Archive for June, 2009

Face going the Extra Mile!

Date June 03 2009
Posted by Charlotte
Tagged with

Last weekend a few members of Face put down their iphones, closed the laptops and picked up their trainers all in the name of charity. The girls went off and did a 5K run for cancer research and our research director Philip walked 100K in the Yorkshire Dales. Philip’s not mad enough to do something like that for nothing of course, so it was all in the name of Oxfam. He can’t quite bring himself to talk about it just yet, but has described it as an equal mix of wonderful and horrific. He finally limped round in 30 hours and 3 minutes and will never consume another energy bar or isotonic drink for as long as he lives. Charlotte has kindly written about her experience so take it away….

Charlotte

Last Saturday I visited a sports shop, and actually brought something, now to put this in context the last time I wore trainers was the 1999 Thomas Telford School Sports day. Which might come as even more of a surprise to some of my colleagues who had assumed, me being from ‘Up North’ I was forced to run barefoot around a coal mine with whippets snapping at my heels.

The reason for such a rare occurence is because on Sunday, alongside my brilliant Face colleagues, Georgie and Lucy, I ran, (and not for the no.73 bus) but the Race for life 5k through the City of London. Obviously to any marathon runner out there 5k is a mere warm up but for the less well trained the 5k marks the 1^st hurdle to overcome (and hopefully achieve).

So my preparation for the run was somewhat limited as I appeared to have a condition that rendered me hopeless and breathless after 15minutes of running whilst Lucy and Georgie skipped ahead and also with being so busy at Face and all…(although to be fair Andrew runs 5k most lunch times without breaking into a sweat).

So it’s 10am, we’re in Moorgate and it’s the day of the race, I’m wearing my new t-shirt and shorts and whilst feeling slightly scratchy and starchy I’m liking how professional I outwardly appear. Que emotional speeches, tears, hugs and motivating cheers and we move towards the starting line- for ‘runners’ mind, although having seen quite a few women on route smoking a crafty fag/eating McDonalds breakfast I feel in good company and slightly more hopeful.

15 minutes later and after what seemed like a life time of a warm up in the blistering sun we started and I got a very small taste of what marathon runners must feel like…So I ran and I kept running and with the support of my Face peeps I ran the whole way in 35 minutes! Georgie being the pro she is managed to take photos as well (check them out) and as Lucy puts it which sounds even better, “that’s 7 minutes K’s that we kept up all the way” which apparently means we could have done it faster- I’m not convinced, I was just happy to cross the line with a huge smile on my face.

So I feel ecstatic, I’ve raised some money for charity, made my family proud (it’s always the small things) and have a new found respect and love for running and looking for my next running challenge..coincidentally Race for Life’s next (new) event is a 10k in Autumn…you’ve got to love marketing…

Blog, Community Management, Innovation, Insights, MRS

Opportunities, Threats and Ambitions for Market Research

Date June 02 2009
Posted by Andrew
Tagged with

I had some good feedback to some of my remarks as a panellist on the MRS Debate “Opportunities, threats and ambitions for market research”. A number of people came up to me afterwards to say they enjoyed my enthusiasm and optimism for the future of the industry. It was in mark contrast they said to the gloom and doom that we have been used to hearing and reading about in the last six months. It is a really exciting time to be involved with research for several important reasons.

Web 2.0 has given us new tools and new methodologies that weren’t there 5 years ago to help us get much closer to our customers and to stay close to them for continuous periods of time. We can achieve this by spending a lot less of our client’s money – critical during this economic down turn.

More consumers want to play and be given more responsibility in the research process. Their increasing desire to be listened to and involved more directly in what a brand does and says means that now more than ever there is a great opportunity to research with consumers rather than at them.

We’ve got the chance to be more ambitious not just in terms of uncovering deeper and better insights but also in turning those insights into great products that make money for our clients.

Co-creation means there is a big opportunity for researchers to become the real champions of consumer involvement, as well as the key drivers for it within an company. This will undoubtedly mean us taking on the responsibility of not just encouraging companies to open up to consumers but also generating new ideas, methodologies and tools to helping make this happen. By becoming the gatekeeper to co-creating and crowdsourcing with consumers – letting consumers really influence what a brand or company does – researchers will transform their role into a more strategic, interesting and valuable one.

As an afterthought I was not aware until recently that the quality of the exchanges we made during our session have prompted some of the nice people at MRS to shortlist us for the Special Contribution to Conference Award for your debate at Research 2009: The Annual Conference. It would be great to keep this thread going with anyone elses thoughts on other opportunities out there. Next month we will cover more on oppotunities, threats and ambitions.

Blog, Community Management, Innovation, Social Media, Uncategorized

How to Make Content Cool – In Three Easy Sites!

Date June 01 2009
Posted by Matt
Tagged with

So over the last few posts I have been banging on about how engaging content and knowing your audience is the key to a successful community. These are both obvious points; however,they are very difficult to do well. It is for this reason Ithought I should give some examples of what I am going on about.

I have picked out 3 of my favourite websites that are executing audience strategies really well.

None of these sites are necessarily communities (although they do have some elements) but they help give us an understanding of how to make our communities interesting and dynamic.

Even though they are all poles apart in terms of their purpose, all of these sites have a few things in common – they look great, they store a lot of information and I love them! So without any further ado here are some sites that I think arewell worth checking out if you are looking for some engagement inspiration:

It’s Nice That – Simplicity is the key for this very good looking blog. Smack bang in the middle of everything that is creative, it is well known within design circles for providing up to date and relevant information. Built around rich and high quality imagery its use of communication is subtle and very effective.

Platform Magazine – Vice for the next generation, it understands what the Skins generation want to hear about – sex, drugs, music and fashion. Hilarious at points with some great features but definitely not for the faint hearted as some of articles are quite… well… explicit but if you want to know what cool young’uns care about, look no further.

Metacritic - A stalwart in the online critic world Metacritic has compiled ratings for pretty much every book, TV show, film, album and computer game since 1999 A.K.A. a lot of information. Their layout is simple, their content is clear and their users love it. It is all very easy and you never feel swamped by the masses of content they have.

These are the kind of sites I look to when deciding how to display a lot of content and make it interesting for people to interact with. I would love to see some of your examples of dynamic and engaging websites.