fbpx

09 Jan

Posted at 14:19h in Innovation, Technology
0 Likes

The market research industry is no stranger to the constant pressures from emerging research technology trends. The advancement, in many ways, has catapulted our field of work into a new era of data collection for insights professionals.  For example… Remember when canvassers walked neighbourhoods with a pen and paper in hand? Well, that quickly evolved into calling centres calling extensive telephone lists. Then came the y2k era of administering surveys both multimode (telephone and online) and online by email. And by 2010, interactive digital surveys became more prevalent, like SMS, QR codes, and pop-up website windows. Skip ahead where DIY survey platforms, social media, and gamification (such as pausing in the middle of a game or YouTube video to conduct a survey question) are becoming quick, agile ways to support your survey data. As insights professionals, we've experienced the unfolding of ways to collect data and achieve an accurate read on a desired target audience. But, in our most authentic nature, we love a good trend! Quickly enters 'ResTech' - otherwise known as research technology. A term that has transformed the MRX industry by combining technologies and tools to create more agile and innovative solutions to advance research evolution. ResTech can be everything from simple task automation to SAAS, social media, video and remote collaboration, DIY solutions, interactive dashboards and even AI. Stories of Market Research Powerhouse Guests Within the last year, we have interviewed many great ResTech leaders in market research on Stories of Market Research: the Insightrix Podcast: CloudResearch on their industry-changing data quality solutions that combine behavioural and technological vetting. Listen to the episode here. Attest on their incredible consumer research survey tool that offers creative SAAS technology. Listen to the episode here. And RealityMine on their passive metering, automatic content recognition, and geolocation tools. Listen to the episode here. These are only a handful of the many ResTech firms that are doing outstanding work supporting the insights industry by empowering the many stages of market research using technology. There are so many ways that technology is fuelling methods of traditional survey data collection. How does ResTech support market research suppliers? Real-time Data ResTech can support researchers and end-users with a flexible solution to access real-time data and prune specific insights to understand target audiences. For example, automated feedback surveys triggered after an online purchase ask how satisfied you are with the recent experience. The maturation of contacting individuals in real-time as they experience an interaction has forever transformed our end clients' ability to access survey data when and how they want. As a respondent fills out a short questionnaire in a feedback form, the data in the backend is automatically stored and sent to a live dashboard where one can access the data and begin to understand their customer without waiting for a deliverable or project milestone. Automation ResTech takes care of unnecessary manual work in survey data collection by generating a connection between technologies to automate data collection, cleaning and analyzing the data, meaning much of the redundancy in traditional MRX processes is removed using automation. As researchers, we are more efficient, less biased, more comprehensive, and more inclusive because of our ability to access respondents online. Now one big (and we mean BIG!) caveat to this type ResTech is it does not replace the value of market research but provides a more excellent value by reducing mundane, day-to-day tasks. Technology enhances what market research can accomplish – making traditional research processes much faster and more efficient, allowing insights professionals to supplement methods to help clients understand their consumers. With ResTech accomplishing its task in the background, insights professionals can focus on those golden nuggets for better business planning. This gives you and your client back one valuable resource we all need more of – TIME! Time to dissect the insight and learn about your business. Time to connect the dots between what the data is saying and how to make it work for you. That is the true power of the human element within our industry. Sample Quality As insights professionals, we must prevent insufficient data from impacting our studies, starting with fraud detection and prevention when managing online samples. Greenbook states that 15 to 30% of market research data across the industry is considered fraudulent. And while fraud is quickly becoming rampant in a digital-first society, staying ahead requires vigilance. So how do we avoid the embarrassment of insufficient data? According to our friends at CloudResearch, leading experts in data quality market research technology, there are many steps you can take to be proactive in vetting the quality of the sample. Besides dedicated internal processes, CloudResearch suggests considering a market research tool (such as their data quality tool Sentry) to help improve data quality before it enters your survey. Sentry is a pre-vetting system to screen respondents using technical and behavioural measures. Sentry gives clients data they can trust and increases the confidence in insights quality with less time returning to fill in hard-to-reach groups due to removing bad respondents pre-survey. Want to learn how Sentry works? Jump into a recent Stories of Market Research podcast, where we interview some folks at CloudResearch who helped bring Sentry to life! Collaboration As consumers change and evolve rapidly, especially in the digital environment, insights will play an essential role in understanding customers and their needs. Technology will only increase the demand for more competitive research, allowing research suppliers to collaborate with others to provide mutual clients with high-quality research faster than ever before. As end-client demands become more configured to agility and speed, research suppliers must protect the value of market research by using technology WHEN it counts. ResTech is a tool in our toolbox – it changes how we do business so we can understand why we do business. Want to learn more? At Insightrix, we will help you harness the powers of research technology to help conduct market research with speed and cost in mind to help you gain more valuable insights into your target audience. For more information, email info@insightrix.dev1.commandbase.ca. Episode 24: Passive Metering? Data Collection Ethics + Tools for Success: we talk with Billy Grant, Head of Product at RealityMine. Billy gives us a look into the world of passive metering through the lens of RealityMine – a state-of-the-art software buzzing in the market research industry. Billy gives us an in-depth look at how passive metering works and what types of businesses have successfully employed passive metering. Episode 25: Consumer Research – A Post-Pandemic Lens: We talk with Jeremy King, CEO at Attest. Jeremy and Sharday discuss consumer profiling, creative testing, and how SAAS technology is leading the pandemic digital transformation. Episode 34: The Significance of Data Quality in Market Research: Sharday connects with Leib Litman (Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer) and Cheskie Rosenzweig (Senior Researcher and Product Scientist) of CloudResearch to chat about the state of data quality in market research. Too Important to Get it Wrong: The Consequences and Embarrassment of Bad Data Quality: https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/the-consequences-of-bad-data-quality/ Market Research Fraud is on the Rise — Let's Conquer It Together: https://www.greenbook.org/mr/insights/market-research-fraud-is-on-the-rise-lets-conquer-it-together/. ...
 

07 Mar

Posted at 15:19h in Innovation, Research
0 Likes

Here we are again—2022, but perhaps with a little less optimism and a lot more hope? Another fresh start in front of us, as marketers, as brands, as customers and citizens, we are given an opportunity— Yes, it's exciting, but what now? Many of us are ready to put that strategy together but are still dealing with uncertainty every day. In some cases, we look to the recent past for guidance, as things have changed dramatically, and they continue to change— rapidly! For example, how do we know who to target if we want to launch a new product in 2022? Since 2020 it's hard to fully depend on our existing market segmentation reports because it feels as if so much has changed. This includes the way people shop, live, eat, travel, and who they spend money with. As brands, we must refine our segments, or at the very least, seek confirmation of the old segments to help us understand how these behaviours hold up. Here are some common segmentation questions we hear: How will my market segmentation hold up? Will my current breakdown of my customers still be relevant? Without question, the pandemic has a significant impact on people's lifestyles and their mindsets and also their priorities. But, as we continue to cope with changing government mandates, lessening of restrictions, and returning to a "normal," it's anyone's guess what we'll have to adapt next as consumers. Meaning the way we used to act or think could have shifted, and what was previously necessary to us may have become less so. Getting a Pulse On Your Current Segmentation Getting a pulse on your current segmentation is critical to regaining trust in your strategy and focusing on the key indicators that define how it may have changed. It's better to know now if your segments are no longer relevant than to find out after spending thousands on a new product launch that it missed the mark, or worse, missed the opportunity to target the ideal customer. The key is not to disregard your existing segmentation as ineffective but rather to view it as a baseline. In other words, a peek into where we've been and where we might want to go. Perhaps existing segments may still be relevant. Still, your consumer outlook on how they want to be reached has shifted drastically, such as the rise in the use of TikTok during the pandemic. Our Syndicated Research Study, The Insightrix Media Usage Report: Answering Your Advertising Questions shows that in 2021, TikTok became one of the fastest-rising social media platforms in Saskatchewan. In this case, it might be helpful to re-run the same segmentation with the same methodology to see what's changed and validate that where we are focusing our strategy and spending is where we should be. Assurance in our data and decisions Since the size of each segment has shifted, our priority customer group may be less relevant when it comes to the dollars we want to spend on marketing, or perhaps this group is more prominent now. Suppose we already anticipate changes or the re-run of our existing segmentation highlights considerable new information. In that case, it may be time to reevaluate our methodology, develop a new set of statements, and ultimately redefine our customer base. Here are some key questions to ask when deciding if your market segmentation is relevant: Does my framework suddenly not "fit" with how society is being asked to live its lives? For example, is your primary segment based on how many hours one spent commuting to work or attending outdoor concerts/events? Is there a decrease or increase in a particular segment over time? For example, does your traditional tracking study indicate that more males aged 34-45 are interested in your brand, and were these demographics previously in a secondary or tertiary segment where you did not spend key market dollars? This may indicate that your primary segment has shifted. If you need help in looking at your tracking data to identify some of these key changes, we are happy to help! 😄 *Has there been a significant change to the marketplace you used to 'play' in? For example, were your goods/products primarily purchased face-to-face before Covid-19? Are your customers now seeking alternative ways to buy the same product, expanding the competitive landscape in which you used to play? *Note* This may not mean your segmentation is irrelevant, and certain things like purchasing behaviour can easily be verified using other methods by running a quick pulse study with a primary segment. If you answered yes to any of the first three questions, it might be time to dig a little deeper into your existing segmentation and evaluate its relevance. Reviewing segmentation typing tools to help answer the following two key questions: Do any of the current statements in the typing tool represent certain behaviours that your target audience cannot engage in right now but are likely to resume later?Are any of the current statements insensitive to the current environment? Perhaps the segmentation is still relevant, but at the very least, the target segments you have been working with are likely to have shifted. Consider conducting a profiling survey to help redefine the size of these segments. Right now, we're all in a world of flux. Things are changing, and if the last two years have taught us anything, we need to adapt quickly. To discuss segmentation and profiling more, please contact Insightrix Research at info@insightrix.dev1.commandbase.ca.    ...
 

03 Feb

Posted at 09:37h in Innovation
0 Likes

Hybrid work means re-examining how the office space functions as employees flow between home and the office. Hybrid work environments can provide new ways for employees to collaborate productively, but companies must intentionally create these opportunities. At Insightrix, we've designed our new office to do just that, creating spaces to drive collaboration and innovation within this new style of working! This includes “resomercial” design approaches, state-of-the-art video conferencing technology, and flexible hot desking. The minute we received the keys to our new space, we got to work from the ground up. Every small detail of our environment prioritizes a future in hybrid working - from the infrastructure to the furniture to culture and philosophy at Insightrix. We are excited to share with you the fruits of our labour. Thank you to Golden Media House for producing this mini-documentary on the new Insightrix Research Hybrid Workspace.  Special thanks to: (in order as they appear)Corrin Harper, President at Insightrix Sharday Torgerson, Creative and Digital Strategist at InsightrixLevon Fleming, Architectural/Technology Specialist at Business FurnishingsBrandon Gay, Design Associate and Project Director at Metric Design Golden Media House, Insightrix staff, our neighbours at The Monarch, and those who helped bring our hybrid workspace to life.  ...
 

20 Jan

Posted at 10:06h in Innovation
0 Likes

As two world-class organizations, the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Insightrix Research have many responsibilities within their communities. This video highlights how Saskatchewan businesses like Insightrix and the Roughriders can support one another, on and off the field. The strong partnership between Insightrix and the Roughriders affirms our commitment to ensure strong economic recovery initiatives as we continue to provide research activities to support local businesses. ...
 

08 Nov

Posted at 10:47h in Innovation, Insights, Research
0 Likes

Without members, your organization would look fundamentally different altogether. Yet, even when you understand how critical your current members are, sometimes it is easy to focus on the products and services your business provides above your member's interests. Your team may be focused on improving your products to generate more memberships. And the dedication to improvement is admirable if you consider that a satisfying member experience can lead to an ace member loyalty program. Nevertheless, if your member does not like the current experience you offer or thinks you don't care about them as an individual, they can quickly move on to your competitor. The same is true if they feel they share the same values as your association. To truly align your values with your core customer, it's essential to focus on membership growth while learning how every touchpoint affects the overall perception of your brand. Member Research is Intelligent Member research is intelligent and can be hugely actionable. Member research can gather information to align your brand values with your member expectations. When it all boils down, good member research encourages organizations to take the feedback given by their member - or potential member - and reinvest it back into the organization. Businesses that rely on memberships have historically used market research to understand their member motivations and behaviours. For example, perhaps you are a not-for-profit that relies on members for annual funding. Picture your value proposition evolving due to industry pressures coming from new consumer behaviours. Perhaps you are interested in segmenting your member base to ensure the benefits offered are communicated to the right person. In all aspects, there is a case for member research. Membership-building Efforts When Marketing General Inc. (MGI) surveyed associations for its Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report*, it was reported that regardless of the membership type, almost half of the associations described a decline in overall memberships in 2019 (47%). Sadly, but not unexpectedly, many member-centric businesses took a hit to their membership over the pandemic. Yet despite current events, one in four (45%) associations report that they successfully grew membership in 2020. Moreover, compared to associations reporting membership declines, associations that reported increases in membership over the past five years are more likely to have a specific process in place to support innovation (22% vs. 17%) or are working on developing a strategy for innovation and new ideas (28% vs. 25%). To try and build on member growth, developing a strategy for innovation and new ideas can come from many avenues of business, including market research. Personalize Your Member Recruitment Strategy While it goes without saying, a key driver in any membership growth is an effective membership recruitment strategy. There are many ways to intensify your member recruitment efforts. However, while most member-driven organizations have established processes for membership growth, these work plans habitually offer little to no benefit, that is, without understanding your member and their needs. Additionally, even the best marketing strategies require consistent creative modifications to respond to the unanticipated changes in the marketplace – and membership experience (MX) programs are no different. Communicating Membership Value Are you effectively getting the word out to members about their benefits? Or does your membership value proposition need some tuning up? Associations with a focus on membership growth are always trying to innovate membership benefits. These brands understand the importance of using member feedback to learn about the interests and the behaviours directly from the source. As a result, these organizations build MX programs that are often well-targeted by different segments. These programs, in turn, offer their membership the type of products and services specific to them and their needs as a member.   When an organization is genuinely member-centric at its core, its values and business values align with its member base. Potential members can sense marketing fluff from a mile away, and it is not enough to assume who your core member is or what they like. Society is changing, and so is your member profile. Communicating value to your member can no longer fit into bullet-point lists on on-site pamphlets – they must be expressed in a way that your members understand and the way your members can appreciate. Members Come First   Organizations that rely on members for their association to succeed must genuinely believe that the member comes first. Treat your members the way they want to be treated – like valued members. But more than that, they want to know that you value them as real human beings, not just another number. Invest in your members by getting feedback directly from them. Understand their needs instantly from them. It's critical member-centric organizations implement feedback into their communication to show that you've listened and you've heard what they've told you. Members want to belong to your organization, and it is essential to let them feel the emotional engagement, which builds loyalty. Being a member-first organization is not something you fulfill through marketing messaging. It is something you live, breathe, and do.  Market Research for Credit Unions For more information on the work that Insightrix does in this area, please get in touch with us. We would love to discuss the extensive work in this area – with associations, not-for-profits, post-secondary, and financial institutions and banks. While you're at it, check out our new whitepaper on how member-driven institutions like financial credit unions can use research to personalize their member experience program. Get your free whitepaper here.   ...
 

10 Aug

Posted at 14:39h in Innovation
1 Like

"The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else." – Eric Ries There's a rite of passage book for business courses called "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries. And one of the critical components to Ries's strategy was to understand the Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop. The feedback loop serves as a scientific model for businesses to realize that creating value by testing ideas is essential. By using the Build-Measure-Learn approach, businesses can focus on eliminating uncertainty, so they can fail fast, and most importantly, fail cheaply. The Lean Startup approach shows brands how to find ways to continuously approve on their business aproach by creating a cycle of testing and building, measuring to learn from the results. By using testing to support your R&D can allow for further experiment or iteration, and eventually, offer detailed specifications on how to build, use, or enhance it. Honestly, advertising research is no different. Like the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop, ad testing can let businesses act fast, agile and efficient when it comes to product or creative testing.  Let's dive into how marketers can look at advertising research through the same lens as Eric Ries' Feedback Loop. Advertising and the Feedback Loop Applying the Lean Startup Approach to ad research is quite simple. Use the feedback loop to build your advertisements (build), ensure they are engaging with the right audience (measure), validate assumptions and apply the insights to your entire campaign or marketing mix (learn). When building an advertisement campaign, is it not essential to clearly define the strategic objective? What is the motivation for developing the ad campaign? This stage is where testing ideas are important. In addition, this may be where you employ several market research techniques to further your insights exploration to help inspire new ways of understanding how your brand, product, or service may appeal to the masses. One goal of ad testing is to ensure it provides insights that help move your ads from creative to production. Often, the first stage of advertising research is the broadest.  And compared to other methods of advertising research, this stage is often exploratory. When undertaking advertisement development market research, conduct an audit of existing research could help reduce costs. It will also increase your campaign's engagement and help you identify need areas without breaking the bank. Building advertisement creative from a gut check is rarely a good idea. And a common mistake by creative teams is to ignore existing research in hopes that fresh eyes will find new ways to validate the content. To combat personal biases, brands will often hire a market research firm to summarize mounds of secondary research that already exists or perform other advertisement pre-testing methods, such as concept research or product market research. Pre-testing can give your creative team the feedback required to understand how to improve the execution of your campaign. When testing a more drafted version of your advertisement, such as the copy, creative or storyboard, the pre-testing can flag what is required to improve the final campaign's execution. This type of feedback is key to measuring the effectiveness of the overall ad design and other budget needs like where the advertisement should be, how the media buy should be spent, and if the testing is just for one variation or the entire campaign. While there are many turnkey frameworks available for pre-testing, businesses will often work with market research firms to structure their concept research around ad effectiveness, recall, engagement, and predictive buying behaviour among their target audiences. Market research firms can even support your pre-testing by helping identify your target personas and showing how to target them based on various segmentation methods.   "If we do not know who the customer is, we do not know what quality is." – Eric Ries, The Lean Startup Learn When to Pivot Advertising research is not meant to hold up your campaign launch. But, even more importantly, it should not end when you launch your campaign. Marketing strategy often requires continuous evaluation and feedback, and advertising research is no different. Thus the research should be viewed as a large part of the overall strategy, and it should continue to provide actionable results after launch. Think about it this way: when you think about campaign evaluation, you think about all aspects of the ad campaign – your media buy, channels used, materials developed, and even societal factors that can affect your results. When you are learning to pivot, you need to plan for post-testing or continuous benchmarking. Advertisement research lets you set those benchmarks and test against them for recall throughout the entire campaign. Of course, shorter initiatives may not require testing after launch. But long-term campaigns with various channels, messages, and stakeholders may require a more continuous approach – like a feedback loop, perhaps? Advertising market research is essential to successful advertising. Research can help you reduce the risk and the cost associated with developing new research – should it ever have to come to that. Although there are many stages of advertising research, ad testing allows marketers to create their continuous feedback loop. It can simplify the creative process in a way that helps marketers determine where they need to focus their ideas (build), what benchmarks they should track (measure), and when they should adjust the creative or move on (learn, and repeat!). Advertising Research should do more than test your creative - it should help define the future success of the message you are trying to get in front of your customers.  If you would like to know more about how Insightrix can help you create more effective advertising using advertisement market research, contact us at info@insightrix.dev1.commandbase.ca. If you're interested in more information about the types of ad testing services Insightrix provides, download the whitepaper here.   Advertising Research - How Important is it?  Catch EP07 of SoMR where we explore why organizations test their ads, and how the practice has changed over the years.  ...
 

02 Jun

Posted at 14:24h in Corporate, Innovation, Podcast
0 Likes

The Stories of Market Research: the Insightrix Podcast (SoMR) is BACK for Season 3! And to celebrate, we are excited to reveal our brand-new podcast player! Same Great Content – Now With an Updated Look and Feel Our new podcast portal highlights each episode in a digestible layout, where season one and season two are fully accessible in one great location!  The update to SoMR is our commitment to providing the most quality podcast to our audience. As such, Insightrix has committed to making significant investments into our physical office space to provide innovative multimedia projects like the Stories of Market Research. Please find out more about these investments in Season 3 of our podcast. Season 3 Features Video Podcasting Season 3 of SoMR is PACKED with interviews from exciting guests within the mrx industry. Same great content, but with an exciting video podcast component! Our first video podcast series will focus on the rise and change of mobility, collaboration and innovation in the post-pandemic workforce, the future of commercial office design, and the critical role market research is playing to support businesses in making these decisions. Please keep your eyes peeled for this series to drop its first episode this month!   As you wait for the first episode in Season 3, why not jump into the portal and catch up on any earlier episodes you may have missed - now available in one easy-to-access portal. We look forward to sharing more about the innovation in-house in our upcoming season of Stories of Market Research: the Insightrix Podcast. As always, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on any significant podcast player and leave a review if you like our content! Visit the podcast portal below. ...
 

10 Feb

Posted at 08:06h in Innovation, Saskatchewan
3 Likes

Living in the shoes of your research participants is a good way to learn about them. At least, that is the general thinking around the research methodology of ethnography. In its roots in the social sciences, this was very much how ethnographic research was performed – by living with and observing a person or a group to get a deeper qualitative understanding of who they are and what they are all about. Ethnography is performed a little differently in a market research context – though it can still involve a great deal of direct observation, as well as interviews and discussions, often through one-on-one interviews, video or written diaries and other forms of qualitative research. What makes this type of research ethnographic is that the research takes place in context with the research problem – such as where the participant buys or tries a product, or where an issue may arise for example. Ethnographic research, in most cases, will produce research findings that cut to the core of the “why” or “how” of a thing, perception, process, etc. by providing deep and complex behavioral data based on participants’ actions and behaviours that can be used for all manner of applications in a business sense. Ultimately, there is a business case for ethnographic research any time an organization wants to know more about consumers in terms of lifestyle factors, attitudes, cultural trends and how context affects selection, usage, perceptions or attitudes. How Could an Organization Use Ethnographic Research Effectively? One case for ethnography is to learn how a person or group will respond to a new product or system and actually employ it in their real, daily lives. Let's say your organization is a large department store, for example, and you want to test a new system that would allow your customers to perform their own price checks without the assistance of store staff. You could ask a great number of existing customers what they would like to get out of your price-check system and how they would like to use it. However, since very few if any will have given the question a great deal of thought in their daily lives, the answers they provide may not result in the best system being prototyped and released for mass distribution to your stores. Rather, in this case, it may be better to develop a few prototypes and put them into your stores to observe how your customers are actually engaging with them. Combined with short intercept interviews about their experiences, ethnography research on how your customers negotiate your new system can answer some very important questions: Can your customers use the system without any training? Where were they showing signs of frustration? When were they succeeding? How did the system work best or worst from the customers’ perspective? Armed with this data, you can feel secure that the system your store ends up developing based on the behaviour of your actual customers will meet your customers’ needs best. This is just one example of where an ethnographic study could successfully produce actionable data. However, developing prototypes is only one application of ethnography in market research – it can also be used in almost any situation in which one wishes to know the “how” and “why” a person or a group of individuals does what they do. If you have a great qualitative understanding of these things, the business applications for that data are almost limitless. Ethnographic Research at Insightrix In the summer of 2020, Insightrix wanted to provide select members of our SaskWatch Research® online market research community the opportunity to engage on how they were adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recruited residents to participate in a two-week diary using the FocusVision Revelation platform that included discussion boards, posting videos and images and more, using an ethnography methodology. Participants were asked to engage in a number of activities relating to different subject areas of their daily lives in the study. These subjects included media consumption habits, adjusting to a new elements of daily life interaction like social distancing and experiences with homeschooling and more. The results of this study can be found in our report, Adjusting to the New Normal: A Two-Week Ethnography Study of Saskatchewan Residents. Would you like to know more? Adjusting to the New Normal: A Two-Week Ethnography Study of Saskatchewan Residents answers questions around how residents of Saskatchewan were coping during the early months of the pandemic. It explores their fears and their hopes for the future, how they have worked to adapt and change in their new environment, why they have made the changes they have made and more. Please contact us for more information if you would like to know more about this insightful ethnographic report. ...
 

19 Nov

Posted at 13:46h in Innovation
1 Like

Talking Advertising Testing with Majid Khoury In Episode 7 of Stories of Market Research: The Insightrix Podcast, we sat down to speak with Majid Khoury, an advertising research expert with more than 31 years experience in advertising testing and evaluation, who specializes in the development of best practices in the implementation of advertising research in the context of market research. Majid also works with Insightrix on many high-profile advertising research projects. In the conversation, co-hosted by Insightrix Research Manager, Partha Roy, many interesting and valuable ideas and concepts as they relate to ad testing were discussed. So many, in fact, that we chose to develop a short article around them. So, please enjoy these, the Top 3 Lessons Learned from Ep. 7 – Market Research & Ad Testing. Ad Testing Minimizes Risk One of the first learnings from the podcast is that advertising research minimizes risk to clients. Think of it this way: You’re asked to have a set of multi-channel ads developed for a campaign your company has been running. You contact an agency and provide a list of your company’s needs and a budget for the project. You wait, and after the creative is developed, you send your new advertisements out into the world on their various channels – only to find that nobody is connecting to the ads in the way you wish they would. Or worse yet, the advertisements are poorly received by the public, placing a negative light on your brand. In this hypothetical situation, you’ve spent your company’s money, but ultimately, you have very little to show for the time, effort and resources that were put into the ads’ development. Wouldn’t it be better to spend a small fraction of that budget first to get some intelligence about whether those ads would be well received rather than hoping for the best? This is why it’s always recommended to test ad strategy (what the story is) and creative (how the story is told) early in the ad development process. Leaving what is usually a very small line item open in your budget to add a testing component to your advertising plans could end up saving the client a great deal of time and effort in the long run, all while making sure the best ads make it out into the world to be seen by the public. The Best Advertising Research Outcomes Come Out of Collaboration Another valuable takeaway from our conversation with Majid came from a discussion around the age-old myth that advertising agencies and insights agencies are at odds with one another. This myth goes that ad agencies resent researchers for deprecating and devaluing their creative, and that insights agencies resent ad agencies for developing creative that doesn’t serve the needs of their clients. This is a myth! Do not buy it. In fact, according to Majid (and from our own experience at Insightrix), the best outcomes for all parties – researchers, advertising agencies and clients - are often found when all three parties come together to work as a team. This is about each group understanding the challenges of one another. For the client, challenges are going to be budget and time. For agencies, those challenges are going to be developing an effective and technically achievable creative in the time they have and on the budget they’ve been given. For researchers, those challenges could include developing a research plan and executing it on time and on budget – that includes research outcomes that are insightful and actionable for both the ad agency and the client. If all parties are working together rather than as opposing entities, mutual understanding of what each group needs and wants out of each of their roles can be negotiated and realized – to the benefit of everyone involved. Majid describes this best when he said, “I call it the triangle. It’s the best way to look at this is to have the agency, the client and the research – the advertising research – to work together as a team.” Ad Testing Must Evolve to Be Faster In today’s advertising marketplace, with multi-platform advertising campaigns in mind, clients need their advertising research turned around quickly, but without a loss in the quality of the research. Majid refers to this reality as a need to change and evolve with the times. Building on the theme of working together with the client and the agency to develop the research itself, advertising researchers can work with both parties to get an understanding of their reporting needs and adjust reporting based on their needs. Rather than taking unnecessary time to develop lengthy reports that do not serve clients' immediate needs, often it is more important to  get the client the data they need quickly and in a format they can understand and operationalize immediately. “I think it’s more about our thinking from a research point of view and as researchers about how to tackle this in a way that makes it faster and cheaper without jeopardizing the quality.” Get the Rest of the Story It really can’t be overstated how important advertising testing can be. Clients, agencies and researchers all benefit – and so does the final advertising product. If you would like to hear the entire episode in which these takeaways can be found, check out Stories of Market Research Ep. 7 – Market Research & Ad Testing. Would you like to learn about Insightrix advertising testing? Fill out the form below to learn how ad testing can be done quickly, effectively and cost-efficiently using the Insightrix AdCheck advertising testing solution. hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "374811", formId: "8840889c-c60d-4b8f-9497-7fbe2ed96766" }); ...