Data Gurus Podcast | Insights on Business Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions, Market Research & Data Collection

In today’s episode, Sima Vasa sits with Priscilla McKinney, CEO of LiTTLE Bird Marketing. Together, they talk about her company and their edge in content marketing, some tips on personal branding and her struggles and triumph as an entrepreneur.

 

LiTTLE Bird Marketing

Priscilla McKinney has a background in Cultural Anthropology. She finds herself an easy fit in the world of Market Research (MR) because she comes from a social science perspective and she understands the nature of the work, which is relatable to ethnography⁠—a systematic study of people and cultures.

She then spearheaded her own company named LiTTLE Bird Marketing. The company is a marketing agency that specializes in content marketing strategies that bring lead generation. They cater to busy leaders who need confidence in their content marketing and who ensure that this content resonates with both long term and short term goals.

 

Marketing in Marketing Research

Priscilla’s experience and understanding of the core principles and application of marketing contributed greatly to her career in the MR world. As Sima puts it, “it is a big deal in market research because if you don't understand the fundamentals, you lose credibility quickly.”

However, Priscilla gave honest feedback about professionals in the Marketing Research industry. She says that their knowledge of “numbers” doesn’t necessarily equate to their knowledge of themselves and what they can offer. 

“Market researchers are bad at marketing themselves. Not only that they are not good at marketing themselves⁠—like understanding really who they serve and what they offer and how they solve the problem uniquely⁠⁠—they also don't research on themselves.” - Priscilla McKinney

 

On Personal Branding and Self-Promotion

Sima discusses why some women, especially those in the MR industry, don't want to talk or even participate in self-promoting activities. Senior level female professionals do not have personal branding and it affects the representation of women in this field of work.

“People talk about the look⁠⁠—I have a scarf or sunglasses⁠⁠—there should be a look that needs to be consistent. A little deeper on personal branding is the “feel.” Like, how you feel about customer service or your stance on a topic. It may also be how you made the other person feel about you.” - Priscilla McKinney

Priscilla, however, said that self-promotion doesn’t have to be hard selling oneself. It will still boil down to authenticity. Further, she pinpoints the importance of knowing oneself, as we know we cannot be consistent all the time.

 

Quick links to connect with Priscilla Mckinney:

Priscilla McKinney - LinkedIn

LiTTLE Bird Marketing - Website

 

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

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Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Karen Lynch, Senior Director of Qualitative Insights at InsightsNow Inc. joins us today to talk about PlayFULL Insights™, an innovative approach to qualitative research. Karen was granted the Market Research Disruptive Innovator award for her work which benefits consumers, clients, and fellow researchers.

 

The Rise of Qualitative Data

Researchers and marketers want to gain more insights into the patterns and trends behind the figures of quantitative researches. They want to understand why these figures are such and what forces are driving it. This is why the need for qualitative data is on the rise. 

The bulk of the work done by Qualitative Insights is for people who are just trying to understand the consumer journey, what's attributing to what, and the drivers of the ratings or rankings.

“Its all about telling stories. If we understand the data, we can tell a better story about it  ‘cause once we know the reason and rationale for what the trends are showing us, it becomes more actionable.” - Karen Lynch

 

The Methodology of PlayFULL insights™

PlayFULL insights™ is a method that leverages people’s imagination. It is highly valuable in the innovation space for people to understand what the content of one’s imagination might be—their aspirations, wishes, hopes and even fears projected out in the future. 

According to scientists, the frontal lobe of the brain shuts down when asked about the future. However, using “play” as a part of their qualitative research, researchers are able to effectively dive deep into the subject’s thoughts, in a very safe, strategic and deliberate way.

“PlayFULL insights a way for us to use the power of play to unlock that imaginative perspective thinking.” - Karen Lynch

 

Adaptation of LEGO® Serious Play®

Psychologists theorize that the idea of building tangible models helps children⁠—not only to understand the world around them⁠—but to easily communicate their learnings and knowledge to other people. Within those theories,  LEGO® Serious Play® developed a method which they can use in their board rooms to aid their strategic planning and communication set-backs.

Karen has a certificate in Facilitating and Designing Workshops with LEGO® Serious Play® Method. She adapted the methods used by LEGO in creating PlayFULL insights.

 

Quick links to connect with Karen Lynch:

Karen Lynch - LinkedIn

InsightsNow - Website

 

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

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Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Finn Raben, Director General of ESOMAR, joins us today to confer about how data collection and analysis have shifted to data curation. With huge amounts of data available today, Raben emphasized the importance of providing correct and effective analyses to governments and trade organizations.

Commitment To Quality Research

ESOMAR is a non-profit organization that was created in Europe in 1947. The company owners recognized that they cannot guarantee the quality and commitment to research during this post-war period. Due to this, ESOMAR developed a code of conduct for excellence which aims to advocate, promote and defend the cost of data, analytics and insights.

With such a rich history, Finn Raben shared that the organization prides itself on continuously evolving whilst maintaining its role as information disseminators to governments and trade organizations. ESOMAR has created standards for the industry and they have lived up to their commitments. 

From Collection to Curation

The evolution of the industry brought market research companies from a position of traditional gatekeepers of information to the curators of information. Around 20 to 30 years ago, the only means of reaching citizens and consumers is done via market agencies. Agencies focused on extolling its skills to being able to source information and collect that from people involved,  thereafter to ensure its validity and its protection. 

“In previous years, it was market research, with a focus on data collection, as today we do less collection but more of curation and analysis than before” - Finn Raben

Everyone's default mechanism today is digital. Due to excessive data availability, data collection has become an increasingly less important part of the business. However, picking the right data to answer whatever question it may be⁠—commercial, legal, societal⁠—became the primary driver of the business.

Outlook For The Industry

Finn Raben is positive that the industry has a very bright future, as much as there will only be much data creation. He mentioned the common phrase “we’re data rich, but insight poor” but is optimistic that data analysts of today can validate accuracy, understand the nuances and pull together the entire story. Furthermore, applying the right level of rigor and checking the provenance of data is more important today than it ever was before.

“Having somebody who knows how to look at data and finding the right answers, I think will have an increasingly valuable asset.” - Finn Raben

 

Quick links to connect with Finn Raben:

Finn Raben - LinkedIn

ESOMAR - Website

 

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

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Twitter

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Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

In today’s episode, Sima Vasa sits with Tania Yuki, CEO of Shareablee. Together, they talk about what inspired her to create Shareablee and how it helped advertisers, influencers, publishers and brand owners determine share-worthy content.

Lawyer Turned Social Media Analyst

Tania Yuki tried her luck as an Internet attorney before finding her way to social media analytics. At the moment, she is considered an expert on social media marketing, digital audience measurement, and web analytics, among others.

"It started into something like 'Im so intrigued as to why people would take this brand video and share it out to everyone they even know'" - Tanya Yuki

Where It All Began

Shareablee originated from Yuki’s natural curiosity on “people’s motivation in sharing social media content”. From there, the platform focused on measurement, advertising effectiveness and deep content analytics on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

"Shareablee was really born out of my personal curiosity about why people share content on mobile social platforms, so we began looking mostly on Facebook and Twitter. Now the ecosystem has quickly exploded in many more platforms, Instagram being the most important right now." - Tanya Yuki

Users understand how their content is resonating with the audience and in turn, make effective and compelling content. They can also filter the best platform to reach their audience to drive a particular objective.

What Makes Content Shareable

Social media users share content online because of the “Four Baskets of Motivation.” First is Social Proof—these are the content that would make users look smarter, funnier, caring or more in-the-know. Second is Usefulness. Examples of posts that fall under “usefulness” are product testimonials or great sale.

Then, there’s Storytelling, as humans are naturally inclined to gather around the campfire and tell stories to one another. The final driver for users to share a post is Emotion. If the post triggered happiness or empathy or inspiration, then it’s enough reason to share it with connections.  

“Just a fun fact, story-telling is not a useful driver among millenials. It is not that they don’t care about stories, but they wanted stories where they could be a part of, so you could ask their opinion” -Tania Yuki

 

Quick links to connect with Tania Yuki:

Tania Yuki - LinkedIn

Shareablee - Website

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

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Twitter

infinity-2.com

 

Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Co-founder and executive chair for Reid Campbell Group Eileen Campbell joins Sima Vasa today. Together, they talk about Eileen’s history and her undying curiosity, passion and hard work that ultimately birthed her tremendous career in the industry.

“I think if you're intellectually curious, it's a completely gratifying way to make a living.” - Eileen Campbell

Eileen Campbell - Starting Out Early

Eileen started in the industry really young when she was still the proverbial starving student in university. She worked full-time in a company called NFO (then they dubbed the National Family Opinion) through her final year of university. There, she met incredibly talented women leaders who became not only her mentors but life-long friends.

Throughout her career, she had the opportunity to keep reinventing. She handled project coordination, management, and even worked directly with clients. Then at 26, she convinced her boss to let her move to Minneapolis and put up an office, a transformative step.

“When you have some place that you kind of turn on the lights, where the success of the team depends on you being committed and dedicated... that's a real turning point I think in many people's careers. It certainly was for mine.” - Eileen Campbell

Startups and Working for Kantar

For a few years, Eileen took care of the Minneapolis office before moving on to work for the Angus Reid Group. There, she met her partners in her new venture, her first experience with a startup.

She was then recruited to run Kantar Millard Brown in North America before getting promoted to the global CEO role.

Staying Motivated Throughout

Since Eileen started the business really young, she stepped down from her bigger jobs just as early. All her ventures, as much as anything, are driven by a restless spirit. She was never good at being idle and has always been fascinated by the market research industry.

And this constant fascination and her curiosity for the industry fuel her every day to keep growing.

“I think the only job that I was really rotten at was being retired.” - Eileen Campbell

Quick links to connect with Eileen Campbell:

Eileen Campbell - LinkedIn

Reid Campbell Group

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

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Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Sima sits down with the co-founder and managing partner of Oberon Securities, Nicole Schmidt. On this episode, they talk about Oberon, investments and the role perseverance plays in earning entrepreneurial success.

“It's really 90% perseverance and 5% talent and 5% luck because I think in a way, you make your own opportunities by sticking it out.” - Nicole Schmidt

Nicole Schmidt - Backing Up Entrepreneurial Endeavors

Armed with her knowledge of what it takes to get a business off the ground, Nicole has always been supportive of entrepreneurial pursuits. This is only fitting. After all, people trust those who work in the investment banking space to represent their business in an objective manner.

Pretty much any business takes blood, sweat and tears to build up. Most entrepreneurs spend 15-20 years to grow their business into self-reliant entities. Only then can they truly operate on their own, which is why Nicole co-founded Oberon.

‘Sticktuitiveness’ and the Formula to Success

Nicole teaches an entrepreneurial class at her alma mater. She would always tell her students that making it big as an entrepreneur usually takes a mix of perseverance, talent and luck.

If you stick it out long enough, then good things happen and you are able to capitalize on them. Most failures stem not from not being smart. These failures come from the frustration with the process and the overwhelm of building a business from the ground up.

“I think the real talent lies in having some malleability and what I would call, ‘sticktuitiveness.’ And I think those are the differential points that I have seen in entrepreneurs and in my partners.” - Nicole Schmidt

Risks and Non-Existent Shortcuts

There clearly is no such thing as a shortcut. Putting the time in to know what you initially don’t know will be key to your success. To grow a business requires grit day in and day out.

“What makes you ultimately a successful business person at the helm of a successful business is making those mistakes and not letting them be catastrophic and ultimately learning from them.” - Nicole Schmidt

Risk taking also plays a part in the overall entrepreneurial process. It does comprise 5% of the formula and therefore a constant in any business' journey.

Quick links to connect with Nicole Schmidt:

Nicole Schmidt - LinkedIn

Oberon Securities, LLC

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

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Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Today, the CEO and founder of Gazelle Global Anne Brown sits with Sima Vasa. Together, they talk about the company’s beautiful 25 years from its conception to present celebration.

Anne Brown - Taking Stock of 25 Years

Anne says that this moment is incredibly opportune to take stock and look back where they started. When Gazelle Global was but a fledgling, it was nothing to send a job out to 60 sites—even with the limited power of copiers. After all, her job let her experience a lot of new things.

“I have an extreme love of working internationally and what I liked about that time was that if you worked internationally, you had to go.” - Anne Brown

Building Gazelle Global

Gazelle Global started out when Anne was vice president of operations at CRC. In one meeting, one of her clients turned to her and her co-founder and said he lacked in-house operations. He then offered that they worked on the field and DP to build the business, and they proceeded to write their history.

For small to midsize research companies, it does not always pay for them to have the operations inside. The idea was that researchers and ops people should stick to what they do best and that researchers should not be charged for the ops people unless they need them. And so their business came to be.

“We were a niche business… Not a lot of people were doing this but it made so much sense even back then.” - Anne Brown

Celebrating 25 Years

For their 25th year in the industry, Anne and the company did a graffiti wall that was filled with writings by the end of their celebratory conference. Even their international partners wrote on the wall in their native tongue. Their employees, of course, were treated to great food and bottles of champagne.

“It's just a wonderful thing to think that this is a family, that we support a lot of families here and that we've been a work family for a long time now.” - Anne Brown

Sima concurs. It is interesting to achieve a completely different orientation in business, especially after going through the many ups and downs from when you were a startup.

Quick links to connect with Anne Brown:

Anne Brown - LinkedIn

Gazelle Global

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

infinity-2.com

Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Today, P2Sample’s Chief Revenue Officer JD Deitch joins Sima Vasa. They have a fascinating conversation about JD’s transition to revenue functions from research and analytics, what has changed within the sample industry over the last ten years, and so much more.

“So much of what we do is digital and the effort to try to attract people's attention and get them to do something—whether that is to buy a product or to do a survey—all that happens online and happens at a massive scale.” - JD Deitch

JD Deitch - Learning How Insight Businesses Operate

Truth be told, JD's transition into his current position at P2Sample did not go quickly. He was head of research and analytics at The NPD Group. As part of the European Management Committee, he came to learn how insight businesses function.

After he left NPD, he ended up in a great transitional role where he worked in teaching research as well as taking care of methodologies that build surveys. Finally, when he moved to IPSOS, he became responsible for all of IPSOS' North American panel and sampling operations. While there was the implicit research element in his job role, he also concerned himself with how to get the business done, deliver good outcomes for clients, and manage a huge budget.

Marriage of Research, Revenue and Sample

All his previous experiences eventually became his stepping stone. He managed to parlay all his learnings into the path that eventually led him to P2Sample. When he thought about it, his position at the agency is the second time that he has taken up the responsibility for an overall revenue function.

“For me, what actually plays into it is I do know how the business operates... I've had plenty of time in front of clients knowing what they want and been able to express that into things like marketing strategy to help our sales and business development teams grow.”  - JD Deitch

Digitization: The Great Driving Force

The aim of most research projects has not changed much. They all wish to understand the behavior of a population from a smaller group of people. However, the techniques and methods to operationalize research have completely evolved for the past 10 years.

That everything has become digital drives the change, especially from a sample point of view. In turn, most agencies need to adapt to work with these changes. Nobody wants to just read a PowerPoint presentation—they wish to execute and apply insights pronto, and so the era of automation came to be.

“I think you're seeing the endpoints really driving change towards the middle, and right now, probably the biggest stressors are on the agencies to transform themselves and react to that.”  - JD Deitch

Quick links to connect with JD Deitch:

JD Deitch - LinkedIn

JD Deitch - Twitter

P2Sample - Website

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

infinity-2.com

Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

On today’s episode, the Founder and Chief Experience Officer of MESH Experience Fiona Blades sits with Sima Vasa. She shares how she leveraged mobile advertising long before it became mainstream and how experiential marketing is even more relevant today.

Fiona Blades - Company Founded on Encounters

Fiona founded MESH for the same reason everyone else starts a company. She was working as Planning Director at Claydon Heeley, handling famous brands like Mercedes Benz. Back then, she knew that it was not just TV advertising but also the plethora of everyday experiences—ranging from a dealership or a neighbor’s purchase—that make people want to buy the car.

“Different encounters were making a difference to how people perceive the brand.” - Fiona Blades

Knowing all that, Fiona felt that there was a gap that needed to be filled. This was how she came to realize the potential of the mobile phone.

Unsung Potential of Mobile Phones

Fiona thought that if they could get people to tell them whenever they see, hear and experience anything to do with a particular brand through the mobile phone, they could then work out which of the experiences were positive or less positive. That way, they could figure out how to help clients optimize their marketing investments.

She went through a number of little steps before she could push through with the idea. It all began in another research company's suggestion that they sent a text message to a thousand young people to gather some data. Seeing actual responses coming through, Fiona figured that they could brief people to be more proactive in the data collection.

Taking on Experiential Marketing

Their data-collecting text brigades had two uses: as an ethnographic diary and as an evaluation. Through this effort, they began to see how respondents reacted to TV advertisements, posters, and even other people’s brand experiences.

Not too long after, Fiona met her business partner who shared the same vision that she had. They decided to take on an award-winning project with a more qualitative approach to evaluating the brand experience. They launched some pilot tests that eventually proved that they could be onto something.

“After I saw the data coming back in, I think two things happened. One was, I thought, 'If I can do that, somebody else can easily copy, so why would anyone buy it?' But the more important one was, I wanted to do it. I saw the data and I thought, 'Okay, I know how this could help marketers.'” - Fiona Blades on starting MESH as an agency

Quick links to connect with Fiona Blades:

Fiona Blades - LinkedIn

Fiona Blades - Twitter

MESH Experience - Website

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

infinity-2.com

Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

On today’s episode, Sima Vasa sits with Ted McConnell, SVP of Lucid. Together, they talk about his background, how advertising has changed and what marketers need to do to improve targeting.

Finding His Way to Marketing

Ted spent about the first half of his career in technology communications where he built networks and operating systems. He transitioned into technology development and, when the Internet came along, marketing.

From there, he worked as a consultant for lots of data projects with various media companies. And now, he is a man with an unbelievable passion for data and data quality, steeped in the challenges and opportunities within the industry.

Changes in Advertising

Ted also shares how advertising has changed over the years. The landscape is fraught with various new channels and assumptions that marketers make about what consumers are doing.

“What hasn't changed is you still want to get the right message to the right person... and what has changed is how you get it there.” - Ted McConnell

Access to consumers is now data-driven, going through these various channels. The data aids in understanding who the consumer is and how marketers should deal with each of these channels.

To Truly Improve Targeting

The industry has gotten more sophisticated with the technology that allows for more precise allocation of advertising campaigns to specific segments. But to Ted, we have not gotten better at targeting.

“What we've done is overcome the complexity of having many, many channels without necessarily becoming much better at getting to the right audiences.” - Ted McConnell

Ted realized that the industry has yet to truly solve this problem in attribution. He set out to seek answers, realizing that the simplest solution to figuring out intentions is to ask the audience. And this pursuit eventually led him to Lucid.

“The ‘who” is the principal driver and if you don’t know that, if that’s the missing link in your attribution, then you don’t know anything.” - Ted McConnell

Quick links to connect with Ted McConnell:

Ted McConnell - LinkedIn

Lucid - Website

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

infinity-2.com

Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don't forget to leave a rating and review!