Now that's Significant

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Horst Feldhaeuser, Group Services Director at Infotools hosts Anthony Ahiabuike. Up until September last year, Anthony was the Director Strategy & Planning: Consumer & Market Insights at Reynolds.

Anthony came on the show to share some reflections after a commanding career in the insights world. He opens with a great sentiment on the beauty and connectedness of the world, and a reminder of how we need to live in harmony with one another.

With that as a backdrop, Horst and Anthony discussed:

- The speed of technology advancement and for market research this presents an opportunity to gain deeper understanding of consumers

- The speed of human interactions and how this is relevant when communicating to consumers, as well as when interacting with internal and external stakeholders

- They talked about the importance of being curious, showing interest and be fully engaged in your field, whether that’s as an external partner or internal stakeholder

- The then discussed how this helps client teams to deliver better, more meaningful and actionable insights

- They raised the point that we as insights professionals need to be aware that sometimes our information end users are focused on specific outputs only, while we might be able to help them to see the bigger picture and add additional value insights

- Most importantly though they talked about how life is a collaboration of people and that we can choose lead it with kindness, love and inclusion.

We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that's Significant, we were joined by Dr Parves Khan, who has been working in the field of data analytics for almost three decades, leading the global insight functions across private and public sector companies including FTSE 100 businesses.

As a board member of London Women in Tech, a group of over 5,000 members dedicated to normalising gender balance and equality in the UK’s tech industries and of the G100 movement, a global movement of women leaders committed to bringing about gender parity in the workplace and beyond, Parves is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. She has published several articles on women in leadership and has a book on leadership coming out next year published by Pearson Business Books - called The Power of Women: Stop blocking and start empowering women at work. You can pre-order this on Amazon now

In May 2021, Dr Khan was awarded the accolade of being one of the UK's 20 top most inspirational women in Data & Technology by Women in Data which is a movement and a force for change in the realm of data science and analytics.

In the episode, we talked about how we can get greater representation in leadership.

Parves discussed some of the systematic challenges women are facing, but which aren't exclusively for women to solve - it's something everyone needs to address. After all, we're all siblings, parents, friends, etc.

We looked into the benefits that businesses and societies stand to gain when there is great representation.

We talked about how tokenism always fails, and how change needs to be permanent and authentic.

And Parves closed with some handy advice for women looking to get into a leadership role.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast. Horst Feldhaeuser, Group Services Director at Infotools, hosted John O’Toole, a seasoned Director, CEO, Sales and Marketing Professional, Entrepreneur and Business Growth Consultant. John is the Lead Partner – Marketing & Innovation at Nudge Partners, a managing consultant at Brandbiz Limited and also the Chief judge for the REAWARDS, New Zealand’s bi-annual celebration of outstanding market research and insights work.

Horst spoke with John spoke about the latter of these involvements, to reflect on the Research Association of New Zealand's Market Research Effectiveness Awards - REAwards.

The episode covers:

> How market research helps organizations to short cut to consumer wants and needs, understand challenges and opportunities, and make better business decisions faster and with lower risk. And that’s what the REAWARDS showcase in particular.

> How being a small but highly innovative country gives New Zealand insights professionals an advantage and often also leads to better long-term relationships - a growing trend in the REAWARDS over the last few decades.

> How REAWARDS judges can only judge what is put in front of them in the awards entries. We are rewarding research effectiveness, so showing impact from research clearly is crucial.

> That to become a master research craftsperson today we need to train people on a much wider toolset, including ResTech, AI etc., but cannot forget our ultimate role of understanding people, brands and relationships.

> That New Zealand is of the best test markets in the world to develop and prototype many things including research – so it’s great to be here.

> That entering awards and conference submissions strengthens client relationships and can grow insights businesses and the NZ Research industry as a whole. 

We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, guest host, John Bird welcomes Lenny Murphy - an advisor to 17 companies, a Board member of several Academic and NGO organizations, a consultant to many brands and supplier organizations, a facilitator of partnerships and investments, and a sought-after speaker globally. 

He is the editor of The GreenBook Blog which is the most read industry blog in the world and the event series he produces, IIEX, has grown to become one of the top 5 industry events in the world. May 24 and 25 in Austin.

He joins us on the show to discuss the latest release of The GRIT Report, one of the most-read and cited strategic planning report in the insights space. 

We hope you enjoy the episode

This is a pop-up episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, which is in response to a recent development that happened regarding the previous episode's recording and its release.

Hosted by Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools and joined once again by Rob Volpe, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and Empathy Activist at Ignite360, the episode dives into the pulling of Bud Light inclusivity campaign.

Clearly not intending to cause offense to either parties in either the campaign or its removal, we're reminded how important empathy is in the entire process of creating such a campaign. Rob shared some insight into some ways to potentially avoid certain events from happening in the future. And we discussed the pivotal role that market researchers can play in helping brands succeed in the future.

We trust this episode and the points discussed will help all parties avoid a similar situation in the future.

[NOTE]: This episode was recorded in response to the prior episode we recorded on the 19th of April. The prior episode talked about a Bud Light inclusivity campaign, featuring two social media influencers. At the time of the initial recording, Bud Light continued to support the campaign. However, the campaign was pulled just prior to the airing of the former episode.

This is another example of where a brand directs its empathy can have consequences in other places. And as the podcast talked about, you can be empathetic to one group, i.e. the LGBTQ community, and risk alienating others, and vice versa. We hope this podcast can give you as market researchers some food for thought when it comes to empathy for your customers and the communities in which you operate.

The prior episode, which is also relevant for this pop-up episode covered:

The dangers of too having much empathy in market research, and what that could result in from a business perspective. We briefly touched on what empathy - a human trait that's all about being able to see other people's perspectives, respecting them, and then be able to live in harmony. You may have a difference of opinion with them, but that’s okay. 

We discussed how it's expected of brands to be empathetic with customers. Previously, we had one-to-many approach, but often now we're expecting as consumers to be one-to-one. It's not always going to be perfect, we as consumers expect that, but we need to be listened to, feel we’re heard, and that that brand is able to deliver things for me as an individual. 

We talked about some of the ways that brands can be too empathetic and that in the main part losing sight of your business objective or alienating other parts of your audience. 

We also asked if the world is becoming more or less empathetic. Rob has seen some studies where the world is actually becoming more empathetic, which is encouraging. So hopefully that trend can continue. 

And then Rob shared the five steps to empathy from his book - Tell me more about that. It states dismantling judgment, asking good questions, actively listening integrating into understanding, and using solution imagination. 

Finally, we covered a few points on how brands can ensure they aren't being overly empathetic as well. 

If you want to find out more about Rob’s book, check out https://www.5stepstoempathy.com 

We hope you enjoy the show. 

In this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, host Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools was joined by Rob Volpe, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and Empathy Activist at Ignite360. Rob is the author of Tell me more about that: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time. 

[NOTE]: This episode was recorded on the 19th of April. In this episode, we talked about a Bud Light inclusivity campaign, featuring two social media influencers. At the time of the recording, Bud Light continued to support the campaign. However, the campaign was pulled just prior to the airing of this episode. This is another example of where a brand directs its empathy can have consequences in other places. And as the podcast talked about, you can be empathetic to one group, i.e. the LGBTQ community, and risk alienating others, and vice versa. We hope this podcast can give you as market researchers some food for thought when it comes to empathy for your customers and the communities in which you operate. We have subsequently recorded and released a follow up episode to discuss the cancellation of the campaign. Check out episode 60.

The dangers of too having much empathy in market research, and what that could result in from a business perspective. We briefly touched on what empathy - a human trait that's all about being able to see other people's perspectives, respecting them, and then be able to live in harmony. You may have a difference of opinion with them, but that’s okay. 

We discussed how it's expected of brands to be empathetic with customers. Previously, we had one-to-many approach, but often now we're expecting as consumers to be one-to-one. It's not always going to be perfect, we as consumers expect that, but we need to be listened to, feel we’re heard, and that that brand is able to deliver things for me as an individual. 

We talked about some of the ways that brands can be too empathetic and that in the main part losing sight of your business objective or alienating other parts of your audience. 

We also asked if the world is becoming more or less empathetic. Rob has seen some studies where the world is actually becoming more empathetic, which is encouraging. So hopefully that trend can continue. 

And then Rob shared the five steps to empathy from his book - Tell me more about that. It states dismantling judgment, asking good questions, actively listening integrating into understanding, and using solution imagination. 

Finally, we covered a few points on how brands can ensure they aren't being overly empathetic as well. 

If you want to find out more about Rob’s book, check out https://www.5stepstoempathy.com 

We hope you enjoy the show. 

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools is joined by Mat Wylie, CEO and founder of Customer Radar, a customer feedback and reputation management platform.

We discussed the issue of how much we actually know about our customers (both internal and external), and how we can know far more if we approach feedback and surveys with a greater emphasis on customer experience.

This discussion covered:

- The vital role that CX plays in both customer feedback and market surveys.

- We discussed the role of feedback and surveys, and how the former can be used to help drive the latter, plus some guidance on when to ask for feedback versus asking a survey.

- Mat shared some best-practices around feedback and survey design, which help lift the overall level of customer experience. And this is perhaps best summed up by ensuring we’re respecting people by asking only what we need to take a specific action.

- And we finished off with some of the benefits brands can expect when they get customer feedback and surveys right. 

If you want to check out more about Mat and what his team offers, check out www.customerradar.com.

We hope you enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s significant, a Michael Howard, the head of marketing at Infotools was joined by two representatives of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC) and the Certified Analytics and Insights Professionals of Canada.

CRIC is Canada’s voice of the research, insights and analytics industry both domestically and globally. CRIC represents the highest standards, ethics and best practices in research that protect the public interest. Its members include research agencies, companies that rely on insights, and other industry partners. Certified Analytics and Insights Professionals of Canada, CAIP Canada, certifies professionals who have the unique combination of analytical and business competencies grounded in a solid foundation of strong professional ethics and behaviours relevant to the research, analytics and insights industry. 

We were joined by John Tabone, CEO of CRIC and Director of CAIP Canada and Grace Woo, Manager, Communications, Events and Sponsorships of CRIC and Manager, Member Value & Growth at CAIP Canada.

John and Grace shared some insights into the challenges facing the insights sector, and how CRIC and CAIP Canada are helping those to make the most of the opportunities in front of us.

Enjoy the episode.

On this latest episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast. This is your host Michael Howard, the Head of Marketing at Infotools. Today, we're joined by Kevin Karty, CEO of Intuify.

We talked about today surveys and how we need to ensure that we're producing the most engaging surveys as possible for the benefit of not just our customer, but our clients too.

We touched on how when we do get improve our surveys, we can get better responses, higher quality data, and insights in which we have more confidence.

We can even incorporate a whole lot of this design and modern thinking into historical traditional research as well.

Kevin mentioned ways to increase engagement in our surveys, like creating five-point scale questions without them feeling like five-point scale questions, as well as the benefits of reducing the length of our surveys as well.

We talked about the power of technology in all of this as well - how if we can get people responding on mobile phones, can help reach a more diverse range of respondents.

To find out more about what we talked about today, you can check out Intuify | Market Research | United States

Enjoy the show.

On this episode of Now that’s Significant, a Market Research Podcast, the host Michael Howard (Head of Marketing at Infotools) was joined by Will Leach, founder & CEO of Mindstate Group, a behavioral research and brand consultancy and best-selling author of Marketing to Mindstates: a Practical Guide to Applying Behavioral Design to Research and Marketing. 

In the episode, we covered:

Using behavioral science to psychologically restage brains is really going to set us up for exponential growth. And it can do that by when we understand the mind state of what our consumers are and when they're in the moment needing to make decisions as consumers, as people, etc. The more that market researchers can get in and grapple with that, understand that, and then pass that kind of information on to other parts of the business, the better we'll all be, not just from a business perspective, but from us as a consumer as well.

It's always an important thing to remember that that the customer, the person is the most important thing in this whole process. I mean, what you've talked about today, it's a whole lot of fun. But when you're doing it right, it's a win for us and a win for consumers. So just said we touched on what behavioral science actually is and mean.

We had a look at some of the reasons why the industry is potentially broken. We also looked at some of the positives as well and what the two can learn from each other.

And you also shared a little bit about the where the field of behavioral science is going from a research perspective anyway, the role of AI in how we as market researchers and businesses can use technology in a way to help rapidly iterate our offerings to the public as well. For those of us who choose to embrace it, a pretty exciting future awaits.

Enjoy the show