Here is the third installment of our series covering emerging roles in the market research industry. Job Muscroft, the Face MD in London, kicked it all off in his post about the various roles that are changing the face of market research. In this post, we’ve interviewed one of our co-creation consultants here at Face, Research Director Esther Garland, to learn a bit more about what it’s like to work in qualitative market research as a co-creation consultant.
How would you describe your role?
My role…. Part planner, part creator, part trainer, part performer, part researcher. To do co-creation successfully you need to be many things at any one time. It’s not the same as running a focus group – you still have the insight objectives but actually your role is to create an immersive, inspiring way of getting to those objectives. If I could make a rule in co-creation that you are not allowed to ask direct questions (as you do in more traditional methodologies) I would.
How did you become a marketing research co-creator? What’s your background?
I started in market research for a publishing company so I have an appreciation of product development, I then spent some time as a planner for a couple of above the line and digital agencies giving me an appreciation of the creative process, ideation and strategy. I came to agency side qual research to be closer to consumers again, and this is a great place to get an appreciation for managing clients and stakeholders, and deadlines (both of which are big parts of co-creation).
Any tips for how to stand out from the competition when you’re trying to get a job in co-creation?
Like any qual research, co-creation is about a balance of people skills (being able to engage people, being able to elicit information and shape conversations) and analytical skills (being able to judge information, get behind the words to the meaning, find the underlying assumptions and unstated beliefs). However it’s the creative and performance bits that are different from traditional research – anything that can demonstrate you think about problems differently and design creative solutions to those problems, and any skills you can demonstrate in performance will set you apart.
What are the top three rules you have to follow as a co-creator in market research?
- Make it fun – create the right environment, gamify the session, set the right atmosphere
- Make it creative – design exercises that use different parts of the brain, do things that feel challenging or strange, think laterally about how to get to your objectives
- Make it physical – vary the pace, get people moving about, change the scenery
Where do you see your role going in the next five years? What’s the future for marketing research co-creation?
It’s worth noting that increasingly I think co-creation will be adopted as a core part of the qual armoury (if it isn’t already) so really this question doesn’t make sense – additionally I’m not just co-creator, I’m an Insight and Strategy specialist. Co-creativity is a philosophy rather than a tool – so in fact for us, I see principles of co-creativity (creating immersive environments, building long term mutual relationships between clients and consumers, sharing the responsibility for success) governing all the research activities we do.
Increasingly though I think it’s going to be about how you layer co-creation with other tools and data sources – whether that is social media insight, crowdsourcing or social media monitoring.
What’s the biggest mistake you most often see in co-creation? What’s so bad about it?
Just treating it like a souped-up focus group – albeit with clients in the room asking the questions as well. This is just lazy and not harnessing the full power of the approach – you won’t get better ideas or insight from just doing the same thing in a bigger room.
Learn more about our co-creation process here.
That is right! So if you want to join a team of innovative researchers, please send your c.v. or resume to team@facegroup.com. Please include the reference code and then your name in the subject heading of your email.
UK Roles we are currently looking to fill in our London office are:
- Community/Panel Research Director – Code UK-CRD
We are looking for a strong researcher who can pioneer the use of Community Panel research with our growing list of clients. With at least 7 years experience (ideally quant and qual mix) they must be able to help pitch and oversee the implementation of ongoing Community/Panel research projects
- Qualitative Research Manager – Code UK-QRM
We are looking for a qualitative research manager with at least 4 years experience to join our excellent qualitative team. They must be strong project managers with an appetite for working on global projects using a mix of on and off line methodologies.
- Social Media Analyst – Code UK-SMA
We are looking for a quantitative researcher with an unhealthy passion for social media to join our fast growing social media research team. They must have at least one years experience dealing with quantitative data and have the ability to uncover and communicate insights.
US Roles we are currently looking to fill in our Manhattan office are:
- Qualitative Research Manager – Code US-QRM
We are looking for a qualitative research manager with at least 3 years experience of working with CPG clients to join our growing team in New York. They must be strong project managers with an appetite for working on projects from start to finish using a mix of on and off line methodologies.
- Qualitative Research Director – Code US-QRD
We are looking for a qualitative research director with at least 7 years experience to join our growing team in New York. They must have experience of running and developing client accounts, building and managing team and delivering projects from pitching to final debrief. Experience of working with CPG clients and using a mix of on and off line methodologies would be beneficial.
We’re very proud to have had our work with Expedia mentioned by Andrew Warner – Expedia’s senior marketing director, customer marketing organisation, in Marketing Magazine. We quote:
As part of Warner’s overhaul of the marketing department, he held co-creation sessions with consumers and employees, which he says were vital to see the brand from a range of angles. ‘Brands and advertising shouldn’t just be run out of the marketing department; it’s too important.’
Warner is confident that this approach has helped Expedia create a campaign that is true both to the business ethos and its consumers. ‘One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is to hire an expensive ad agency that builds up a proposition, which the company then can’t live up to in the eyes of consumers,’ he says.
Face worked with Ogilvy and Expedia to explore the best ways of expressing the new big idea proposed for Expedia’s new positioning.
A co-creative approach was utilised, bringing together consumers, the Face team and Expedia and Ogilvy stakeholders in a one-day session in London, to co-create what the key messages and tonality should be at the heart of how this positioning was to be communicated.
Ideas developed in this workshop were then evaluated and optimised in a series of discussion groups in London, Stockholm, Berlin, Amsterdam and Milan. This also presented a key opportunity to understand how communication ideas would need to be developed to ensure they resonated on a pan-European level.
Our very own Saul Parker and Esther Garland went along to the MRS Brand Research Conference in Central London a couple of weeks ago to talk about co-creating a global brand positioning.
We presented our learnings from co-creating the new global positioning for Mortein last year, and aimed to dispel some of the tired old myths of co-creation by demonstrating how we had used our process to circumvent the traditional barriers cited about working creatively with consumers.
You can view our presentation above but here are some of our main points:
True creative, disruptive thinking that works on a brand (rather than product level) can just as easily be done by consumers as “experts” – it’s about giving them the right tools and frameworks.
By keeping workshop design and tasks abstract and non linear, by never explicitly exposing the destination, you can free consumers up to let go and be truly creative. And by building in divergence and inspiring disruption in design you can increase the richness of output and collateral with which to build your brand.
By mimicking the creative tools and techniques taught to professionals, and removing the focus from problem solving to game playing and story telling you can keep outputs full of meaning and texture rather than rational logic.
But finally, when it comes to brand building, story telling and myth-making really lie at the heart of this. And as such rather than try and ignore cultural norms, key to building a truly resonant brand story is capitalising on that folk narrative and symbolism and re-mixing it in a newly relevant way.
connect