Archive for April, 2010

Is This The Digital Election?

Date April 15 2010
Posted by Sharmila
Tagged with

Some of you might have noticed that a general election has been called (well, hopefully more than just some of you). As the campaign machines go into overdrive, one element of this election that is coming to the fore is the role of digital, with some dubbing this the “digital election”. It was recently announced that the three main party leaders will have their first online debate, where questions will be fielded over YouTube and Facebook. In addition, MPs have now started taking to sending personally tailored emails to constituents as a means of canvassing for support.

For many, this can only be seen as a good thing, and a sign of politics starting to understand that it is important to engage with the public through platforms and media that are intrinsic to their lives. For others though, there is still a level of cynicism apparent – is this just another channel for politicians to “spam” constituents? Is this really reaching out? Moreover, the online digital debate will not be live, with each party leader having time to prepare answers.

This begs the question; is politics truly looking to engage with the public in the digital sphere, or is this a false dawn?

Welcome to the Internet UK politics

In research, we are always talking about how you have to truly engage with people if you want to carry out good online research. Without the immediacy and physical interaction of more traditional qualitative methods, thought has to go into how you can move beyond a question/response model that does little to harness the power of digital media. Thinking about engagement is even more crucial when it comes to digital.

The argument can be made that the political sphere has to do the same. With politics comes issues that are often highly complex and personal. There is no question that digital presents a significant opportunity to talk about these issues in a way that is resonant for the public. However, setting up a digital relationship between politician/political party and constituent has to mean more than sending a semi-tailored email.

We will only be able to see if digital political engagement moves beyond this in the coming weeks. However, if utilizing the digital space for political engagement is as important as the three main political parties say it is, we will soon need to see real action, rather than just words.

Blog, Co-Creation, Insights

We're In Research Magazine…

Date April 14 2010
Posted by Matt
Tagged with

We have a nice juicy feature in April’s edition of Research Magazine! Entitled The Sweet Smell of Success the piece is a case study about our work with Axe/Lynx on Twist, the fragrance that changes. Written by Face Managing Director Job Muscroft the article explains the inner workings of the Twist project and the importance of involving consumers in the marketing process.

It can be found on page 32 & 33 of this months Research Magazine.

Blog, Opportunities, Social Media

Face is looking for a new Digital Project Wizard

Date April 13 2010
Posted by Francesco
Tagged with

We are currently looking for a remarkable creature who’s really awesome and strategic at managing social web development projects and switched on about social media strategy. We are looking for a mix of skills and passions which could possibly be summarized by the phrase “digital project management” but most of all we are looking for cultural fit: geekish, opinionated and a social web person in real-life.

One of the things we do at Face is developing real-time social web stuff. You will be responsible for managing all the web development and social media projects which includes our co-creation communities, real-time research platform, the Face sites and blogs, any bespoke communities and all social media projects developed for the brands Face is working with.

We are looking for someone who’s able to lead a project, not be led.

Solid experience with managing development of social web apps is a must, 3 years or more, ideally in an agency or a web startup: experience of full project lifecycle (requirements, design through to deployment) and evidence of having worked on a variety of digital projects across clients (small campaigns through to more complex web builds)

You will manage the full lifecycle of web site and web application development and other digital projects. You will work closely with clients and internal teams, managing the definition, design, development and delivery process.

Understanding of user experience and interaction design principles would make you the perfect candidate.

The role includes:

participating into the the design of a proposal to respond to a brief;
participating and occasionally lead proposals pitches and debrief meetings with the client;
designing the production process, including specs, wireframes, prototypes, information architecture, use-cases, cost estimates and timing plans;
managing the creatives and developers teams to achieve development on budget and on schedule;
managing web development testing to assess the quality of the development process;
managing maintenance and ongoing development of Face online communities;
monitor websites performance using web analytics tools, flag potential issues and weaknesses, understand trends, suggest actions to be taken;
manage Face web presence across a range of social media accounts and blogs and contribute to Face blogs.

To apply please e-mail me at francesco [at] facegroup [dot] co [dot] uk , tell us a bit about yourself and don’t forget a C.V.! Good Luck!

Blog, Insights, Pulsar, Social Media, Wired

Real Time Research, Where do you Start?

Date April 12 2010
Posted by Job
Tagged with

2010 seems to be the year that the market research industry and its clients have started to embrace the web as a real time listening/research tool. So, if you are looking to get involved in social media monitoring research where do you start?

The Face team used a number of off the shelf services that provided limited insight so here are some of the initial questions we asked ourselves when we started to develop our in house real time research tool – Pulsar, that you might find helpful:

What are your objectives?

To start with you need to ask what role is real time research going to play in the business and specifically which stakeholder teams will need to engage with the findings e.g research, marketing, pr, customer service, CSR etc.

Possible objectives could include:
• Marketing & PR : monitoring marketing & PR impact on real time on-line reputation
• Innovation: monitor consumer conversations for product problems, work arounds and solutions
• Planning: track brand stories and map influential individuals, blogs and sites in your category
• Consumer Immersion: monitor, tag and cluster consumer conversation to uncover new consumer insights
• Customer Service: flag up negative and positive posts and enable internal teams to respond directly

The Internet, it's big, make sure you know what you're looking for before you dive in!

6 Criteria of the system

You will then need to consider the following 6 criteria when thinking about the specification of the system that you want to use:

1. What’s included in the data sets?
Does it cover blogs, Tweets, reviews, forums, etc? what countries does it cover? Importantly what does it NOT cover?

2. Where is the content coming from and how is it harvested?
Is the data taken from 3rd party providers or is the data collected in-house. An important point to consider if the provider offers the ability to go back in time over and above 6 months as data is regularly dropped out by 3rd party providers and thus provides a diluted view of days gone by.

3. How is the data cleaned and prepared?
What process does the provider go through to manage duplicates, spam, forum threads, etc. You don’t want to be double-counting or duplicating responses to customers.

4. How is the data organised or segmented?
Is the remaining content relevant to the business questions being asked? What are the base, volume and discussion sources being included for classification? How is the data being segmented so it contains the most pertinent consumer discussions around your specific area of interest?

5. How is the data being analysed and are actionable insights delivered?
Is sentiment purely done by automated technology or by human analysis, or both? Can the system help you determine what the important topics are that lead volume or drive a particular sentiment? Does the system use an influence index of some sort to identify key persons around sectors/conversations?

6. How actionable are the insights and how should they be implemented?
Is there a consulting service so that information and data can be transformed into insight? the web is constantly evolving and is an ever changing form of media and many organisations need to rely on the expertise and experience of a well seasoned research team. While data can be informational, consumer generated media insights are powerful building blocks that can be used to transform and prepare an organisation for the changing digital landscape.

Blog, Co-Creation

Face in Business Week – Co-Creation: Not Just Another Focus Group

Date April 06 2010
Posted by admin
Tagged with

“To launch Twist, a new men’s fragrance in its global Axe brand, Unilever turned to a preapproved crowd of eager young amateurs for help.

In July 2008, Unilever executives convened 16 regular young men and women from around the world at a meeting in New York. Why? To tap them for ideas for a new global fragrance for Axe, a brand of men’s body spray, antiperspirant, and shower gel. The company had previously experimented with consumer-driven product development for local launches, but never for one on such a large scale…” READ MORE