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.

We all know how to evaluate a marketing research firm for an FMCG project, white goods project or a consumer brand. But when it comes to marketing research project related to government/public sector projects the selection criteria changes and there is little written about it.

I think the following guide by ESOMAR on how to commission a marketing research project is quiet comprehensive. Plus this one on “How to hire a marketing research company” is also fairly practical. But in my opinion, the rules of the game change when a project for public sector is evaluated.

Here is the checklist of basic elements the marketing research or the consumer insight manager should look for

• MR (Marketing Research) agency’s background (Liaison with ESOMAR, International Affiliations)
• Comprehensiveness of Proposal
• Understanding of the agency of your research objective. (HINT: look for areas where you can spot whether the agency is still treating your research objective as a private sector project or they understand that for you it is more about consumer and there is limited focus on competitive intelligence)
• Sampling Methodology
• Survey Instrument
• Quality Controls
• Analysis and reporting (Try and probe further here; maybe the agency is considering including variables raised by EFQM and/or other excellence related authorities. Maybe the agency is proposing to look further into your strategic plan so that they can align the results according to your performance reports. If yes, then this agency should be given a higher weightage as they are trying to display their understanding of public sector excellence models.)
• Previous Experience: If the company has already worked with public sector within your country then chances are that they understand public sector reporting cycles and success criterion.  
• Key personnel: Look at the CVs of people working for your project, see if key personnel have worked with UN, Government Sector and/or Social Research projects
• Quality Standards: Pay close attention to this section, most marketing research agencies might not put their details but this should be a make or break element for the project.

In case you are commissioning a large scale project, and you are meeting the teams in person make sure you rate the team on the following parameters

1. Project management skills: Does the team understand the importance of thorough project management approaches. How effective are their gateway approval processes, how are the evaluating and managing their risks
2. Flexibility: How flexible the team is, remember day in and day out these people sell projects to FMCG clients. Their prime focus is to provide competitive intelligence and in most (if not all) public sector marketing research projects the key is consumer for public services and his welfare. This is a very alien concept for someone who is trying to identify consumer’s consumption motivation all the time
3. Relevant Experiences: If some of the key personnel have already handled similar assignments then it should be easy for you understand the terms, jargons and objectives of a public sector client. If that is the case, try an explore the experience of that personnel and read his body language if you observe sign of disgust or dissatisfaction then be aware of the fact that you will have difficulties in handling this member of the team.
4. Check Alignment: Check how aligned and attuned the research company is with public sector center of research. Sometimes even basic definitions like demography are represented differently across public and private sector.

Here are some selected MR companies affiliated with ESOMAR that are working in United Arab Emirates (Dubai / Abu Dhabi)   

AMRB

205 Arbift Tower
Baniyas Road, Deira
4327 Dubai
United Arab Emirates
Phone: +971-4-221.5267
Fax: +971-4-223.6316
E-mail
Website   

Feedback

601 Crystal Tower
Buhairah Corniche
29663 Sharjah
United Arab Emirates
Phone: +971-6-574.7979
Fax: +971-6-574.7749
E-mail
Website

IPSOS

Dubai Media City, Al Thuraya Tower 1, 8th floor
PO Box 71283 Dubai
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
Phone: +971-4-4408980
Fax: +971-4-4408981
E-mail

Website

TNS

Level 3, Makeen Building
Airport Road, P.O. Box 60992
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
Phone: +971-4-282.2688
Fax: +971-4-282.2711
E-mail
Website

YouGov

Suite 302
Cayan Business Centre, Tecom 3
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
Phone: +971 4367 0340
Fax: +971 4367 2830
E-mail
Website

(I am wondering why ACNielsen in UAE is not registered with ESOMAR)

Best of luck for your projects – Ayesha Saeed

Key questions this data raises:-

1. Average ad-spend on social media per annum is AED 50,000 only. The question is, in a market where TV is extremely fragmented and print is very expensive what is stopping brands from exploring new media?
2. Why no conventional brand is topping the chart?
3. E-Commerce market of USD 2 billion and still we don’t see anything about www.souq.com , this raises the question about the rating calculation.
4. Is share of subscribers a good indicator, or we should explore more into user sentiment, loyalty and spending

All the data, is also consolidated in UAE databank . UAE databank, is a project of www.customertrendlog.com which aims at combining all the scattered data of UAE consumer in one place. Contact us if you would like to submit or discover any indicator about UAE consumer.

Author Info: Anam Saeed is an emerging marketing research executive with a knack to explore new age media. She has developed content for multiple local and international clients. Based out of South Asia she brings a perspective of developing markets in her research studies.

Change is the only constant, and who knows it better than us.

Since internet and mobile is changing every industry so I decided to have a look at the impact of these two game-changing factors on MR and summed up my thoughts in the attached presentation.

Here is a summary of what I think will happen in Marketing research:-

1. Traditional MR will be replaced by Social Media Listening and Integrated data solutions

2. Revenues of marketing research will mostly come from emerging economies and hence more understanding of local languages and cultures will be required to interpret data meaningfully

3. Integrated data mining tools that will integrate social media data, sales data/ retail data and with customer profile will be used in predictive models to forecast behaviors and trends.

4. Impact of each data based decision will be assessed through financial value i.e. cost of analysis and revenue generated

5. A Research manager will be required to understand the complete value chain of client and how the data is flowing in the value chain. Plus, he will be required to understand strategic planning, forecasting models, data integration methodologies

Additional Readings

In Jan, I wrote about the Sally in Dubai Blog which was at that time covered by Gulf News.The first question I had in my mind, was about the authenticity of the blog

Today I somehow landed on this youtube video of Sally, have a look.

“Sally is a hoax and so could be multiple other bloggers who are shaping consumers’ opinion. Will this effect consumers more than marketers or vice versa”

What does this video tells you as a marketer.”

1. Sally is a hoax and so could be the reality of multiple of bloggers that are shaping the opinions of multiple audience groups.  
2. What is the rule of Social Media Law in such cases
3. After multiple such cases, Consumers will be confused or will they continue to trust the social media as almost 70% – 80% audience form their opinion through social media platforms

 Additional Readings

1. Review of UAE Social Media Law: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/uae-cyber-law-is-full-of-surprises
2. Blog of Sally: http://dubaisally.blogspot.com/
3. Previous Post about Sally

UAE Databank

Demographics

At the end, it is all about numbers.  Enjoy the rich repository of the usage data of customers based in UAE.

Dont forget to run a search for the indicator that you are looking for in the search box placed at the right corner of the following table.

I stumbled upon a poem recently (jawab-e-shikwa  by Allama Iqbal) while listening to Shirely Bassey’s playlist on youtube. It struck me, and it struck me bad…how come they managed to spot the right insight and were able to touch hearts and why me (a regular consumer insight manager) can’t?

Here is my take onto this.

1. As a consumer insight manager/research manager: I seek data & data alone. Quantitative, statistically significant, thoroughly predictable data oozing out of the SPSS generated tables.
2. When I picture the consumer, I see him/her through the eyes of numb numbers – numbers that are indicating what he/she has been doing after asking him countless interrogating questions.
3. While I write presentations: I follow best practices available – I struggle with infographics and juggle with icons. I try to be authentic in findings; I picture the tough questions & skepticism and avoid anything that might spark a conflict of opinion.

And so I bring forward – Insights that are genuine, authentic and somewhat predictable. But insights that are not timeless. Insights that are compelling and clear but insights that are not big, hair and scary. Insights that doesn’t challenge the norms, that doesn’t throw anyone out of the comfort zones.

Fine this is the problem; here is a solution that I might think will help us in presenting & touching the consumer better. I want to be a magician, I urge consumer insight managers to become magicians by understanding the consumers better than anyone else.

We need to humanize research; human brain takes information from all senses and merges it to form perception and so should we as consumer insight users.

Consumer Insight Manager or a Magician

Social media has revolutionized everything around us including the way we get hired. A recent surveyby Eurocom worldwide reveals that 38% of companies check social media profiles of potential employees

I got a chance to discuss this issue with a leading international recruiter.Following are his thoughts on the subject.

It takes talent to find talents…

“I think what is more important to realize is how it can be used to review a potential candidate and gain insight into the person, their personality/style and potential as a candidate.” Victor Asanbe

This involves the following:

1. Review of Contact Lists: A review of their (candidate’s) contact list is it made up of peers, professionally relevant people, contacts that show an ability to grow a network throughout organizations, the industry, complementary fields etc at different levels. This is often a core competency required for many positions now, and using blogs to do just that, is an indication that a candidate can execute that effectively in a new role/company. An indication that someone is not building a professional network is disparate titles, industries etc, this could just be a social activity for them.

2. Review of involvement and contribution to groups – Involvement & contribution in groups; assess the relevance and contribution frequency. Often this is an indication of two areas – networking ability but also how readily they are likely to contribute to business areas outside their own within a team environment, do they contribute for the general good, or have a level of awareness that would translate into organizational awareness etc. This also helps a recruiter gain insight into management styles, knowledge and expertise – which is never a bad thing, it helps a great deal when it comes to considering a candidate and a match to the culture of a company

3. References - a review of references to see how they (candidate) fit with the roles. Do they come from clients (and these can be internal clients as well as external) – a third party client reference is of value – and perhaps a conversation that can be extended to gain even further understanding of the person concerned. For leadership roles, it’s also interesting to see references from team members that express what it was like to be part of the team lead by the individual. Of course, direct supervisor or references from “the boss” also fit nicely into this review. Colleague/peer references are easier to get and not as indicative to performance of the person.

5.Profile: Lastly, generally how are they using their profile to communicate who they are, their roles and areas of interest – the underlying structure – it used to be that we looked at a messy resume and assumed, messy person, now, we look at the on line profiles and do the same.

“ I am not saying that every recruiter uses social media like this but what I can say is that I do, and although I don’t make all of my decisions on someone from this, these areas are all part of the process of assessing a potential candidate. I can also speak from experience in terms of being a recruiter, I know I certainly increased the number of contacts I had from people when I work, when I followed this sort of thought process myself.” Victor

A little about the author:

Victor Asanbe: A leading International recruiter.  Based in London, he is handling recruitment in United Kingdom & EMEA (including Abu Dhabi). He specifically manages and recruits into the IT, Telecoms, Media, Research, MoD, Hedge fund, Sales and Marketing industries across UK & EMEA.