By Lucy Davison, published in Quirk's The research industry needs to learn to improve its consultancy skills. While doing a Webinar for ESOMAR, one of my co-participants, Simon Chadwick from Cambiar Consulting, revealed an interesting slide (Figure 1). It showed the skills for client researchers that are currently in demand and the skills for researchers that will be in demand in the future. The skills that were growing in demand were storytelling, consulting and intellectual curiosity. The skills that were
Read MoreNow that the dust has settled after my return from New Orleans I thought to give a short summary of what I learnt, felt and found from the proceedings. There are four words that sum up my experience, so I’ve tried to group my thoughts under these. 1. Noisy My first word is noisy, or even loud. Of course there were tons of bands, music (such as the inspirational clarinettist Michael White) and dancing, which was all very New Orleans
Read MoreOn 19 May we gathered at the office of Research Now to pick over the entrails of the 2015 UK polling debacle. With Kerian Pedley (pollster, writer, Research Director GfK) and Dr Nick Baker (Partner & Group CEO Quadrangle, PhD Birmingham, BPC/MRS Inquiry into 2015 Election) on a panel ably chaired by Dave Skelsey of Strictly Financial, we wondered what did the oracles have in store for us? And what is MRX actually doing about the highest profile event to
Read MoreI don’t know what’s been going on over at the MRS but they have certainly upped the ante regarding their Annual Conference. Over the last few years I felt it was less inspiring and more of the same old folks spouting on to the same old folks about the same old stuff. I got to the point where I did not even attend last year – finding it impossible to justify the cost when we are a small business and
Read MoreYesterday I attended the Febelmar Conference in Brussels where I helped run a workshop on Data Impact. There are several observations I’d like to make on this thoroughly interesting event, so here goes. [caption id="attachment_3954" align="alignnone" width="225"] Heroes Tintin & Snowy greet Mustard arriving in Brussels for Febelmar.[/caption] Shorter and more frequent formats work well. Rather than having to spend two or even three days away from the office the Belgian insights community event started at 2.30pm and ended with
Read MoreMonday 21 September was a beautiful day in New York as Mustard directors Simon Dunn and Lucy Davison left their digs in Long Island City and headed to JWT’s swanky new offices in Manhattan to speak at GreenBook’s second annual Insights Marketing Day. Sadly, we didn’t get to experience much of the city as we were totally absorbed by the flow of great content, interesting presentations and friendly networking that was on offer all day. Dana Stanley, GreenBook’s director of
Read MoreWe love it when a client calls us and wants a new Web site. We drool over a client who says they need e-mail marketing or PR. We rush to embrace clients who want a brochure. But very often, when we probe these clients and ask the all-important “Why?” their response is muddled and based on a hunch – an idea that the current state of affairs is not all it’s cracked up to be. Or they say, “Our competitor
Read MoreMustard MD, Lucy Davison recently wrote a piece for Quirks on the importance of good, honest and interesting content. As spring dawns, we see a lot of crystal ball-gazing in the trade media about what’s coming up for this year. Will we all be replaced by robots and algorithms? Has big-little data had its day? One consistent comment has been that the future of research must be in integrating different data sources to get a genuine picture of what is going on.
Read MoreMustard MD, Lucy Davison recently wrote a piece for Research-Live on the importance of brand differentiation in the market research industry, following conversations she had with some research clients at a recent ESOMAR event. Market researchers are often called upon to help companies make decisions about their own brands, but invariably, don’t consider their own brand communications in the same light. But is brand communication really important in the B2B world of word-of-mouth? In recent conversation with clients (such as
Read MoreDuring a recent trip across the pond, I went to visit Perception Research Services in New Jersey. The company, which has been in the business of shopper research for over 40 years, uses the Retail Lab to conduct consumer research; ranging from finding the most attractive beer bottle labels to the most engaging call to actions on an in-store banner. Mustard has been working with the company on its media profile in Europe for three years. Before this point I
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