Customer Trend Log
Marketing Research
Abu Dhabi Statistics conference 2013
I was thrilled to attend Abu Dhabi statistics conference 2013; a 2 day conference that revolved around data, data mining and collaborative efforts to manage and merge the data sets. My excitement has following reasons.
- To see that statistics is becoming more mainstream – the participation of members throughout the Gulf, far east Asia and Abu Dhabi government was a pleasant surprise
- Statisticians have finally decided to enter mainstream business. The approach of every presenter revolved around how information can assist ROIs.
- Data mining is being discussed at government level and intra-government level.
- My favorite session was importance of merging Admin data – not only because it was presented well, but because there was a direct relevance between how information impacted revenues, consumer and stakeholder satisfaction
What is in it for us, the researchers?
- If you are working in Abu Dhabi, be prepared for a more visible SCAD.
- Have you ever considered, developing models of customer database? To explain more, have you ever developed a model whereby most of consumer information is not gathered through surveys but through cooperation and sharing of data within organizations, public sector and private sector? If not, start developing one now.
- Engage in discussions and conference that talks about open information networks. Lets’ collaborate – recommend names and institutes to operators like IIR, Ted x dubai etc
Have a great day. Enjoy interpreting numbers till we meet again
Ayesha
Insights into Emirati Conusmer
I am intrigued about in-depth understanding of Emirati consumers. In my opinion, a lot of work can be done to improve our understanding of Emirati Consumers. I have tried to analyze this segment in IBM Many eyes here is the link for the static image and the Java based live visualization
And this is following is the first draft of my understanding.
Additional Readings:
Emirati Women Happy with lifestyle:
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/emirati-women-satisfied-with-life-in-uae-survey-finds
http://www.ameinfo.com/todays-emirati-women-emerging-hallmarks-national-320812
Emirati opinion about quality of life: http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/91-per-cent-of-citizens-happy-with-life-in-the-uae-survey-2012-08-14-1.471482
Very good Economic Survey by ADCED: http://www.adced.ae/imageCollection/EconomicReview/Issue/1014201061854536093750.pdf
Emirati Teen Spending: http://gulftoday.ae/portal/443c50ba-b2aa-4431-851f-9eafdf9c1e64.aspx
Emirati Women in Workforce: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/emirati-women-and-workforce-in-a-clash-of-culture
ESRI – GIS Conference Abu Dhabi 2012
Sometimes, very rarely, you feel great about Your choice of profession. Today is one of that for me.
I am currently attending an ESRI conference on GIS maps and how to integrate the data sets coming from user interaction, system administration etc for data driven decision making.
What has pleasantly surprised me is the interest of diversified set of audience ( CEOs, analysts, engineers, system administrator). And also the fact that public sector in Middle East is actually one of the key players who is using data sets. Don’t get me wrong, when I say GIS I not only mean Urban Planning etc. I also mean statistics Center and how are they using GIS. That’s what I think is cutting edge.
Looking at some of the technologies and software displayed here, it is not hard to say that very soon in Abu Dhabi’s public sector GIS maps will be one of the most common data visualization tool.
Some mouthwatering tools for you
- Abu Dhabi Geoportal tool
- http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcgis10
Here are some pictures from the conference.
Here is an exciting press release about the MoU signed between ESRI and Abu Dhabi Govt. http://www.ameinfo.com/first-ever-government-wide-mou-abu-dhabi-322230. If you are working in Analytics within public sector of Abu Dhabi I assure you that good times are coming our way.
Have a great day.
Marketing Research Sector – From Insight to Foresight?
Another morning that made me thinks in which direction is my career heading? Am I going to be the new hype – the Nate Silver of Middle East? Or am I going to drown in the data piles around me? Marketing research sector at large, haven’t introduced a game-changing idea for quite some time now and as the information age is coming of age the need of conventional researchers is reducing. So what should we do….? Lead or follow? change careers?
And guess what! Miss Monneypenny from ‘Sky fall’ was able to answer my question – She says “An old Dog should learn new tricks”
Jokes apart, I recently attended a training course on Business Planning, and I have learnt one key thing. All markets mature and all products age, you must stay ahead of maturity and keep on innovating. Innovate anything like process, customer expectation, resource utilization, market differentiation. But you must innovate if you want to survive.
So what should I innovate in my projects, what should Marketing Research Sector at large innovate?
What should Marketing Research Sector at large innovate?
In my opinion, we should innovate our human capital. Instead of producing a whole squad of insight discoverers we should aim at producing decision facilitators.
Researchers who can give input on processes, business scorecards, performance monitoring and managing systems, marketing strategies, sales plans and forecasts.
To enable us increase and improve the pricing model of research sector. To help us sustain the competition from social media monitoring industry and consultancy firms.
The slide deck reflects my thinking, and following is what I think is a summary of my vision for MR sector. have a look and let me knowwhat do you think
Data to Decision Value Chain
P.S. And while you are thinking about it, listen to this song – it helps to focus. (or okay lets’ admit it I liked the movie a lot)
Jobs and Professional Skills: What is Big Data all about?
We are all hearing about Big Data – The question is what is about and how it effects our daily business.
What is Big Data?
So what exactly is Big Data? it is nothing but a large number of complex data coming from multiple sources. From business perspective I don’t agree with the general definition of Big Data.
In my opinion, Big data that is useful for the businesses is the huge amount of semi-processed information coming at a fast pace from multiple internal and external sources.
Big Data is not about Complex formulas it is about hidden insights
Is it something we didn’t prepare ourselves for? For experienced staff that has spent years in marketing research and/or information management and/or knowledge management I think they are prepared for it. But the new joiners and the close to retirement staff are the ones where we might experience problems in terms of handling this large amount of data.
As information managers, I suggest we ask the following questions from ourselves before we start to follow the flow.
- How can we capitalize this information?
- How can we accelerate our career progression through this data revolution?
Capitalizing the information
- Apply the 80/20 rule: 20% of the information streams can be translated into actionable business decisions. Focus on that. I usually take a top to bottom approach i.e. which business decision is most important for the organization, what type of information is required to facilitate that, where are the sources of information
- Present the solution not the finding: An eye-catching dashboard is worth a million words, but a jaw dropping solution is worth a promotion. It is about time; we (the data analysts) come out of our shells and start proposing business relevant solutions. Solutions about people, processes or the product.
Present the solution not the finding
- Simplicity: Simplicity is the key. No matter how complicated the data is and how difficult the solution selling is. If your presentation is not simple enough then you haven’t done your job well. Cut through the chase, get to the point. And get to it as fast as you can.
Career Progression
Emerging Fancy Designations: Now, we are hearing about a lot of emerging designations in the field of information and decision making (you may also want to read this article about Data Scientist by Harvard business review). But essentially what will be the job description of all of these designations? I think Recruiters will expect you to Turn Numbers into Stories: Find out trends, discover insights and propose solutions. And you can do that, if you have the following skill-set
- Software programming: Basic understanding of SPSS, SAS and similar software and ability to run complex analysis. Many believe that coding will become the part of the job description but in my opinion that probably will not happen.
- Intense Curiosity: The real insights and solutions are discovered by combining observation with trends. If you can see something in the data what others can’t then you are the person for the job. But if you can’t bring anything new to the table, then you must change your career.
- Business Orientation: Understanding of processes, product development (which can be a bit of engineering too), understanding of marketing and understanding of finance will be essential for a good researcher to propose effective solutions. So you must be an all-rounder.
- Communication: Translate the number into a mouthwatering insight visually, verbally and in writing. (I admire the way Simon from Team Y&R narrates his stories, here is an example. May be we can learn a thing or two from his articles)
The C-Suite: Gone are the days, when number crunchers were the back office under paid staff members. Today; if you can derive meaning from the data you can actually aim to join the C-Suite of the organization. All you need to do is to negotiate, negotiate and negotiate. I will quote my Ex-boss, “never ever under sell yourself”. The skill-set is very rare and is in demand. This will be the only skill-set where the numbers of jobs are higher than number of people who can do this job. So don’t undersell yourself.
Additional Readings
Big Data: The management Revolution by HBR
Big Data, Bigger Myths by Accenture
Big Data – the next frontier of innovation by Mckinsey
Data visualization future in Marketing Research
I started today with the typical Monday blues. (for those who don’t know, in Dubai we work on Sundays’)
Reports, tables, data sets started to pile up in my inbox and the brain just refused to work. So I went online and surfed through some of my favorite blogs & websites and landed on the results of WPPed Cream. And there is when I found something which can make your weekend start a little brighter.
TNS Digital Life is the winner in the WPPed Cream, Consumer Insight section. I strongly recommend that you have a look at it, you might be pleasantly surprised with the data visualization and cross country comparisons.
Infographic – TNS Digital life UAE-Singapore
The second thing I observed that Kantar has a Creative Director….! Aziz Cami. I am delighted to know that Research companies have finally realized the importance of data visualization and presentation and this is a warmly welcomed move by Kantar. I hope others will soon follow. This indicates that in future, we expect to have a creative division in Agencies’ looking after syndicated data. Finally.
And now have a look at the Text cloud of top 5 winners’ in Consumer Insights’ category and what I saw was that the focus is on presentation, value added, interactive, digital and contribution of new player Oracle. These key words hint at the trends in marketing research industry…..
2011 WPPed Cream – Consumer insight winners text cloud
Go on play with the data your self, it is available on IBM Many Eyes
Toolkit for Killer marketing research presentations
We all deliver presentations, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. We all sleep through presentations sometimes on purposes and sometimes unintentional. I have delivered several presentations in my career sometimes as key note speaker, sometimes as a communication planner and sometimes as a researcher. I think, I have some points that I can share with you about presentation
1. Break the PowerPoint structure
Powerpoint is like women/men, you cant live with it and you cant live without it.
Some tips for using power points are avoid jargons, bullets, too much text. Add a conclusion slide every now and then. I personally enjoy presentations where presenter is humble, interactive and approachable. Here are 15 keys to deliver a fantastic keynote presentation on stage by one such presenter Ronnestam.
Tool: Stories from personal experience
A Nice font can make any slide great
2. Use infographic sensibly.
Data is the new oil, and few ways are better than a good visualisation for consuming our excess of it. But please be very careful when using or making infographic there is nothing worse than a bad infographic (not even a dull powerpoint)
Tool: free and easy easil.ly, which lets you drag-and-drop predesigned themes and vector assets to produce something that’s actually presentable. (So please don’t make me regret sharing this.)
Caution: Easy tool, but publishes the data online so be careful with the use.
Nothing can be worse than Bad Infographic
3. Master Excel
A powerful interactive dashboard on excel is worth a million slides. It allows users to play with data and digest information. These days I am using dashboards for presentations, dashboards are based on excel with simple if functions and pivot charts and table. The benefit is this, since the visual on the multimedia stays almost the same people pay more attention to you. In addition to that, a dashboard cuts through the Bullsh*** and you come straight to the point. Here is the link for Chandoo (guy from whom I have remotely learned the art of excel dashboards), go through his site, he has some awesome stuff
Tool: Excel, Chandoo & your intelligence
4. Ice Breakers
Nothing is better than a relevant, insightful ice breaker. Researchers’ sell insights all the time – and so does advertisers’, marketers’, moviemakers and journalists. The good news is that any insight you have discovered has already been discovered by someone somewhere and he has visualized it for you. So feel free to bank on them. Nothing is more powerful than a presentation that opens up or ends up on a powerful & relevant image/video. Some sources for such images are Ads of the world , Logic + Emotion (visual thinking archive) , marketoonist Fishburne your mobile camera and my blog.
No One knows your subject better than you – Kick Ass
Enjoy presenting, no one knows your subject better than you.
If you agree with me then do share this article on your facebook, you will for sure make at least one person happy.
Cheers
- What Researchers do all day
[Thanks Planning Lab. ]
When Marketing Research projects are more than just Papers (Documents)?
Marketing research documents are usually very insightful but rarely used (no offense). Sometimes, they are too detailed or too technical or delayed or something similar.In some cases, client agency relationship is also strained and in some cases internal research processes and budgets are reviewed. And in some cases, nothing happens which in my opinion is worse than even bad consequences.
Following is the flow chart for MR projects which doesn’t end up only in shelves of Research Executives. I was discussing it with my colleagues and was laughing about it, in the given flow chart the success of MR project is only about 1%.
Success of MARCOM is not only meeting research objectives it is actually when a research project is so fiery that branding teams have no choice but to acts on the findings.
Enjoy the flow chart, plus I would also like to thank Kathryn Korostoff her analysis of understanding of MR Challenges is very useful. I think ESOMAR should also consider these challenges and propose a PM methodology including MR recommendations based action plan processes.
Thanks for reading – Ayesha
Good Researcher, Bad Researcher
For almost a decade now, I have been part of MR fraternity I have seen good presentations to surprisingly bad presentations. I have met truly inspiring researchers and researchers’ who have no clue about almost everything.
Here are my two cents of what I found common amongst good researchers and bad researchers across multiple cultures and countries.
| Good Researcher | Bad Researcher | |
| Presentation | A good researcher presents a story. A story with twists and turns, actions & corrections and jaw dropping functional pointers. While he is talking you feel like your imagination is ignited and you land up on ideas which can be a landmark achievement for your CVHis Motto: Inspire | A Bad researcher presents numbers, percentages, ratios, values, and much more. While he is talking you feel like you are back in your statistics class. You loose the context and start to look for cappuccinoHis Motto: Convince the client or confuse him |
| Insights | he will bring forward insights not only from data but from the environment around him / her. He will connects the dots for you. From Brands, to media to culture. He presents one customer and his many shadesHis Motto: Discover | He will present you data in isolation. One focused angle of your Customer.His Motto: Cover the brief (only) |
| Business | He understands business are dictated by internal plans and external competition. He tries to address both of them in liaison with you through the information he hasHis Motto: Functional | He believes he should focus only on the datasets at hand and later on the client should be the one who connects the dotsHis Motto: Data is the king |
| Brainstorming Sessions | He will sit with client teams and understand their needs, their key questions, their key barriers etc. He will brain storm about his own presentation, data sets and findings. He will try and push himself and he will also push the clients with the aim to think hard and come up with tighter, more defined action oriented insightsHis Motto: Research is a paper without action | His Question: brainstorming with clients, why? |
| Heated Argument | He doesn’t sell and/or buy bull sh***. He will take a stance where he should and similarly will listen when he should. He is not there to sell or defend his data, he is there to help client understand the potential weaknesses & threats for clients’ brandHis Motto: May Logic Prevail | He defends the data, the perspective shifts towards the data methodology instead of insight implications |
