brands can improve ad effectiveness and authenticity in these channels. - One of these particular ways of better reaching consumers is understanding the 11 specific moments that consumers are most engaged with their audio consumption, and tying in relevant, contextualized messaging for these moments. - And finally, Idil gave some insight into what is next for the world of Audio. Feel free to check out the study we talked about on this episode at www.audacyinc.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

We had Paul Neto, the Co-founder and CMO of Measure Protocol on the show to discuss some of the really interesting things that Measure Protocol are doing in the market research and insights space, including some recent findings from their platform Retro, which recently picked up an MRS award.  Paul highlighted how most companies have big data gaps in their consumer data collection strategies, and gave some background as to why this has happened. Some of which included the inability to collect certain data due to things like privacy legislation, lockdown by big tech players like Google and Apple on access to consumer data, and general consumer skepticism on sharing data. Paul reminded us how some of the existing practices in traditional data collection methodologies such as VPNs, IDFAs, fingerprinting and browser cookies will soon be obsolete.  We also talked about how new approaches that provide access to new forms of behavioral data across once-inaccessible platforms in a low friction and cost-effective manner will rise in popularity. Paul shared the results of a recent report that rounds up some of this data that shows some surprising results on how people are spending time on their phones.  And lastly, we discussed what such findings mean for businesses and market research teams too.

Ray Poynter joined us on this episode of Now That's Significant to talk about the good and bad choices that market research teams can make in the coming year, and how they need to embrace change in order to get ahead. In the show... We talked about the overarching themes and trends facing the insights industry over the next year or two. Ray shared with us several particular challenges that the industry will need to grapple in 2023. We talked about what organizations can do to hold on to their best people. We discussed the insights professional’s role in helping its organization grapple with high inflation. We touched on data quality initiatives We looked some key initiatives on improving DEI Ray talked about how market research and insights teams can leverage technology to help them deliver better outcomes for their organizations. We explored what the agency/buyer relationship might look like in 2023. And finally, we discussed the split of traditional v new methodologies in the market research world. Enjoy the episode.

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a market research podcast, Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools discusses how market research and insights technology is most successful when it is invisible.  - I discussed how market research and insights technology is most successful when it is invisible. - What happens when market research and insights technology is visible? - What kinds of technology there are across the end-to-end processes of the market research industry. - The conundrum facing insights teams – do you go all-in-one or fit-for-purpose? - What success looks like when market research and insights technology is invisible - The role agencies play in making market research and insights tech invisible - Considerations to make if you are looking into new market research technology Enjoy the show

In this episode of Now that's Significant, we were joined by market research and insights technologist, Mike Stevens, from Insights Platforms.  We discussed: > The subject of ResTech, otherwise known as market research and insights technology, and how it is the new normal for insights professionals. > ResTech is a term that has been floating around for a while now, Mike gave us a good understanding of what it is and where it sits in our daily lives. > The challenge insights functions have in choosing either ERP/all-in-one generic software or fit-for-purpose, market research-specific technology. > We touched on who is buying ResTech and how this compares to selecting agencies, briefly touching on the skills gaps that non-research users have. > We dived into the buying journey and behavior for different types of market research data, which included reasons why ResTech buyers may 'fall out' of the sales process. > Mike discussed how agencies fit into the world of ResTech, and also what the future holds in this space. We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, we were joined by Professor Michael Brereton, a leader in the global marketing research industry. Michael retired from Maritz Research after eleven years as its President and CEO, then subsequently joined the faculty of Michigan State University’s Eli Broad Graduate School of Management. He is an Executive in Residence and teaches Marketing Strategy in the Master of Science in Marketing Research Program. We dived into Michael's rich commercial/academic experience to discuss what skillsets are required by tomorrow's leaders of the insights industry. We talked about how tomorrow’s leaders in the insights space need different skills in order to serve their organizations with meaningful market and consumer intelligence.  We looked at how the double-digit growth the insights and analytics market experienced in 2021, which included examining the differences between traditional processes and ResTech. Digital data analytics in its current trajectory could soon be the largest aspect of our industry. Michael shared six trends that he’s identified concerning the response to change our sector is facing. We discussed how one of the overarching themes arising from these trends is the decentralization of insights, decision makers having the ability to dive into the data if they want. We covered the hard and soft skills that Michael has seen as being particularly desirable when it comes to recruitment, which then flowed into what roles of the future could look like too. Finally, we looked at the different skill sets that are required by insights professionals of the future, and how Michigan State University is helping its students prepare for whatever tomorrow brings. Master’s in Marketing Research – Eli Broad College of Business | Michigan State University (msu.edu) Enjoy the show