BIG Conference: Finding the Meaning

Correct interpretation of research data is a complex and difficult thing: a message reinforced by the first morning's papers at this year's BIG Conference, which started today in Chepstow and whose theme is 'Business Research Means Business'.

Ian Talmage, currently of Bayer Healthcare, gave the keynote address for Thursday's sessions, strongly linking business research with results in a paper on 'The Building of a Global Brand', which looked at the development of Astra's LOSEC brand. A single slide with a dozen different national interpretations of another of the firm's brands contrasted nicely with the advantages of a coherent global strategy, which Talmage said should be based around the principle that every dollar spent 'reaffirms' every dollar spent before, rather than reinventing wheels or having to undo negative images.

In the pharma industry, all branding challenges are made harder by the requirement to say what things actually are: 'If we sold sushi, we'd call it 'cold, dead fish'' said Talmage. Against this, the company's marketing and research teams need to be aware that their decision-makers don't benefit from too much detail ­ there's so much information cluttering our decision-makers that we need to help them make their decisions rather than just spelling everything out.

For researchers unfamiliar with pharmaceutical budgets and timescales, the biggest surprise of the talk may have been the revelation that the average new drug costs about $800m to get to market, and requires about 9 years from initial concept. It's vitally important in this context to maximise the return from a successful example, but the reassuring $55bn to date from LOSEC surely means the branding people, among others, got things right on this one.

John Wigglesworth, of GfK NOP, also discussed an issue of international compatibility and comparison, but from an agency / technical standpoint. How to make rating scales comparable across borders, when 'different cultures do not use numbers in a consistent way'. GfK posed the question: 'Can we build a universal, adjustable model' to bring ratings into line and give meaningful country comparisons. Without this, for example, client country managers in nations who tend to give higher rankings (the US is one such) may get an unfair advantage over those, such as France, where ratings tend to be lower, and may rest on laurels they haven't truly earnt. The reasons for these different uses and habits are manifold, and include differing levels of expectation from service providers, more liberal or traditional mindsets and more individual habits like the fact that German scholars use ratings the opposite way round to British (ie in terms of whether the best papers get a 1 or a ten, and so on).

The company used analysis of findings from 20 international ratings studies to develop an adjustment scale based on national averages over a number of industries, and the paper showed how a sample set of results were then adjusted to give the French, Dutch and others more of a chance, and the Americans, Scandinavians and Austrians more to worry (legitimately) about. Wigglesworth stressed however the need to interpret cautiously and to recognise differences depending on respondent type and sector. A useful tool worthy of more discussion and development ­ and perhaps a wake-up call to some who had not considered these deep and significant differences.

The first session was rounded off by a talk on doing research in China, 'How Green is the Dragon?', by Charles Michaels of agency Databuild. 'Very', was the answer, perhaps surprising a lot of delegates who have taken on board a lot of talk about China's rush to a modern commercial economy, and didn't realise, for example, that senior respondents won't answer tough questions from younger interviewers (well, they're even less likely to do so than in Europe, perhaps we should say); or that when asked for an appointment time some respondents will say 'come next week' and leave it at that; or that interpreters will often baulk at asking the actual question they have been given, for cultural reasons, and will ask something quite different.

At the reporting stage, Databuild enjoyed a crash course in Chinese diplomacy: 'Any actual recommendations were taken as implicit criticism'. A whole new world for those of us fed up with hearing about the need for actionable conclusions. Although just one aspect of a complex and fast-changing market, the talk provided a refreshing view-from-the-front and perhaps a reality check for those of us talking a lot about, but not actually working in China.

Another report from BIG Conference will appear in tomorrow's DRNO. The Conference's web site is at www.bigconfrence.org

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.