Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews David Paull, CEO of Engagious.

Contact David Online:

LinkedIn

Engagious

[00:00]

This conversation with David Paull, CEO-Founder of Engagious and Dialsmith, offers a unique perspective on his business where he’s finding traction in the marketplace and adding value to his customers.  The other part that I think is real interesting is he’s incorporated in the Engagious podcast an interesting marketing spin that I think all of us as marketing research agency owners should at least start thinking about.  And his particular spin on this podcast is centric to connecting the dots between our discipline of market research and then other disciplines like aeronautics and chemistry and physics and whatever kind of stuff, creating more of a holistic point of view of data insights.  So, I hope you enjoy the episode. As always, you can reach David Paull in the show notes. Thanks so much. Enjoy.

[01:02]  

My guest today is David Paull, CEO of Engagious.  Sir, thanks for being on the Happy Market Research Podcast.

[01:08]  

Thanks for having me.  Appreciate it.

[01:09]

It is an honor to have a fellow podcaster on the show.

[01:13]

Yeah, I know.  I love that too, and anything we can do to support each other and get more quality content out into the industry is awesome.

[01:21]   

Totally, totally.  Now, you’ve been on my show before, right?  

[01:24]

Yes, sir.  

[01:24]  

And that was a great episode.  I can’t remember the number of it, but I’ll post it in the show notes for those that want to like do a deep dive with you.  These are a little like micro-episodes that I throw up based on the different events, which has been really fun. First year in Austin at IIeX, what are your thoughts?     

[01:40]

I think this is a great location.  I imagine it draws a lot of people because it’s a cool spot.  This venue is good, and I like the format that they’re doing this year.  I like the quick 15--20-minute sessions. I think they’re tapping into people’s attention spans.  It’s probably a lot like you’re learning and I’m learning with this format. Early on, I started with longer form 45 minutes, some were pushing an hour.  I figured Tim Ferris can do it; I can too, but...

[02:12]

And Joe Rogan, two hours.         

[02:13]

Yeah, right.  But that really doesn’t work.  So I think those 15--20-minute bites are just right.  So, so far, I like it a lot.

[02:21]

Me, too.  It’s funny like show format-wise, I’ve been struggling with that because I have a standardized eight questions that I ask.  And I’m very sort of rigid on that piece, but at the same time, the rule of thumb is you have to earn right for attention every 20 seconds.  So you really got to start pressing in as a host on “How can I create engagement – basically sound bites – every 20 seconds,” which is hard.

[02:48]

Yeah, well, because a lot of guests, they’re not professional guests.  They’re professionals in their own field and you get them talking about it and they’re talking and talking and talking.  And while it’s important and fascinating, it’s not in 20-second sound bites.

[03:02]  

Exactly right, especially researchers.  But it’s fun, it’s fun. It’s such a great group.  So, this is Day 2. What highlights do you have of the show so far?  

[03:14]

Ah, I have been personally taking away a lot from challenges that this industry’s having marketing itself.  I get that from a lot of these events. Sales and marketing related to the market research industry: everybody says it we’re great at research; we’re not great at marketing and positioning and selling what we do.  So I’m always looking for new ways to help do that,

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Casey Bernard, Marketing Research Consultant and Podcast Producer at Nimble Modern Radio.

Contact Casey Online:

LinkedIn

Nimble Modern Radio

[00:00]

This guest, Casey Bernard, Nimble Modern Radio, is one of the top conversations I’ve had.   I think, obviously, that podcasting has a very relevant place inside of market research, specifically around storytelling at scale.  Actually, producing and then distributing your content so that it can be consumed by your constituents inside of your organization when and where they want is really, really important.  It helps educate your audience and your constituents prior to coming together as a group and can actually create a major shortcut with getting everybody on the same page and then moving the business forward, empowering the insights.  I hope you find a lot of value in this particular interview. Please look her up. She has an amazing business that is flourishing, and anything that we can do to help this particular company as an Insights Nation would be greatly appreciated.  Enjoy.

[01:03]  

Nimble Modern Radio, Breaking Research is the name of the podcast; Casey is the name of the founder and host.  It is an honor to have another podcaster on my show. So thanks so much.

[01:17]  

Sure, thanks for having me.  

[01:18]  

We are live at IIEX here in Austin.  Have you been to the show before?

[01:23]  

I have not.   

[01:24]

What do you think?

[01:24]

It’s great.  It’s my hometown.  So it was really convenient.  

[01:27]   

You’re actually based in Austin?

[01:28]

Yeah.  

[01:29]  

Well, this is super easy for you.

[01:29]

Yeah.       

[01:30]

OK, got it.  When did you start the business?          

[01:33]

Well, I was Nimble Market Research for a while.  I’ve been on my own since about 2009 as a qualitative moderator.  And last year, I started thinking about podcasting because I have been moonlighting for a couple of years doing a podcast with a friend of mine, who has a YouTube channel and we talk about knitting.  So, that podcast has been successful, and I thought how can I incorporate my two jobs, basically. So I started thinking... exploring podcasts for marketing research. And so, last year, I decided to transfer into a podcast production company, I guess we’d say.    

[02:12]

I mean it’s a big leap.  Podcaster jumping... They’re growing right now but, honestly, in this space, there’s not a lot of appreciation for the value that they create.  

[02:23]

Right.

[02:24]  

The connection that can be made with a listener is remarkable in this format versus, honestly, any other format:  YouTube, social media. It’s just a totally unique opportunity to connect. My theory – and I’m interested in your perspective on this – is that it’s because we help occupy the brain during times of monotony.  It’s like: tune in, I’m mowing the lawn (It’s like my go-to example), do my honey-does, or it’s my 51 minutes a day that I commute, whatever it is. There’s like that voice is in my ear and I kind of look forward to it.   

[03:00]

Yeah, you feel like friends.  

[03:03]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[03:04]

Yeah, well, I’m taking it from kind of a different angle because, for research purposes, so many people are asking for “Just give me like the 5-minute download” or “I don’t have time to read...”  or “I don’t want to ready another 100-page PowerPoint slide.” Like you’re hearing that more and more at conferences. So, it was like how can we give that 5-minute download, but maybe you’re on a plane, traveling for work, or you’re commuting into work that day.  You don’t want to look at the PowerPoint deck.

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Andy Greenawalt, CEO of OdinAnswers.

Contact Andy Online:

LinkedIn

OdinAnswers

[00:00]

I had a phone conversation with Andy Greenawalt, Odin Answers, the day that they actually rebranded from OdinText to OdinAnswers.  Those of you who don’t know Tom Anderson’s the founder of that company and until recently has been the CEO. Andy’s assumed the role and begun with a bang.  I’ll say I really liked this conversation, hearing about how OdinText has pivoted based on where the market is right now and where they believe it’s going. They’re focusing a lot more on what is going out, in other words, where the point of value is and how to get inside of sentiment analysis and how to get to that sentiment analysis and that value to really power business insight.  As always, you can find his information in the show notes.

[00:47]  

My guest today is Andy Greenawalt with OdinText, and we are live at IIEX in Austin.  How are you today?

[00:57]  

I’m doing great, doing great.  Great to be in Austin and great to be on the podcast.   

[01:01]  

Yeah, thanks so much for joining me.  We are sitting here in the beautiful...  like art behind me, right? It’s not a bad venue.

[01:08]  

Jackson Pollack went large-scale here.

[01:11]

Exactly, well done.  What do you guys think about the show so far?

[01:15]   

I just got here.  So, yes, it is successfully achieved my expectations:  it is a building and everyone is here. So, I just walked in the door.  It looks fantastic.

[01:27]

Well, they have some fun activities that are going one beyond the awesome speakers that they have lined up, one of which is a paint-by-numbers that is actually going on right behind you.  If you’re so inclined, you can take a moment, pick a color; she gives you the corresponding number, and you literally just start. They did this in Amsterdam for the first time this year. It was really a cool piece of art, and they actually have down here at the base of the elevator.  So you have to check it out. I’m like, gosh, if they keep doing this, they’re going to actually develop a pretty cool, kick-ass art collection.   

[02:00]  

There we go, there we go.

[02:01]

Market research meets art.  It’s kind of a neat combination.  So, tell me a little bit about what’s going on at OdinText.  

[02:07]

So, OdinText is now OdinAnswers as of this morning.  And really what that is it’s the pivot from what goes into the thing to what comes out of the thing.  I came out about a year ago. I was at the Atlanta IIEX. And in working with these guys over the last year, it was clear that what we were delivering to customers wasn’t text analytics.  It was something else: it was triangulating on a different piece of information and that’s what really answers is all about; it’s about the intersection between the text, the metrics, and segments – and typically microsegments – that define an answer.      

[02:48]

I love that.  You guys have been around for quite a while - OdinText and now OdinAnswers.  Give me a little bit of framework for the ideal customer. Who is buying from you right now?   

[03:01]

The ideal customer is a digital-first company.  So, we found that, as we looked at our customers, they were most typically digital-first companies.  So, what does that mean? It means that they’re not making physical products and they’re not selling it through traditional channels.  Digital-first companies that are doing things online have so much more data, richer data, and critically more real-time data that it allows them to take the feedback loop that Answers creates and get it implemented more quickly.  So they can use insights at the rate that we can create them and really...

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Adriana Rocha, Founder and CEO of eCGlobal Research Solutions.

Contact Adriana Online:

LinkedIn

eCGlobal Research Solutions

[00:00]

My guest is Adriana Rocha, eCGlobal Solutions.  Adriana has been a mainstay inside of the market research industry, focusing on a couple of big companies:  GMI, Rob Monster, back in the early days. Those of you who are old enough know he has turned into GMI at Lightspeed and now, I think, just Lightspeed.  Those of you that are in Latin America know who she is. Her company is growing rapidly. She really breaks down their core value prop and how they’re bringing value to their customers consistently by creating innovation through HBO GO panels, leveraging trending shows, and using non-traditional incentives like badges to certify community members as experts.  This is a great episode. Understanding entrepreneurship also through the lens of a woman in context of being a software engineer, entrepreneur, and CEO. I hope you find a lot of value and fun in it. And as always, please take the time to share this episode. Have a great day.

[00:59]  

My guest today on the Happy Market Research Podcast is Adriana with eCGlobal.  Thanks for being on the show.

[01:07]  

Thanks, actually, I’m really happy to be here today.  My pleasure.

[01:14]  

Thank you.  So, we are live at IIEX.  There’s a lot of activity going on everywhere; it’s a little bit chaotic.   What do you think about the show so far?

[01:23]  

IIEX for me is always a great show to meet new people, find out about new players in the industry, see what’s going on, and also catchup on some great presentations as well. So yeah, thus far, I think it’s really good, great conference so far.  

[01:39]

So, we are doing a unique interview.  Normally, I do like these bit-sized snippets, but I’ve been really excited about eCGlobal as an organization, which, by the way, in all full disclosure is not a sponsor of the show or anything like that.  I mean I’ve just been watching what you guys have doing in Latin America, and I feel like it’s really germane and relevant to a need I’ve been seeing surface inside of market research in general. So, I’ve wanted to do a long-form interview with you, which is what we’re going to do today.  So it’s going to be slightly different than the other ones that I’ve done connected to IIEX or any other trade show for that matter. So we’re going to go ahead and get started with our trademark question. Tell me a little bit about your parents. What did they do and how did that impact your career in market research?  

[02:25]

Yeah, so my father, he’s a doctor, and he’s an entrepreneur.  He founded one of the first children’s hospital in the city that we live almost 50 years ago.  And that hospital has become a reference in terms of pediatrician medical sciences there in Brazil.  And it’s very inspiring for me not just because of his success as entrepreneur but also because of his patience for what he does and also about the mission:  having a greater purpose of being an entrepreneur; helping and saving lives and kids. So it definitely has influenced who I am and what I do. That’s why I was an entrepreneur.            

[03:17]   

What about your mom?

[03:18]

Well, my mom, she is also an entrepreneur.  She also had some retailer, you know, some stores, clothing and fashion stores.  So in my family we have a...

[03:38]  

The bug of entrepreneurship.

[03:40]

Correct, yes, yes.      

[03:40]

So, how in the world did you wind up in market research?          

[03:44]

Well, that’s a good question.  So, I am a computer engineer. And before I worked with market research,

Founded in 2000, Toluna produces online surveys and manages a consumer community of over 24 million active members in 68 countries.

Prior to joining Toluna, Phil Ahad has lead marketing and product strategy teams across many different industries and has held senior level positions at CoStar, AOL and comScore.

Find Phil Online:

LinkedIn

Website: www.toluna-group.com

Find Us Online: 

Social Media: @happymrxp

LinkedIn

This Episode's Sponsor:

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Schlesinger Quantitative, your trusted provider of global online surveys that drive the best decisions for success in the marketplace. Schlesinger Quantitative has built an entire division of experts with extensive online research experience and an unparalleled understanding of quality drivers across panel, sample, and data.

[00:00]

On Episode 214, I’m interviewing Phil Ahad, EVP of Toluna, but first a word from our sponsor.

[00:08]  

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Schlesinger Quantitative, your trusted provider of global online surveys that drive the best decisions for success in the marketplace.  Schlesinger Quantitative has built an entire division of experts with extensive online research experience and an unparalleled understanding of quality drivers across panel, sample, and data.

[00:31]

Hi, I’m Jamin Brazil, and you’re listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast.  My guest today is Phil Ahad, EVP – Head of Products and Strategy at Toluna. Founded in 2000, Toluna produces online surveys and manages a consumer community of over 24 million active members in 68 countries.  Prior to joining Toluna, Phil has led marketing and product strategy teams across many different industries and has held senior level positions at CoStar, AOL, and Comscore. Thanks very much for joining me on the Happy Market Research Podcast today.

[01:07]  

Yep, thanks for having me.  I’m honored.

[01:08]  

So, tell me a little bit about your upbringing:  What you parents did, and how that’s informed your career?

[01:14]

So, my parents are immigrants.  I’m a first generation American, I’d say here.  And it’s funny ‘cause like you always hear about these immigrant stories of them coming to the United States with like $18 in their pocket and then them being like these massive successes.  Actually, my family was quite opposite: My dad and his brothers came with a ton of money, and they just blew it on really bad investments or risks, whatever you want to call it, and they had to start all over.  So my family is very entrepreneurial in nature. They hustle; they grind; they’re very educated. And my upbringing was kind of that. I was working with my dad and my mom at their businesses, going to school. It’s kind of lead me to where I am today here at Toluna and leading products and strategy for the group. And I like it because, although we’re a pretty decent size organization, we’re a corporate culture.  We still have the entrepreneurial mindset in everything we do. And that’s why I’m here, and I’m enjoying the work I’m doing.

[02:17]

The starting-over part is really interesting to me especially because, having exited FocusVision, all of a sudden, I’m kind of in a spot now where I’m quite literally starting over, right?  But my parents had a similar situation where they had invested in a small farm. Then, all of a sudden, the value of the produce dropped by, roughly speaking, three-quarters. And after about three years of that, they had, ultimately, they just couldn’t make the payments anymore.  And so, it was a complete reset from a financial perspective which, for me as a kid, you know they helped protect us but family-owned businesses are... The whole family feels it, right? You’re invested in that business along with your family from a work perspective. What kind of core values or lessons learned did you get when they went through that restart process?

[03:08]   

Yeah,

Welcome to the MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series. Recorded live in Cincinnati, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Rudy Bublitz, Director of Digital Taxonomy.

Contact Rudy Online:

LinkedIn

[email protected]

Digital Taxonomy

[00:00]

My guest is Rudy with Digital Taxonomy.  Digital Taxonomy.co.uk is name of their website.  I hope you’ll check them out. It’s really an interesting combination of AI and human judgment to transform unstructured text into actionable insights.  I was impressed with their framework for how to derive and pull out high quality in that really-becoming-a-crowded space. I hope you’ll check it out.  

[00:30]  

So, my guest today is Rudy with Digital Taxonomy.  Tell us a little bit about Digital Taxonomy.

[00:36]  

We are a software provider.  We have two products in our portfolio.  We focus on verbatim coding within the survey research context and that includes traditional verbatim coding where humans are employed.  But our application tries to make best use of both a natural language processing, text analytics, sentiment analysis as well as a machine learning capability to try to automate the things humans do.  We don’t want to replace humans; we just think it’s... you know we can optimize their performance by making best use of these tools that have been around for a while, trying to work that into a human interface.  So, that’s the real struggle.

[01:19]  

So, talk to me a little bit about how you guys are different.  There’s a couple of different text analytics companies out there in the market research space.

[01:26]  

A couple?

[01:27]

Yes.  [laughter]

[01:28]

And all the freebies and all the …

[01:30]   

Right, and then you have AWS, you know what I mean, at scale.

[01:32]

Yeah, you can go out, and you can write things in R, and you can do a lot of things on your own.  But if you’re going to create an interface that humans are going to interplay with those things and control them – those different technologies, that’s a bit harder.  The human interface is really the most important piece because you have to have ways for a lot of people in an organization to use the software, not just specialists. A lot of this stuff... There’s a roomful of three or four specialists that are in charge text analytics, machine learning, and they go off and do their thing.  We’re trying to create an application that can be used by analysts, by coders, by DP staff, by end-customers, everyone.

[02:12]  

What is one of your favorite projects that you guys worked on?

[02:16]

Oh, I’ve done a bunch of work.  I’m kind of a Londonphile, and I’ve done a bunch of work on London hotels and restaurants, massive numbers of reviews.  So, I’ve come to know the restaurant and hotel industry quite well in London, which is very helpful. Many of these are the very posh places.  Using the text analytics and a combination of a little bit of human assistance, built basically my own Yelp for London for hotels and restaurants.  You pick sort of the things that are important to you and the ratings of the restaurants. and I can show you selections in that category.

[02:51]

So, from a workflow perspective, how do companies interact with you?  Do they provide you their unstructured data in like a file or are you usually part of a quantitative study?  How does it...?

[03:07]

So, right now we license the software.  So an agency will license the software from us.  The data can come in from any form. And we have an open API as well; so, if it’s a consistent method for transporting data from tools like Decipher, from Askia, from Survey Monkey, anywhere, we can set up an automated process so that  just flows, in the evening. We also have the ability to code in surveys; so,

Welcome to the MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series. Recorded live in Cincinnati, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Will Krieger, VP of Research America.

Contact Will Online:

LinkedIn

[email protected]

Research America

[00:00]

Will Krieger, Research America, MRMW – He and I got to spend a few minutes together talking about how Research America is improving overall insights deliveries into their customers.  Another piece of our conversation, which I actually thought was really interesting, is that M&A strategy that Rob Porter has put together with Research America to drive 16 successful acquisitions in just a five-year period of time.  I can give you a hint as to what the solution is: It’s all about core values, fit, and culture. Enjoy.

[00:37]  

My guest today is Will Krieger, Research America.  Will, thanks for being on the Happy Market Research Podcast.  

[00:44]  

Thanks for having me.

[00:45]  

So, we’re live today at MRMW in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Have you been to this show before?

[00:51]  

I have.  First time was last year.

[00:53]

OK, got it.  And are you from...  I know Research America has an office here, right?

[00:57]

We do.  Yeah, we’re in Blue Ash.  If you know Cincinnati. So, northern Cincinnati.  And I am from Cincinnati. I’ve been here, born and raised in Cincinnati, which is not at all uncommon in the Cincinnati area.  

[01:10]   

Yeah, I had an employee from here.  So, my previous business partner, Jayme Plunkett and I, hired out of his graduating class out of Stanford.  And one of them, Alex (I forget his last name now), but was native Cincinnati. And one of the things I found out about the community is, it’s kind of like if you’re born here, you stay here.   

[01:31]

Exactly, and I’ve stayed here.    

[01:33]  

Yeah, that’s right.  That’s great, though.

[01:36]

Family’s a big part of that.       

[01:36]

It is.          

[01:38]

Right.  You’ve got the whole family here.  It’s hard to break away from that.

[01:41]

It’s about those core values, I think, too, right?  You have like the similar world view on what’s important and that helps at a corporate level or support that at a corporate level is...  If you go to a different environment, they might not think that those same values are important, and so driving you to do different behaviors that aren’t supportive.  

[02:00]

Very true, very true.

[02:02]  

Which is nice about Research America, thinking about that business as...  I know Rob Porter, the CEO, very family-oriented individual. That’s nice to have that little consistency.  

[02:13]

Absolutely.  Every company that we’ve acquired (maybe we’ll get into that) has that same kind of set of core values, if you will:  Collaboration is a big one; integrity; several others. We all have the same set of core values, which helps us mesh together as a team.     

[02:37]

Yeah, I love that.  And that’s one of the things I’ve been picking up more and more with successful companies, is that the intangible, the community that’s created inside of the organization is more important that the assets that are sold.  And my these is that (and this isn’t like some Ah-ha moment that anybody’s going to have; this is well documented) is that the one piece of intellectual property that we have that keeps us differentiated in the marketplace is the relationship with the customer, right?  And if you can drive that relationship internally, it’ll naturally be an extension externally.

[03:12]

Mh-hmm, I agree.  I would add it’s the relationship with the customer and the relationship you have with one another, right?  In order to do your best work, I think it’s critical to have a team that can really gel well together, come up with great ideas,

Welcome to the MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series. Recorded live in Cincinnati, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Rob Pascale, President and Chief Analytics Officer at MAi Research.

Contact Rob Online:

LinkedIn

[email protected]

MAi Research

[00:00]

My guest is Robert Pascale, MAI Research.  You can find him online at MAI Research.com.  Love the .com by the way. They develop custom market research solutions to address important challenges.  Now, this was a really interesting episode for me ‘cause I have five kids, and he uses as an example diapers.  And one of their customers is a diaper company. And they were trying to figure out how to punch through from a messaging perspective.  Originally, the context was all about leak prevention, but after using their proprietary text analytics, which leverages a Bayesian model, they actually discovered that diaper rash was a bigger driver of consumer intent.  And communicating about the gel protection inside of the diaper is what would actually drive oversize returns. Now interestingly enough, after that company changed the messaging, Shzam! It actually took place. I hope you enjoy this episode.   

[01:02]  

My guest today - Rob Pascale, MAI Research.  Does it stand for something?

[0106:]  

Marketing Analysts Incorporated.  Initially, that’s what it was.

[01:10]

Got it.

[01:10]  

But recently, I guess maybe about ten years ago or so, we changed it to MAI Research.

[01:17]

I like it.  Yeah, IBM kind of did that.  M/A/R/C Research, who you might know, Merrill Dubrow, they did that as well.  And we are at MRMW. Ironically, I don’t have any idea what that stands for. Do you?  

[01:28]

I don’t.  [laughter]  

[01:30]   

Anyway, we’re live here in Cincinnati.  What do you think about the show so far?

[01:33]

It’s been good.  It’s been good to reach out and let people know about what we’ve been working on.  We also have a spin-off that we’ve been working on, which is Pathfinder Analytics, which is an analytics division that we’ve added into our...  We’ve kind of broken out from being just an analytics department and really focuses on four primary areas, which are text analytics, which is more focused on understanding the broader ideas that people are talking about rather than trying to bring it back to absolute definitions of words.  So we’re getting more of you can pick up some slang that way; you can pick up what are the ideas people really care about and how the words relate back to those ideas.

[02:16]  

I had a boss who used to say, actually I had a client that used to say, so yes, a boss:  “I want you to do what I mean, not what I say.” Is that kind of getting to the point of the sentiment and text analytics that you’re doing?    

[02:29]

Yeah, and actually it’s not sentiment analysis, which does try to assign different degrees of emotion or excitement, things like that, to definitions of words.  And so, what we’re doing is actually just letting the connections between the words people use in context define how the words are used. So we’re not going back to dictionary definitions; we’re not applying any kind of bias initially.  We’re letting people just however they speak defines the words.

[02:57]

That’s so interesting.  So, it’s kind of like Brama in that you define it by what it’s not.  Give me an example of a project and the outcome of that example.     

[03:06]

Sure.  So, let’s see.  There was one that we did where we scraped online reviews.  This was for a diaper product. And what we were able to find out was that when people talked about leak protection, they actually talked more about the softness of the diapers than it was about the actual leak protection itself.  So that actually changed the way the client thought about softness....

Welcome to the MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series. Recorded live in Cincinnati, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Niklas Anzinger, Commercial Lead of Strategic Insights at Dalia Research.

Contact Niklas Online:

LinkedIn

[email protected]

Dalia Research

[00:00]

Niklas Anzinger, Dalia Research – fantastic presentation he gave at MRMW.  This piece is super interesting to me because he talks about the importance of companies brands connecting at a niche level, or even more specific to an individual.  The better they can understand the customer, what resonates with them at the individual level, the higher that content is tailored, not in a creepy way, but the higher that content is touching the needs that I have and my emotional strings, the better it is going to be able to deliver on its brand promise.   And Dalia has a really interesting, both as a private market research firm, the supportive systems around it and also the proprietary mobile technology that enables this type of individualized research at scale. Hope you enjoy.

[00:54]  

My guest today is Niklas.  Niklas, pronounce your last name again for me please.  

[00:59]  

Anzinger.

[01:00]  

Happy Market Research Podcast.  You’re with Dalia Research. Thanks for being on the show.

[01:05]  

Thanks for having me.

[01:06]

We’re live at MRMW today.  This is the first day. When do you speak?

[01:12]

I spoke.

[01:13]   

You spoke already.  

[01:13]

Yeah, I spoke already.

[01:14]  

How did that go?

[01:15]

It went really good.  So, you always know by the number of questions that people ask, also by the quality of questions that people ask.  And we had a lot of people coming over to the booth right after. I gave a similar talk one-and-a-half years ago, and there I got very little feedback.  So, I’m hoping that shows that I’ve improved.

[01:33]

Yeah, for sure.  Tell us about your presentation.            

[01:36]

So, I was talking about a method to achieve precision for research results at scale.  So, we’re using (and I’m talking mostly above quantitative research) traditional methods such as quota sampling to estimate, for example, the brand perception.  And I gave the example of Heineken that had a marketing campaign that was supposed to reach millennials, and it didn’t go really well. This is not satisfying for researchers.  So, we wanted to know how can we achieve what we want with the campaign. And I’m talking how a new statistical method called MRP is helping to measure much more precisely and what people think of a brand over time.     

[02:26]

So, give me a specific example, like a project that is a highlight for you.

[02:33]

So, I was talking about this example.  So, imagine that you are Heineken and want your marketing campaign to reach millennials but not only millennials, a very specific type of millennials.  They should also play soccer and sort of be digital natives.

[02:47]  

Very niche audience.

[02:48]

Exactly.  So, the problem is when you do traditional research, you do a large survey with a 1,000 people but you only have like 20 people that fit the exact profile.  So, from the answers from these 20 people, you can’t really say how well your campaign worked because, statistically speaking, these results aren’t very relevant; they’re highly prone to error.  So what we did we used the alternative method to show how this specific subgroup was receptive to the marketing campaign of Heineken.

[03:24]

Ah, that’s fascinating.  I think winning inside of the niches is becoming more and more important, yet marketing research, I think, in general is still operating at the kind of quant, big-scale point of view.  But, as brands are focusing, to your point,

Welcome to the MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series. Recorded live in Cincinnati, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Nihal Advani, Founder and CEO of QualSights.

Contact Nihal Online:

LinkedIn

[email protected]

QualSights

[00:00]

Interview was with Nihal from QualSights.  Getting to know the “why” is vital in consumer insights.  This is why I believe that qualitative tools like Remesh or QualSights are seriously on the rise right now in market research.  If I predict what’s going to happen in the next five years, I really believe that qualitative-based tools are going to do a better job of delivering conversations at scale than historically surveys have been able to do.  Why is that? Because we’re seeing a constant retraction of people from taking the traditional 15-minute, even 10-minute survey. It just doesn’t fit into the context of a modern life. There’s too many competitions for our attention that draws us away from providing that insight.  So the better that qualitative can be conducted at scale through quick hits of insights and really asking open-ended questions, collecting that information in a video, or audio, or a native experience for the user, that can then be analyzed and reduced to both quantitative and qualitative.  So we know this is bigger than that, and we can actually start understanding the “why.” Hope you enjoy this and also hope you’ll check out Nihal online as well as QualSights at Qualsights.com.

[01:28]  

Nihal Advani, QualSights, MRMW.  What do you think about Day 1 of the show?

[01:34]  

So far, so good.  It was great to see ….. Gayle from FourSquare.

[01:39]  

And you’re presenting, right?

[01:40]  

Yes.  Actually, with Gayle later today at 2 P.M.

[01:43]

Gayle is Head of Insights for FourSquare, a massive data company.  I thought it was probably one of the... It’s in my top 10 overall, probably top 5 overall presentations that I’ve ever heard for market research.  It should be a TED Talk. It’s so much value, talking about how data drives positive business outcomes.

[02:06]

Absolutely.  And I would say it’s very interesting to see how she talked about how people vote with their feet and the kind of data they can provide.  So it’s pretty cool.

[02:14]   

Yeah, spectacular, actually.  So, you’re speaking with her tomorrow?  Or is it today? It’s actually today.

[02:17]

Today at 2 o’clock.  We’re having a fireside chat.

[02:20]  

OK, good.  What are you guys going to talk about?

[02:21]

Getting to “why.”  It’s all about sort of understanding consumers, and she actually talked about a portion of it, which is all precision at scale, and how in our case with QualSights, we can actually offer precision with scale in terms of consumer behavior.  So, in a nutshell, those are the kinds of things we’ll be talking about as well as things around how... you know what’s it like to be at a startup and stuff.

[02:41]

And you have a startup.  QualSights. Tell us a little bit about that.  

[02:45]

Yeah, sure.  It’s, in fact, like we were just saying, it’s basically understanding consumer behavior but doing that with high precision and at scale and basically being able to do remote ethnography in real time.  And that’s, in an essence, what we offer. But we allow someone to use any qualitative method and, essentially, have an all-in-one platform that not just helps people capture data at scale but also analyze and present it much easier and faster.  

[03:08]

And that was part of her thesis is it used to be the case...  Yesterday, she said, it would have been yesterday that you had to decide if it’s scale or precision.  And now it’s precision at scale.

[03:19]

Exactly, exactly.

[03:20]  

So, video is a big part of your platform.  

[03:23]

Uh-huh, absolutely.