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Back to the Barbican – MRS Conference Review
The 49th Annual Conference of the UK's MRS began today in London's Barbican Centre with a keynote address from Lord Bell, co-founder of Saatchi and Saatchi and campaign adviser to Margaret Thatcher. DRNO's correspondent reports on this and the more satisfyingly heavyweight session that followed, on the theme of Word-of-Mouth.
Lord Bell, now Chairman of Chime Communications, was a good crowd-puller for the opening session, and made some useful points in a somewhat anecdotal keynote address. He stressed the theme of the Conference - connecting business, people and ideas - as essential to good research. In a research environment where above all, results matter, we can only get good results if we attend to the process.
Good communications are primarily about great ideas, according to Lord Bell. Research makes you focus more sharply but it doesn't give you these great ideas: they are essentially about words not pictures and - in the speaker's opinion - you can't research words.
Some features of the new environment created by the Internet are healthy for the marketing community. Standards are only in their infancy. Networking marketing, which looks at the world of now and how people behave, makes brand owners take an interest in what people want. Deference has been replaced by reference.
The down side of this, says Lord Bell, is in politics. Here the stress on public opinion has had a devastating effect - the speaker feels that the market research industry should do something about this 'tyranny'.
Lord Bell believes the biggest problem of the information age is that we live in a world where we are not wise; we just have more knowledge. But, on a more positive note, he welcomed the move from focus groups to Deliberative Research - because, 'at the end, what matters are good ideas'.
Word-of-Mouth
The next session featured good, heavyweight thinking, bang on Conference theme. The speakers argued that WoM is more than icing on the cake, it is the cake. Former NOP Chairman Simon Chadwick, now a Partner of Cambiar LLC, a change management consultancy in the US, joined Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group and most importantly co-author of the seminal book The Influentials, to tackle the question 'Is WoM the next big thing, or just a buzz?'
Ed Keller reported learnings from a three-year journey into WoM to show that it's a big thing now. But Word of Mouth is not a new concept. Paul Lazarsfeld's communication studies in the '50s pointed the way and in the '70s Roper research showed that 67% felt that WoM was the best source of ideas. What has changed is that today, WoM is dramatically more influential - 92% say it is the most important source of information.
There are several reasons for this:- Loss of trust in institutions. The Edelman Annual Trust Barometer, which tracks the attitudes of nearly 2000 opinion leaders found that the most credible source of information abut a company is now 'a person like me'.
- The cacophony of information created by information overload
- The fact that the consumer is boss
- The fragmentation of media and question marks about the efficiency of mass advertising. Procter & Gamble has recognised the need for new channels and connections. Its global Marketing Officer Jim Stengel says: 'Today's marketing world is broken'.
Research all around the world now suggests that WoM is up to one and a half times more influential than other marketing tools. But how do you measure WoM? How big is the pass-along and do categories matter? Chadwick & Keller presented results from the Luth SurveySavvy Internet panel among a high-involvement and a low-involvement sample. Involvement is of course highly important for pass-along but if the decision is important to the individual even low-involvement information will be passed along. Influentials are twice as likely to pass information and to twice as many people - these are the people you have to find.
WoM is driving markets: it's not just buzz, it's central to business success.
Dr Paul Marsden, Consultant with Enterprise LSE, in his paper 'Measuring the success of Word of Mouth', argued that you can measure its effects.
He discussed three approaches:- Using surveys and asking 'How important is Word of Mouth to you?', WoM is systematically rated more important. Dr Marsden stressed that in this context it is important to understand the psychology of WoM: if you can deliver an experience which is above expectation, you create WoM.
- Researching the economics of 'buzz'. Net recommendations are highly correlated to revenue and business growth.
- Use of the Hawthorne effect. This approach, based on the classical study where people taking part in research studies gave more favourable ratings and showed improved goodwill, loyalty and advocacy, can in fact be used to measure the effect of WoM.
Allowing the consumer to 'call the shots' and become an advocate for the product can in fact increase sales. Dr Marsden expressed this as 'Putting the marketing back into marketing research - working with consumers, using them as partners, rather than lab rats.
He believes the future of marketing lies with market research, because it is based on listening. By listening we create advocates who can drive sales.
Graeme Trayner, currently Director, Opinion Leader Research, in his paper 'Open Source Thinking: From passive consumers to active creators' stressed the need to adapt and respond to the new marketing environment. New technology is reshaping communications: the democratisation of creativity and the rise of self-publication has led to direct action from people as they take on corporations.
Originally a concept from software programming, 'open source thinking' revolves around everyone having the opportunity to input into the development of an entity, whether a product, service or organisation. Successful open-source initiatives revolve around co-creative and virtual thematic communities.
The market research approach is based on a tight model of command and control. We need to adapt our practices and approaches to include people as active creators, rather than passive respondents. The challenge for research is to co-opt the creativity of consumers. To do this we have to think of respondents as strategists and allow groups to empower consumers. Market research can give people a greater sense of participation. We have to engage with thematic communities and tap into consumer creativity.
A report from the second day of the Conference will appear in DRNO on Monday. The MRS is on the web at www.mrs.org.uk
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