Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Finding and activating the ‘sweet spot’ on the sponsorship platform

Article • Professor Tony Meenaghan, Jill Downey and Jamie Macken, Admap, February 2020

Examining how brands can stand out in a cluttered sponsorship property.

Macmillan Cancer Support: A truly sector-leading approach to insight management

Case Study • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for Insight Management, 2019

Macmillan Cancer Support, a charity, created an online synthesis of evidence that draws on a range of data to provide better insights on people living with cancer for its staff in the UK.

WWF: Enhanced brand reputation study using AI image analysis

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for New Consumer Insights, 2019

WWF, a non-governmental organisation for wilderness protection, used AI image analysis across social media to understand consumer attitudes towards the brand in the UK.

A practical fusion of qualitative and social data

Research Paper • Ellie Osborne, Ellie Osborne and Jillian Ney, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2019

Focuses on how to set up a search on a social listening tool and analyse the data that comes out, and how to get the most out of tools, such as Google Trends, that are free to use.

Fusion Forward: Data dynamics in an agile business context

Research Paper • Barry Jennings, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2019

Microsoft, the technology company, created new insights off of 'data exhaust' and used new tools and technologies to turn that data into useful information, leveraging traditional qualitative and quantitative tools to enhance new data and give it richer meaning and context.

Customised text analytics: Helping clients to solve real business problems

Research Paper • Ivaylo Yorgov and Ivan Bardarov, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2019

Looks at the future of text analytics technology alongside the development of natural language processing.

Redefining digital excellence: The story of how consumers’ need for happiness can provide the bedrock for primary research

Research Paper • Jon Beaumont and Nick King, ESOMAR, Congress, 2019

AutoTrader, the digital automotive marketplace, and Join the Dots, a global consumer insight agency, used consumer needs to build a framework for digital excellence from the bottom up.

Giving control of your history to participants: Spontaneity-driven experiences to transform facts into a meaningful and vivid story

Research Paper • Ángeles Rodríguez, Daniel Cárdenas and Elisa Romo, ESOMAR, Congress, 2019

Corona, a beer brand, created a relevant story to tell in Mexico through launching an interactive museum that encouraged participants to make their own stories.

How to demonstrate the value of investing in customer insight

Article • Joaquim Bretcha, WARC Webinars, June 2019

Discusses key differentiators, as well as key commonalities, in facilitating an optimal insights function.

Aditya Birla takes marketing lessons from Ricky Ponting

News • 06 June 2019

Indian businesses are more often seen tapping the popularity of cricketers than taking marketing lessons from them, but a top Aditya Birla executive believes they can learn from how top players approach the game.

Aditya Birla on connecting India’s online and offline consumers

Article • Anil Thakraney, Event Reports, Consumer Insights & Analytics Summit, May 2019

Gathering online and offline insights in a balanced way is crucial to brand growth, according to Fortune 500 India company Aditya Burla Group.

Philip Morris: Building Best in Class Insights Capabilities – From “strategic insights partner” to “source of competitive advantage”

Research Paper • Tony Li and Aruni Ghosh, ESOMAR, Asia Pacific, 2019

Phillip Morris International, a cigarette and tobacco manufacturing company, shares its journey towards making the continuous integration (CI) function a source of competitive advantage, the steps it undertook, and its impact.

Wayfair gets “scrappy” about research

Article • Reed Karaim, Event Reports, TMRE, October 2018

Wayfair, the online retailer focused on home goods, is using a “scrappy” approach to research as it seeks to understand consumers and generate valuable insights.

Flamingo x Diageo Progressive Gender Portrayal in Global Comms

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, Virginia Valentine Award for Cultural Insights, 2018

Diageo, an alcoholic beverages company, evaluated the representation of women in its global communications to improve representation and help its business.

Auto Trader Group: The Car Buyers Report – not new, not used but next

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Applications of Research, 2018

Auto Trader, a digital automotive marketplace, was able to shed its reputation among UK consumer as a place for ‘cheap second hand cars’ and delivered a twelvefold ROI.

AXA – Global Healthcare & Listen + Learn Research: Winning a place in the suitcase: How AXA optimised its marketing spend to become more relevant and engaging to those looking to move abroad

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Highly Commended, MRS Award for Financial Services Research, 2018

AXA, an insurance firm, optimised its marketing spend and became more relevant to Britons looking to move abroad.

Observing cultural trends to identify white space

Research Paper • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Healthcare Research, 2018

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of the global pharmaceutical company Sanofi, wanted to find a customer-focused positioning that would work across many markets and customer types, helping it to better connect with customers.

Post-Truth Insights - Driving Business Impact: Making insights more business-ready and articulated in business language to help true consumer-centricity in client business organisations

Research Paper • Radhecka Roy and Sunita Venkataraman, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Intel, a technology company, and Ipsos, a global market research firm, set up a pilot in the US to build an ongoing framework for instant insights that can aid different stakeholders in exploring rapid activation with micro-targets.

Catching the Exception: An in-depth qualitative social media analysis to uncover unexpected usages of plant-based Alpro products - #newrecipe #cleaneating #plantpower

Research Paper • Chayanne Meers and Suzanne Mulier, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2018

Alpro, a plant-based products brand, used deep-dive social analysis to identify consumer trends around plant-based products – allowing them to promote versatile and creative uses for its product ranges in Belgium.

The Heineken Insight Cloud: From creation to curation

Article • Jacobine Lotgering and Cristina Craciun, ESOMAR, Congress, 2018

Heineken, a beer brand, shares its experience in creating a platform that drives collaboration across marketing teams globally.

Zero to Greatness: How to transform an organization from utilizing insights and analytics to craving them

Research Paper • Holly Rozelle, ESOMAR, Congress, 2018

Nature’s Way, a vitamins and supplements brand, transformed itself from not leveraging data at all to becoming dependent on data, insights and the Marketing Capabilities function, which has resulted in growth for its products in the US.

P&G's insights generation formula

News • 01 October 2018

Procter & Gamble, the FMCG giant, is using an “eyes on the consumer, hands on the keyboard” approach to understanding its target audience, meaning it can tap into a wide variety of research techniques for this purpose.

How “hands on the keyboard” signals a new wave of personalization at P&G

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, ANA Data and Measurement conference, September 2018

Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods manufacturer, is taking a nuanced approach as it strives to understand and serve changing shopper needs.

It’s all got a bit flabby

Opinion • Gareth Kay_, August 2018

Strategic thinking is getting flabbier and flowerier by the minute, with fluffy language that is highly evocative, imaginative and inspirational but, says Gareth Kay, is devoid of the brutal rigour needed to create a robust foundation on which to build a brand or business.

Trend spotting: Using text analysis to model market dynamics

Research Paper • Jameson Watts, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 60, No. 4, 2018, pp. 408-418

As marketers, we are confronted by an increasingly complex world—one characterized by markets that emerge and evolve at an unprecedented rate.

Research management