This is a blog by
Tom Ewing about the intersection of social media and market research. I work for Kantar Operations in this area: everything on this blog is my own personal viewpoint, rather than the view of Kantar Operations, Kantar or any affiliated company.
Here is an good place to start if you're interested in what I think about all this stuff. Contact me at Tom.Ewing@kantaroperations.com, or via @tomewing on Twitter.
This brand republic article makes an old claim that’s - still - a bold claim: “brands have lost control of their identity and they will never get it back”.
I’ve heard that a lot, it might be true: my brief experience with brand identity leads me to believe they’ve never had much but I think now that yes, they probably have even less.
But you also have to ask what this idea of ‘control’ means anyway, and where it went. There’s a ready answer to that: YOU control brands now! You the public! You the consumer! You the “influential”!
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Amazed and flattered that my post about hearing younger researchers’ voices in Market Research attracted so much attention - especially as it was posted at close to pub o’clock on a Friday night! I’ve replied to all the comments on the original post - all worth reading and posing intriguing questions.
There were also a couple of blog posts related to mine - this from Kelpenhagen which was written in parallel with it, and this from a new blog, the Research Geek. Both are worth reading, both are basically making the same point but from different angles. As Kelpenhagen says, a lot of younger researchers - and a lot of older ones - aren’t especially bothered about the “future of research”. They turn up and do the work, get the paycheck and go out and enjoy themselves.
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I was chatting to Katie Harris and Ray Poynter yesterday and Ray raised an interesting question. There’s a lot of talk about the future of research right now: a general sense that the industry is at a crossroads, even if people disagree on what the different signposts point to. But what’s noticeable is that most of the people talking about this stuff are, frankly, not the future of research. They’re its present, people who’ve been in the industry for a decade or two, conference veterans, agency CEOs. Nothing wrong with that - these are exactly the people we want to be pushing the industry forward. But as Ray pointed out, there’s a lack of younger voices in these conversations. Not a total lack - I did say “most” - but a lack nonetheless.
Why might that be? Here are some back of an envelope ideas, though I’d love to hear your suggestions:
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The other day I decided I wanted to do some research, so I went to a bar. In the bar were lots of consumers! They were in their natural environment, giving unprompted opinions: all I had to do was listen.
I excitedly sat down at the bar between a young man and a couple. Here was where I would do my listening.
First of all I listened to the couple: the man was talking to the woman. “I’m not seeing anyone right now,” he said.
Then I listened to the young man next to me, who was talking to the barman. “Yes, I’m 21” he was saying.
Now, is this or is this not research gold! Here were ordinary consumers, in their natural environment, giving away demographic information on their age and marital status. No more need for boring surveys, I thought! You can get everything you want - just by listening.
The moral of this story: in 2010, I’d like to see just as much work done on the context of social media “found data” as its content.
