5 Takeaways from ESOMAR Congress 2018

ESOMAR Congress 2018 convened last week in Berlin, bringing together more than 1,000 market researchers, data scientists and marketers to discuss how the data, insight and analytics industry is moving forward, new technologies and successes of the past year.

For those marketers that didn’t make it to ESOMAR Congress this year, here are five key learnings to inspire you in 2018 and beyond:

1. Research Is Attainable — Even for Small Business

Without the benefit of insights, many small and emerging businesses (SMBs) are potentially making poor decisions. Large companies spend vast sums on research to stay ahead of the game, but 99% of companies are missing out.

A lack of experience in research, a need for demonstrable ROI and low budgets can be big barriers to the use of insights in SMBs. Many attempt to conduct some form of research themselves, but often they do not have the expertise or know-how to interpret and apply that data to make the right choices.

All of that is changing. It is now possible to acquire data for almost nothing and use the skills of insights professionals to understand and leverage data. Many insights companies have honed their services to be supremely agile and available to the SMB sector.

One example of this brought to Congress was Northstar, a boutique insights firm, and its client Metfriendly, a mutual society supporting London police officers with financial products. Metfriendly membership was declining, and the society needed to understand what new offers it could include in its portfolio and how to communicate them — familiar challenges for small businesses. With Northstar, Metfriendly was able to reverse its decline and prove the ROI of its research program.

2. Research Optimizes Nonprofits for Good

Nonprofits presented some of the most compelling stories at Congress. Forcier Consulting spoke of encouraging girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo not to miss school due to a lack of sanitary protection. Surgo Foundation told of saving babies and young children in India by encouraging use of rehydration salts. And Kantar Millward Brown and Our Better World, Singapore shared stories of supporting women who had miscarried during pregnancy. These stories prove that research saves lives.

Because of the intense scrutiny on nonprofit funds and the need to demonstrate clear ROI for every penny spent, these stories were fully focused on the outcomes of the projects, not only on the research process and the insight. Often, research prevented money from being wasted by ensuring the money that was spent delivered the best result.

3. Data Protection Is an Opportunity, Not a Threat

During Congress, news broke of Facebook’s recent data breach and a potential $1.63 billion fine, hot on the heels of GDPR’s debut earlier this year.

Many marketeers perceive data privacy as a necessary nightmare, but perception depends on where you’re standing. Researchers from Buzzback and HERE technologies, a location-based data company, wanted to better understand the intersection of consumer attitudes and data protection in digital apps. They found 91% of respondents were concerned about sharing their personal information digitally, while 75% stated “sharing my location makes me feel vulnerable or stressed”.

Their study also found 44% of consumers realized after inspection that they share data with far more apps than they thought they did. It paints a now-familiar picture of the lack of consumer understanding of how data is stored, an aspect of data protection businesses must take responsibility for.

This was reinforced by the findings of a study by ESOMAR and Kadence International, which showed that most companies are either unaware of their data obligations or far too lax in implementing them.

Buzzback and HERE shared that if consumers can withdraw access to location data, have the opportunity to delete it or can easily change their permissions and preferences, then more than two-thirds of consumers would be far more likely to willingly share their location data. Demonstrating that, in a world where data breaches are now a weekly occurrence, consumer data transparency and control can potentially provide companies not just with consumer data, but also drive increased trust in the brand.

4. The ROI of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has grown apace in recent years. Even B2B marketers now see influencer marketing as a key channel. However, understanding the ROI of the influencer has been a difficult proposition. Respondi and its client Drogerie-markt (Germany’s largest over-the-counter healthcare and cosmetics retailer) shared findings from their work in this channel.

Respondi recorded and analyzed PC and laptop internet usage of 2,453 participants and discovered that influencer reach is huge: 23% of internet visitors having already seen an influencer video with product placement, and 60% of 14- to 29-year-olds have visited an influencer’s YouTube channel.

They also found that reach is not necessarily a good metric for influence. Followers do not indicate high impression rate, and influencers with big followings are less convincing than microinfluencers. A campaign launched with several smaller influencers compared to one well-followed influencer suggests an impression rate 50% higher for the smaller influencers.

Quality of video should also be a key consideration for marketers engaging in influencer marketing. Quantity may drive initial engagement, but quality ensures consumer retention. With any content marketing channel, there needs to be the right balance of commercial and noncommercial content — influencers are most influential when they find the right balance between engaging noncommercial content and brand and product content.

5. Even Internal Communication Needs Campaigns

“We don’t work in libraries, we work for companies. Your project is finished when people are using the insights of your research,” said Begonia Fafian of Coca-Cola. A lot of presentations at Congress focused on how to drive impact through a range of tools and ideas, from using automation platforms internally to democratizing insights with stakeholders. Coca-Cola and Keen as Mustard shared findings from their internal study at Coke, which revealed that even for internal communication of insights, campaign-style presentations were more effective than huge PowerPoint decks. Using newsletters, video and infographics, they were better able to communicate key data points.

About the Author | Finn Raben

Finn Raben is the director general of ESOMAR, the global association for the data, insight and analytics industry. Raben’s career started at Millward Brown IMS in Dublin, followed by AC Nielsen. At TNS, he turned around the ailing Irish business and subsequently instigated the Global Accounts programme, working with a number of major global clients, including Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s and Microsoft as Global Director of Planning and Coordination for Key Accounts.