by In the run-up to MRMW Europe 2017, our speakers share their views on the future of market research and talk about their favourite parts of the upcoming agenda.
It is no secret that participants at MRMW belong to the most forward thinking and technology savvy part of the industry. Hopes are high that upcoming technology developments in the area of AI, VR and Big Data can help the industry through its current transition.
Technology helps transition
Transition and transformation are buzzwords that Dushyant Gupta, SVP at Borderless Access uses to describe the current state of market research: “the next generation of MR will be dominated by AI and automation, along with full-fledged adoption of VR and AR techniques.”
Emre Can, Data Analyst at GarantiBank shares this sentiment, adding “Marketing research has always been about gathering insights from data, one way or another. However, the transition to online commerce, data getting bigger and more unstructured every day, and the limited availability of resources to process that kind of data puts a big strain in the industry. MRMW shifted its focus toward more data-driven and technological developments, which is precisely what the industry professionals need to get their boost in this field.”
Unsurprisingly, both Emre and Dushyant highlight sessions where future technologies play a crucial role, such as Oracle’s talk about the future of AI and Automation as well as Zalando’s presentation titled “Boosting brand performance through insights into 22 Million fashion customers”.
A magic bullet for recruitment and creativity?
With such a strong focus on technology and data, the “human” aspects of market research are sometimes forgotten. At the same time creativity and psychology remain important skills for anyone working in MR. Researchers are more and more challenged to think outside the box and create new, innovative solutions.
So can data help driving creativity? This question is posed (and answered) by Damon McCollin-Moore, Strategy Manager, iFour. “Our talk is about cracking the code of how creatives and researchers can best work together to achieve greatness for brands“. says Damon. “We are a creative agency first and foremost – sometimes maybe we can be a little cheeky about our market research colleagues and so we are challenging ourselves, going into the lions’ den to fly the flag for creativity and to discuss what creative people and data/insight people need from each other”.
A different take on technology is offered by Tom Woodnutt from Feeling Mutual and Hugh Carling, LiveMinds. Tom sees recruitment as one of the big, ongoing challenges of the industry and is exploring how platforms like Facebook can help to develop new ways of finding “real people”. Using Facebook data for behavioural recruitment, researchers can rely on “what people have actually done, rather than what they say they’ve done” says Hugh.
Join MRMW Europe 2017 in Berlin on November 8&9 to hear the latest on Automation, Crowdsourcing, Mobile Market Research, Data Analytics and much more!
