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Blog, Conferences, Emerging markets, Face Asia, Interesting stuff

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Our Pick of the Papers from ESOMAR Asia Pacific 2013

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What’s better than street food in Ho Chi Minh? ESOMAR’s Asia conference (well, nearly). Overall, it is a conference with a fantastic spirit. I enjoyed presenting our paper Brands Without Borders (read the summary here, or get the whole paper here), which I wrote with my American counterpart, Philip McNaughton.

The conference, though, is still dominated by Westerners and Indian people – nothing wrong with that, but I was hoping to see greater representation of home grown South East and North Asian thought leadership.

Picture of Presentation at At ESOMAR APAC 2013

Having said that, there were a few gems. Here are my Best Of’s…

1. The last frontier of Asia – Coke’s insight into Myanmar. Only 7 people at the conference had done any research in the market. (This leaves North Korea as surely the LAST frontier?)

2. Semiotics of Indian masculinity – Satyam Viswanathan from 3rd Eye did a lovely job of breaking the down age of men, and helped us understand the current cultural anxieties. Most importantly, it gave great context to the most recent crimes against women in India.

3. The modern nomad in Asia – 214 million people around the world are in a state of acculturation (i.e. living overseas & on the move). Crazy. Thanks Stephanie Herold from Clear

4. Understanding cultural differences through the lens of archetypes – delightfully simple way to help interpret diversity vs. more academic machinations. In a region where clients and agencies give lip service to “cultural insight & immersion”, archetypes poses a practical & digestible way in which can help translate the values & character of a brand. Thanks Anjali Puri, TNS, India

5. Dave McCaughan – an old mentor of mine from McCann WorldGroup Japan shared his latest update in a long-running obsession with Soft Power: the ability for countries to engineer their nation’s perception through celebrity & pop culture

The rest of the conference was of limited interest. It felt like quite a few agencies were trudging out their credentials and old presentations. Rijn Vogelaar from Blauw Research did a good job of summarizing his Superpromoter book from 2009, and Ipsos showcased their scary new predictive equity quant tool. Overall it supported my suspicions about the region and the state of talent and industry development.

Having seen the standard and quality of the work – I’m now more passionate than ever to start kicking up some dust in this region. No doubt there is great talent in the region, but for some reason they aren’t getting visibility or aren’t motivated to come to the big conferences. We need community now more than ever if we are to raise the bar – for ourselves, clients, and future generations of insight people in the region.

I’ve linked here to the articles themselves, but feel free to tweet me (I’m @AndiHo) to chat about them any time.

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Andrew Ho is the Managing Director of FACE Asia. Connect with him on LinkedIn here, or share your thoughts on this article with us at @FaceCocreation.

Blog, Brand Insight, Strategy and Positioning, Co-Creation, Conferences, Emerging markets, Face Asia, Meet Us At, Planning, Research Methods

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Brands without Borders – Face at Esomar 2013

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ESOMAR’s Asia Pacific 2013 conference in Ho Chi Minh City has already kicked off (keep an eye out for my summary blog with all the highlights), but even if you can’t make it, I wanted to share a piece of work we’ll be presenting tomorrow.

Written by myself (Andrew Ho) and my American counterpart, the head of our New York offices Philip McNaughton, this presentation will be all about how co-creation can help build stronger cross-regional brands throughout Asia.

ESOMAR Asia Logo

We were working with the beverage brand, Mizone, which had already grown strongly in the APAC region – but with independent brand voices in different Asian markets. The key business challenge was to develop a consistent and differentiated brand voice and vision that worked across markets, supported the growth of the brand, and yet was still relevant and attuned to consumer mindsets and aspirations.

There were two key challenges to this project:

  1. How to effectively bring consumer voices directly into the development of a high-level brand vision?
  2. How to identify one common vision and higher-purpose for the brand that could support pan-regional growth, without losing the flexibility needed to cater to the individual nature of each specific market?

Bringing consumer voices into brand vision development through Co-Creation

At first glance it seems counter-intuitive to ask consumers what they want a brand’s point of view on the world to be. If we have to ask, aren’t we missing the point? Should we be asking consumers to intervene in the magic and craft of marketing? We know that this point of view should be rooted in an understanding of our audiences – we know that research and data must play a role – but can we go beyond this?

The answer lies in moving away from the research paradigm of question and answer, ‘them and us’, and into a framework that invites collaboration  to harness the skills and vision of marketers alongside the creativity, truth and passion of consumers.

This was a 4 phase process:

  1. We started out with a phase of more ‘traditional’ ethnographic research with consumers – spending time with them in their places and spaces both offline and online and talking to them about their passions, motivations and aspirations for the future. This involved blogging communities, consumer connects and researcher lead interviews to develop a rich insight base about the target audience in each market.
  2. We then use this research to develop a number of insight platforms, and from those we developed a number of brand vision statements.
  3. We then took these ideas into a co-creation workshop where we worked with leading edge consumers in each market – Indonesia and India – to explore the potential for and relevance of our insight platforms and brand vision statements.This was not about asking people what they thought or whether they ‘liked’ or didn’t like the insights. It was about allowing them to tell us through a mix of storytelling and creative game-play what the insight platforms and statements meant to them, what was most resonant, and how they related the vision and insights to their own lives. Through this process we learnt not only where the central heartland of each potential brand vision lay, but also we saw (rather than asked) which of the potential areas generated most warmth and connection.
  4. Following the consumer work, we then ran sessions with the local agency in each market to identify the strongest insights and how they played into the strongest brand vision statements. We used the raw material generated in the consumer workshops to hone and craft impactful language that expressed a brand vision articulated directly from a human and local perspective.

Identifying one common vision across markets

While the co-creation sessions allowed us to articulate rich and relevant visions and points of view for the brand in each market, the larger challenge of finding a consistent and coherent vision for the brand in the region required a further step.

This involved client and agency teams coming together from across the region in a workshop inspired by insights and vision statements generated in previous phases on the study. While this allowed each market to give its own point of view, the principle was to bring cross-cultural teams together to develop cross-cultural perspectives for the brand.

On a simple level this process was about trying to find consistencies between markets, but more important was identifying fundamental human truths that could power the brand emotionally and functionally, and allow it to stand for something differentiating and purposeful in consumers lives.

Crucial to the success of this was the fact that stimulus brought into that workshop combined real insight from the markets, but also incorporated consumer inspired language and points of view that related directly to the purpose of generating big thinking for the brand. The consumer outputs from the co-creation gave a compass, a direction for the most powerful routes the brand could take – even if they did not map out all the stages of that route.

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Like our thinking? View more of Andrew Ho’s blogs on research in Asian markets, or connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter to say hello.

Blog, Communities, Community Management, Planning, Research Methods

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How to Use Community Research to Tackle Taboos

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Face-to-face research has severe limitations when it comes to addressing sensitive issues. Whenever researchers have to tackle topics such as suffering from mental health problems, the decadence of high net worth individuals, the awkward stages of puberty, or when we need to cut through the bravado and self consciousness around discussing sexual relations, traditional face-to-face research is far from easy – though it can be expertly executed by a deft and experienced hand. Online communities are not only convenient, but can actually deliver consistently deeper and more transparent insights.

For taboo topics, the usual enemies of research are amplified. People are too often compelled to say what is expected, socially acceptable, or feel pushed be agreeable. This is particularly true in Asia where participants will try to “save face,” as I’ve described previously in When Focus Groups Fail in Asia.

asian diary

Image by Flickr user by cliff1066™

Online communities are uniquely placed to get the most accurate and honest responses. In order to get the best from respondents, Q+As and NDAs are simply not enough. The entire insight process needs to be re-engineered from top to bottom to make respondents feel not only safe, but encouraged to give their best.

Here are 6 factors that can make communities the most effective and delicate of insight instruments:

1. Online and the freedom of anonymity

This is well documented: online provides a safe environment – an essential element for people to be able to express themselves. Given the recent boom in online self-expression in closed societies such as China and the Middle East, consumers are well-practiced at pouring their thoughts and feelings into a computer or mobile.

2. Research conducted and relationships formed over time

The nature of communities means the researcher-respondent relationship is formed over time (usually 2 weeks), not just in 2 hours. This creates a whole new paradigm –  researchers can build a dialogue and ramp up to more challenging/intimate tasks with sensitivity after establishing trust (versus simply leaping into a provocative line of questioning). As the respondents become more comfortable with the moderator and the platform, they open up more.

This also creates more time to find your insights through more projective techniques (see further on).

3. One-to-one engagement from recruitment to execution

As above, trust can be best formed through a consistent and human relationship during the research process. This is why, wherever possible, respondents should (be seen to) interact with only one recruiter/moderator contact. This creates a professional, discrete and transparent relationship. This also allows the contact person to use a personal and human tone of voice that is both warm and consistent.

4. The privacy of mobile

Mobile is growing fast, and our growing mobile research capabilities mean that mobile now plays a much stronger role when we tackle delicate subjects, by providing an extra degree of privacy and allowing for emotional expression in the moment. The interactions are now removed from the home or work computer where they can be accidentally shared or where respondents feel exposed. Because mobiles are often never far away, we can interact with consumers in any occasion.

5. Combine multiple data sources

When you have a category that is rife with mis-claimed behaviour (e.g. the frequency of exercise we do, or how strong our religious faith is), you can verify consumer behaviour by comparing from a number of sources that you can collect through communities. Researchers will be able to tease out the differences and probe on the discrepancies in the data. For example:

    • Social vs. individual tasks: Imagine how differently a man would claim his number of previous sexual partners in a group versus in an online interview. Understanding the difference may help calibrate your understanding of other research. For instance, men might over-claim their number of partners by 20%…
    • Direct respondent response vs. their peer responses: Talking to a mental health sufferer then his care provider or family will give you multiple perspectives on a single issue – illuminating any variations in perceived attitudes and behaviours
    • Passive vs. active capture: With mobile’s ability to mine the phone for indirect data (i.e. track your location, browsing data, messaging etc.), there is an opportunity to compare this passively-acquired intelligence with direct questions and tasks
    • Face-to-face qualitative follow-ups: After an online exercise, following up face-to-face interviews with key respondents allows researchers the opportunity to probe deeper on the community work – as well as verify and challenge facts

6. Community technology allows projective techniques to get creative and deep

Depending on the topic and challenge, the most modern communities allow you to be creative about how you gather the insights required. Projective tasks (unlike direct questions) allow for a less invasive and more insightful approach. A third person story-telling method that asks them for “advice based on their own experiences” is more comfortable but still draws on their personal experiences.

We’ve had enormous success with the above principles and continue to build our thinking and capabilities. It is the ultimate demonstration of how online qual is breaking away from panels and surveys, and how in this instance can usurp the traditional insight model.

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Interested in more of our Asia research insights? We’re speaking about building ‘Brands Without Borders’ at ESOMAR Asia Pacific 2013 next week (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7-9 April 2013).

Connect with Andrew Ho on LinkedIn or Twitter if you’d like to say hello to us there.

Blog, Communities, Emerging markets, Face Asia, Research Methods

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When Focus Groups Fail in Asia: The Online Alternative

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I was with a client recently from a major FMCG company in Singapore. She was sharing with me her concerns that using the traditional qualitative approach of focus groups meant with some Asian cultures it was harder to get to the truth.

She cited examples with Chinese and Indian consumers where saying what you really think and feel in a group environment does not come naturally. In fact she went further, saying that the cultural paradigm limits people’s ability to express individual thoughts or contradict their peers. “They just don’t want to lose face,” she said. As someone who has worked in China and the wider region for 15 years I know this only too well.

Asian dolls

The conversation naturally lead to trying new methodologies and approaches that could help over come this potential issue. And it was here that we started to talk about the benefits of on-line research communities. I am surprised how little they are being used as an alternative to focus groups in Asia when you look at how established they are in Europe and the U.S as an effective platform for consumer understanding. My view is this is about to change.

We have recently seen a major global car company come to Face so we could help them move from their slow, expensive approach of conducting focus groups sequentially in each market to a streamlined approach using simultaneous online communities in 6-10 markets – giving them robust insight and actionable decisions in half the time for two-thirds of the cost. Online community advertising testing is now established as the approach to global advertising evaluation for the company, helping them make better global decisions more quickly- while local teams also have the chance to deep dive into their own community for local audience insights. We are now applying this model to the evaluation of big ideas as well as concepts.

We have done numerous projects for clients in Asia where we have used communities to help deliver other strategic objectives.

Last year, for example, a global player in the personal care market was faced with developing a differentiated, locally resonant positioning in China – against me-too, local competitors who already owned our client’s desired positioning. The challenge required the detailed exploration of body cleaning and cleansing to unlock an expression that was locally relevant and own-able, differentiated in-market and still faithful to the global brand positioning.

We developed a multi-methodology approach that was built on discovering the key insights, uncovered through an 18 day online community with 28 Chinese mothers, followed by a 1 day co-creation in Shanghai. The community element was crucial to the success of the project as it allowed for layered, longitudinal exploration of the challenge over 18 days leading to nuanced, detailed insights that exceeded the depth that could be achieved through traditional focus groups, with a fraction of the cost. The community approach also allowed us to tap into Chinese city-dwellers’ propensity to be highly engaged in online activity, leveraging a research format to get the most out of the participants while also’ being a more sensitive way of exploring intimate topics in a private setting which would not have been as successful in traditional groups.

At Face we think that communities are an essential part of a more socially intelligent way of doing research. The benefits to Asian clients as summarized from the examples above are three fold:

Intimacy & cultural sensitivity

With the explosion of self-expression we are seeing from online Asian users, it’s no surprise that communities are working. Using the anonymity of the web and the ability to talk to consumers directly outside a group environment can help clients get to what consumers really think and feel. Consumers can bring their lives to you in a more genuine, real and engaging way than they can from a focus group room.

Regional coverage with speed

With so many different countries over a wide geographical area, communities are a much faster way of bringing together different consumers who speak different languages. There is less set up time and less travel time and faster turn around time from transcripts to analysis; they can happen simultaneously rather than sequentially and allow clients to include countries they would otherwise have discounted because of the additional costs incurred using focus groups.

Value that unlocks creativity

With communities you have the ability to do more for less for longer. There is a big cost saving in terms of running on-line focus groups within a community compared to F2F focus groups. There are no venue costs for a start and stakeholders can immerse themselves in what their consumers are saying from the comfort of their sofa saving time and travel costs. You also have the ability to do more for longer by combining projective techniques with in-depth probes and context related missions.

Focus groups will always have their place in the research toolkit, but communities on the other hand can help clients make better decisions more quickly. The benefits of communities done with intelligence & intuition give an undeniable advantage which no doubt the region will begin to enjoy as much as their European counterparts.

Blog, Face Asia, Face News

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Meet Our New Facer – Andrew Ho, Managing Director of Face Asia

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We’re excited to welcome Andrew Ho to our Hong Kong office. Andrew will be joining us as the new Managing Director of Face Asia. He brings with him a wealth of experience, having worked as a client, inventor, entrepreneur, consultant and advertising planner. He’s worked for such companies as P&G, McCann-Erickson, Saatchi & Saatchi, and was the Head of Planning for DDB Hong Kong. He joins Face from Clear after heading up their Hong Kong office.

But rather than tell you about him, we thought it best to let him introduce himself in this interview. Much more fun that way.

Andrew Ho

You’ve spent time as a client, consultant and most recently advertising – what has brought you back to consultancy & research?

My career has certainly offered me some very cool opportunities, however the consistent theme throughout has been a hunger and commitment to insight and creative problem solving. So regardless of the title, the roles have been pretty similar. The consulting environment is like no other however – you tackle the big issues with the right people and are exposed to talent and a diversity of challenges that is hard to beat.

Coming to Face represents a chance to learn from the most emergent thinking in the industry and work with remarkable technology. Throughout my career, I’ve let my curiosity lead me to where the most stimulating opportunities are – whether they be commercial, cultural or personal.

What excites you about working in Asia?

For me, it’s the ability to work with people who are hungry and grateful. People, clients and colleagues alike. It’s something I find less pervasive in the West. For the vast majority of people in the region, they have grown up in a climate of constant change. Seismic political, economic & cultural changes are everywhere. Change is thoroughly unsettling for most people but most Asians are impressively adept at turning their lemons into lemonade. It inspires hunger that leads to extraordinary acts of creativity & entrepreneurialism. And nothing get’s taken for granted. The village one’s parents grew up in may only be just down the road – which makes for a sobering and beautiful reminder to live and live well.

What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing the marketing & insight industry, both globally and specifically in Asia?

Honestly, I don’t think the challenges have changed much. Summoning the foresight, ability and courage to do something about them is the issue. In Asia the same old challenges are merely amplified but are no different in nature. How do you encourage environments where fearless creativity can take hold? When will the brand community more consistently embrace a better class of insight? How will big companies act smaller and behave like they stand for something? There are some cultural tenets that make these challenges even harder for some marketing professionals in the region.

What do you think the next big trends are in research?

Happily I’d like to think that Face is leading the way with a select few marketers – embracing the authenticity of dialogue and brand interaction that’s taking place in the social environment. You would hope that people’s frustrations with traditional research and half-hearted innovation will give way to common sense. We generally work with colleagues and clients that are hungrier.

What will be interesting is how well advertising agencies embrace and execute world-class insight and strategy. As more and more clients seem to out-source their marketing responsibilities to their agency partners, ad agencies are burden by an extraordinary new role. There are a few strategic magicians out there, but generally speaking the planning pool is shallow in Asia and full of slap-dash gun slingers, let alone those capable of adopting the discipline to crack both creative, consumer & business strategy.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing clients who want to be successful in Asian markets?

For local businesses, the key challenge is not forgetting the imagination and entrepreneurialism that made them successful. To walk away from a merchant mentality, keep listening and continue to innovate from a singular brand purpose.

For foreign brands, most tend to massage their products and services by “localising” them – but I question how meaningful these innovations are. They too have a grand opportunity to stop and ask themselves “What business am I really in?” Multinationals are all reliant on the emerging regions to prop up their short-falls in America and Europe, and come to Asia with a dusty playbook and a false sense of scales of economy rather than reboot their research, strategy and business models

What attracted you to working at Face?

For anyone who has worked agency-side, we all know how much any agency preaches innovation, insight and good marketing for clients but are terrible at doing it themselves. Face’s attention to growing their own offering and culture is something I haven’t seen anywhere else. The investment we make into our own technology, intelligence and people means a better product – but more importantly, sustainable innovation.

What are your top 3 things to do in Hong Kong for visitors?

1. Get fit: Beyond the sky-line & urban pollution, every visitor is stunned by the abundance of nature. I’ve never been healthier

2. Get native: personally I believe it is much easier to properly immerse yourself in local culture vs. other Asian countries

3. Get creative: HK is going through an awkward rebirth of its creative culture. There are hits and misses, but it’s an exciting time to participate.