Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Richard Collins, Chief Customer Officer at Askia.

This Episode’s Sponsor: 

GreenBook

Contact Richard Online: 

LinkedIn 

Askia

[00:02]

We are live at IIeX. What do you think about the show so far?

[00:06]

It’s good. This venue is awesome. It’s probably the best one on the roster that we go to. They run it really well, good content loads. It loads of different things you’re going to learn here. I don’t have a booth this year. I’m regretting that. I think I’ll get one for next year.

[00:24]

Yes, it’s been for PureSpectrum, it actually has been really good for us. It’s been a lot of activities. It’s perfect. I love the activity map. Askia, what’s going on with Askia?

[00:39]

Askia, we’ve just changed our tagline. We’ve been software for surveys for 20 years, and we’re now automating insight because a lot of our clients, they’ve got Askia in the middle of what they’re doing and what you’re doing is so hard. There is so much technology involved, it’s so more complicated than it used to be. We’re working with companies like KPMG companies, companies like Hall and Partners where we are at the center of what they’re doing. But they’re using lots of other things to link through to it. Lots of automation, lots of APIs, lots of really clever things.

We’re doing a lot of custom things for clients. There’s a lot going on at the moment and the business is definitely changing. We’re having to be less of just a software company to almost more of a consulting company. They have research operational problems and we help them solve those.

[01:35]

That’s actually really interesting. What are you seeing… because you’re a veteran of the industry. You’ve touched a lot, right? Qualitative technology, quant technology, quite a few from a global point of view, what are you seeing as trending right now.

[01:51]

Automation’s the big word. Everyone is trying to save time to the bits that can be automated to do those. Whether it’s sampling, whether it’s waiting, whether it’s getting data, merging data, data processing. Those things that are difficult and could potentially be to automated. That’s the trend I’m seeing.

[02:18]

Yes it was blockchain last year. Right?

[02:18]

Mm-hmm.

[02:19]

It’s funny. It’s like one in one year, there just hasn’t been a lot of mention of blockchain.

[02:25]

I think there have been two papers both today. Yes that’s right. I expected there might be that there were loads last year.

[02:35]

Yes exactly. I guess my broader point is, do you feel like automation is here to stay or do you feel like it’s more faddish?

[02:43]

No, I think it’s here to stay. There are all sorts of different ways you can have AI and whether it’s pure AI or not, I don’t think it really matters. It’s whether you can be taking the best of human skills, automating those where possible, where it makes sense. You can save an awful lot of money, save time, and get those people who are smart. We got some really smart people in the industry, getting them focused on generating insights and helping them generate insights. Things like automating on the analytics so to be able to pull out the analytics, what are the main themes coming through from this study without interaction and then the researchers will come in and then expand those, explore those.

[03:36]

Yes, I actually, I think you’re exactly right on the automation viewpoint. It’s funny because we’d been doing it, it’s like cloud computing. We were doing stuff in the “cloud server base” well before it was defined. We just wrapped a new word around it and all of a sudden.

[03:59]

We’re actually saying, people are asking for things away from the cloud, so they want control.

[04:02]

Centralization. Is that around consumer privacy?

[04:07]

Yes.

[04:09]

Interesting.

[04:10]

Some people they want to necessarily not go into the cloud. They want to know exactly where the data is and be able to lock it down, which fits well with, with Askia. With about a half our clients, they weren’t like that anyway for heritage reasons and actually that says come full circle that half the people we speak to, they don’t want to go cloud.

[04:32]

Maybe just don’t, there’s a lesson there. Just don’t jump on the bed, things will be right.

[04:38]

We are about to launch a whole web version of Askia which has been a long time in the making. Then suddenly people said, no, we don’t want that. Just give us your on premise.

[04:48]

That’s hilarious, that’s great. I love it. I tell you what, for every business out there, there is a thousand different ways to ask one question and market research processes followed exactly in that space. That’s where I think like we’re just as an industry framing research automation in the last 12 months, it is buy in exactly is a great example is kind of a leader in the space. Now you know what you’re doing here spectrum too, right? There are a ton of players in research automation.

[05:18]

Foster junior yesterday, they were talking about that.

[05:23]

In no way, shape or form, this is a rising tide principle. I don’t think it’s going to be a winner, take all type of role. I think that you’re going to have bigger players and smaller players, but you could be a smaller player and how the hell of a good size business in this space. Now it’s just a huge opportunity, Blue Ocean, right? Blue Ocean opportunity for the next three to five years. Because the corporations, they still haven’t figured out how to inject at the right time in the right spot for the decision making. As that happens, that’s where the automation comes in.

[06:07]

We’re seeing some of our clients are doing incredibly complicated work stone, so it’s not all going for that small templated research that that’s a factor and a growing factor. But there are still some beasts of surveys out there. They’re really important to do it, censuses and for social research, there are still a lot of that going on and that’s mixed methodology to this. We’re not changing lock, stock and barrel, but there’s a shift for sure.

[06:36]

Yes, for sure. Are you going home tonight?

[06:39]

Tonight? Yes. Back to London.

[06:45]

Yes. Good. We’re winding up last day. Next year, do you think you’re going to exhibit?

[06:53]

Yes. I think so. I’ve been impressed. Wherever it is, whether it’s an Amsterdam, I hear rumors of Barcelona.

[07:00]

I’ve heard that too. I would hope for, that would be spectacular.

[07:04]

Yes Barcelona is a fantastic place.

[07:06]

I will be taking my wife and we will be having any extended period of time without children. (Laughs.)

[07:11]

Yes you need that too.

[07:13]

If someone wants to get in contact with you, how would they do that?

[07:15]

Richard@askia.com, very simple. I’d love to hear from you.

[07:20]

Perfect. That’s it. Thanks for being on the show.

[07:24]

Pleasure. Thanks Jamin.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Ranier van Rietschoten, Co-Founder and CCO of Veylinx.

This Episode’s Sponsor: 

GreenBook

Contact Ranier Online: 

LinkedIn 

Veylinx

[00:02]

My guest today is Rainier from Veylinx. Thanks so much for being on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[00:08]

Thank you. Happy to be here.

[00:10]

We’re day one IIeX. How’s the show going?

[00:13]

It’s pretty good so far. I’ve been able to see a couple of presentations, but I’ve also spent quite some time at our booth, talking with fun and interesting people.

[00:23]

Yes, clients.

[00:24]

Also, clients. Yes, I think third or fourth year that we are here at IIeX. It’s always one of the highlights of our conference calendar because they focus a lot on putting innovation in the spotlight, which is also something where we feel quite passionate about. That’s always good fun and we have some current clients and of course also some really nice new interesting people that we can always meet every year.

[00:52]

Veylinx, you are the founder of the company?

[00:56]

That’s correct.

[00:56]

Tell me a little bit about that.

[00:57]

Veylinx was founded about four years ago. I’m one of the founders together with Anouar and Anouar is a scientist working actually at the University of Amsterdam in the field of behavioral science. When he got introduced to it into market research, he saw that especially within innovation testing, a lot of the work, in innovation foundation evolves around measuring intents so you ask questions, “Are you considering purchasing this product? How often? How much are you willing to pay for it?” Coming from a behavioral science background, you always learn, don’t ask what people think they’re going to do, but measure what to really do. What we have done is actually we took an approach from behavioral science and introduce it with market research. What we did is we built this tiny ecommerce platform on which we host auctions of products that we want to research. Then by looking at the bits on those products, we can make predictions about many people want to buy this or very few, how should you position it? So one half can bid on a Heineken beer saying it’s ice cold, the best and the other half bits on the Heineken beer for claim it says brewed of natural ingredients and then we can see which position works best and who are the people most interested in buying this? We’ve a very efficient tests that is fully behavior based. We can basically do full concepts and ID evaluations.

[02:20]

How long does the project usually take?

[02:25]

It’s quite fast. When we run a project, typically when we go live with the field work and field work takes anywhere between two to five days. One day later we can deliver top lines and then a few days later we can deliver full polished brief.

[02:39]

You’re doing everything for the customer in terms of helping them design the project execution, analytics and reporting.

[02:48]

We have both. We have our full stand-alone platform and with some clients they set up their own projects or doing their own analytics. We just delivered them the platform. But for the majority of our clients, especially in the CPG and consumer electronics industries, we’re providing the surfaces as well.

[03:08]

That makes it a lot of sense. You said this is the third year or fourth? I apologize. The fourth year here at IIeX. How’s this year shaping up compared to previous ones?

[03:18]

It’s interesting, IIeX has grown a lot bigger, which I think is great because it’s proof that the industry is evolving. Also, when I think about four years ago when we were showcased as a startup, we saw there were a lot less startups in the industry and also it was a lot harder to have clients open up and experiment something. It’s really become more of a strategic objective even for clients to look around to see what is innovative, what is new and live more with startups, it’s a lot more accepted than I think it’s a great improvement that the industry is going on and IIeX I think one of the brilliant platforms to achieve that because it’s such an efficient way of identifying like what is new, what is interesting, where are the market trends going? I think that has always stayed true but it’s just grown a lot in terms of size, in terms of professionalism and it’s an interesting place to be.

[04:19]

Veylinx is the name of the company. How did you come up with the name?

[04:24]

It’s actually an interesting story but we are a Dutch company by origin and I said it started as an academic project and it needed the project name and there was no way in the beginning the intention to start a company, let alone an international company. It’s actually a combination of two words and one word is “veiling”, which is a Dutch word for auction because we use auctions as a means of research. Then “links” is a bit related to web links because it’s all digital and online.

[04:55]

Very clever, how big are you guys? How many employees?

[05:00]

We are now with a team of a little bit of 20 people, a head office in Amsterdam and I recently relocated to New York to open up our first USA office.

[05:11]

Congratulations. How is it living in New York?

[05:18]

It’s a lot of fun. It’s so much to do also for us, it’s an important market. We have a lot of clients already there in the region so it makes a lot of sense for us to be there.

[05:29]

Are you guys looking at the West Coast eventually or no?

[05:30]

Initially the East Coast, New York because it’s easier to fly into and the majority of our clients are in that region. At some point of course we want to move to the West Coast as well as it’s also very relevant, especially in the electronics and surfaces markets where we do more and more for work as well. It could be very relevant.

[05:48]

That makes a lot of sense. How does somebody get in contact with you?

[05:51]

They can drop me an email or go to our website or website is www.veylinx.com. My email address is rainier@veylinx.com. That’s, R-A-I-N-I-E-R@veylinx.com.

[06:06]

Veylinx is, V-E-Y-L-I-N-X. Thank you so much Rainier for being on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[06:12]

Thank you so much for having me. Have a good show.

[06:15]

Appreciate it.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Rahul Krishna, Director EMEA, Client Solutions at Prodege.

This Episode’s Sponsor: 

GreenBook

Contact Rahul Online: 

LinkedIn 

Prodege

[00:00]

We are live today at IIeX in Amsterdam, morning time. Where are you from?

[00:07]

I am from London.

[00:08]

For you the time zone is not a big deal.

[00:10]

No. Not so much.

[00:13]

Tell us a little bit about Prodege.

[00:15]

Prodege is one of the largest online panel companies in the world. Prodege is at heart a consumer internet company. Our users are panel members or whatever term you want to use, who do a bunch of different things. They shop, they search, they play games, they also take a lot of market research surveys and that way they stay engaged. That way the data that market research agencies and end clients get from us is fresh and diverse.

[00:46]

How big is the panel?

[00:49]

The actual panel size is about 60 million members all over the world. It is a very large panel distributed all over the world but primarily in the United States and the UK.

[01:04]

How do you get your panelists?

[01:07]

We use a bunch of different channels, we look for internet properties where people are… Where internet traffic is looking to do things. But most interestingly a lot of our panel base recommends to other people. When they come to our internet properties and they take surveys and they shop and they do other things, they find a lot of value. Also the heart of the company, people… I think this is about giving back to people. Whatever rewards people make they tend to recommend to other people. It is so good that they recommend their families and friends and they come back to join our panel.

[01:51]

Your panel incentive structure, is it based on reward points or is it based on cash?

[02:03]

It is based on points. It is not based on cash, but you can convert those points either into multiple gift vouchers and also get a PayPal card for example. You will never ever get cash.

[02:18]

It totally converts?

[02:19]

Absolutely.

[02:31]

One of the things that I have been hearing specifically from Roger Verhulst, who is head of insights from LinkedIn, is that participation rate for email solicitation is on its way down. Do you guys have a unique way that you engage and notify your panelists about survey opportunities?

[02:53]

I completely agree with you that the email participation is very down. If you look at the millennial for example, the amount of time millennials spend on internet is very difficult to get their attention through email, so we have a very sophisticated dashboard where people can interact with us. And also don’t forget that we have different channels through which we interact with our members. It is very diverse. We want them to shop, we want them to search, we want them to take surveys so we have come up with a very interactive dashboard where people can just… If they are tired of taking surveys, they can shop. If they are tired of shopping, they can do other things as well.

And I think that has been one of the ways we’ve been able to keep the panel active. Also mobile is a big way we are also interacting with people. We have mobile apps where people can come and take surveys and also do other things.

[03:53]

That sounds pretty exciting.

[03:55]

Yes it is. I think in this day and age, we have been very successful in finding out different channels where we can keep our participation rates high.

[04:08]

If someone wanted to get in contact with you, presumably to be a customer or have questions, how would they do that?

[04:12]

They can obviously visit our website www.prodegemr.com, or they can reach out to me at rahul.k@prodege.com.

[04:23]

And that is R-A-H-U-L?

[04:26]

Dot k@P-R-O, D for delta, E-G-E.com

[04:33]

It almost sounds like we are landing a plane when we do that.

[04:34]

That’s true.

[04:35]

Thank you very much for joining me on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[04:37]

No. Thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Paul Neto, Co-Founder and CMO at Measure Protocol.

This Episode’s Sponsor:

GreenBook

Contact Paul Online: 

LinkedIn

MeasureProtocol

paul@measureprotocol.com

[00:00]

Everybody, thanks for tuning in today. We’re live at IIeX in Amsterdam. This is the first time I’ve been to this show. I’m joined today by Paul Neto, Measure Protocol. Sir, thanks very much for being on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[00:16]

Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here.

[00:17]

We are early on day one. What do you think about the show so far?

[00:22]

For one, it’s a great venue and the talks are looking to be pretty interesting. It’s a great lineup for today here.

[00:30]

We’ve had four talks so far, is that right? Have you been able to hear any of them yet?

[00:35]

Yes, I sat in on one this morning. Both talking with Lacoste on how they’re introducing these agile methods into the research processes.

[00:47]

Useful stuff?

[00:48]

Yes, very good stuff.

[00:49]

Has it been pretty good for networking?

[00:51]

Yes, I heard it’s about 650 people here, and it’s with a great venue. It’s very social and very adapt for socializing.

[01:00]

It’s been really good. Are you going to the research club event this evening?

[01:03]

Yes, I think it’s one that can’t be missed.

[01:03]

(Laughs.) We were out till 1:00 a.m. yesterday, or I guess this morning, technically. Which was all by accident, I was just with our MD here in Europe. Anyways, I wish I would have slept a little more but that is what it is.

[01:19]

Yes, that’s what these conferences are like.

[01:20]

My late grandmother had a saying, “If I lay down too long, they’ll start throwing dirt on me.” (Laughs.)

[01:28]

I’m probably the only person here who can say this is his first time in Amsterdam. I’ve come through the airport many times but first time spending some time in the city.

[01:36]

Mine as well by the way. I’d never been to Amsterdam.

[01:40]

We’re in the same club.

[01:40]

What a city?

[01:44]

Yes, beautiful. Just beautiful.

[01:45]

Tell us a little about Measure Protocol.

[01:48]

Sure, I guess a place to start is just this past June we actually won the IIeX innovation startup competition in Atlanta.

[01:56]

Which is huge! Congratulations. I was there, a part of that whole thing.

[02:00]

It’s set forth some pretty good momentum. We are a blockchain based startup where we’re using blockchain and some interesting cryptography to build a data marketplace where you can buy and exchange data which includes participating in survey-based research and passive data. Really, using some of the blockchain attributes help build what we call, “A marketplace of trust.”

[02:33]

I like that, “Marketplace of trust.” Talk to me a little bit more about the trust angle as it relates to a blockchain.

[02:39]

We get trust from a few things, one is the fact that it’s decentralized nobody owns it, you can’t change it. Also that it’s transparent by nature. Across numerous industries their using these technologies to provide transparency into things like senile supply chains. We believe that transparency is one of the key components in building trust. Within the research industry, I think there’s a number of mechanics we can take advantage of and use this to build this trusted marketplace.

[03:13]

Last year was huge with respect to blockchain being the new AI or whatever you want to call it, the trend. Tell me how the spaces evolved in the last 12 months since I saw you last in Atlanta.

[03:32]

It’s been an interesting 12 months. The best way I would describe it is it’s gone through a cycle of maturity. There was a lot of height. There was a lot of talk around cryptocurrencies, and there’s also been, “What’s happened with the bitcoins and everything?” What we’re really trying to see is outside of just these white papers being published and these tokens being released, we’re starting to see a lot of legitimate businesses that are founded on basic business models. Really looking at maturity and starting to look at some real implementations. We’ve really taken that approach of, “Let’s take a core business problem and use blockchain as one of the tools to help accomplish it.”

[04:18]

You have customers?

[04:20]

Yes, we’ve spent almost the last year doing development and actually this week we’re launching a pilot program with a number of brands and research agencies. We’re on the cusp of commercial release.

[04:37]

Paul, if someone wants to get in contact with you how would they do that?

[04:42]

Best place is contact me directly at paul@measureprotocol.com or hit us on our website at measureprotocol.com.

[04:49]

Paul, thanks very much for being the Happy Market Research podcast and I hope you have a great time in Amsterdam.

[04:54]

Great, thanks.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Roy Patel from Pathmatics.

This Episode’s Sponsors:

G3 Translate

GreenBook

Contact Roy Online: 

LinkedIn 

roy@pathmatics.com

[00:02]

Hey everybody, welcome back where we are live today at IIeX and the Happy Market Research podcast. I have a special guest, Roy with Pathmatics correct.

[00:13]

Correct Jamin, Roy from Pathmatics.

[00:16]

(Laughs.) We had dinner out of complete fluke with a larger group a couple of nights ago and it was an absolute blast, a 2:00a.m. for me, event.

[00:27]

Was it that late?

[00:28]

We left after dinner and went to one last bar, Steven and I, and there was a drunk Irishman and his wife that were at the bar and they kept ringing a bell that hangs over the bar. The tradition is if you ring the bell, you buy the bar a round. He wound up buying two rounds.

[00:48]

I didn’t know about the after party. Sorry.

[00:50]

Yes. I didn’t either and neither did Steven, so it was like a complete crazy thing. We felt it was one of those like socially awkward. It’s like you always had an extra beer in front of you, anyway, it was not my best morning. It was not the best look for me the following morning.

[01:08]

The luck of the Irish is I would say with Steven and you’ve got two from him, so yes did very well.

[01:15]

That’s true. What do you think about IIeX?

[01:21]

It’s the fifth one I’ve been out of six. It’s the biggest in terms of attendees and the actual conference itself in terms of space and exhibitors and brands and research agencies. Yes, it’s an eye opener in terms of new things that are now evolving. The whole thing about AI as an example, it’s top of mind and there’s a lot more debate about AI or the whole area of data integration in terms of taking large datasets and integrating them. Companies like Knowledge Hound, for example, the whole era of automation for example as well. From a sampling perspective, research perspective. It’s interesting compared to maybe three, four years ago it was more traditional research orientated sub-topic matters.

[02:16]

One of my observations with IIeX is, and I honestly just, this was my one aha moment on this in this event is AI. The way that we’re talking about AI now is, it’s a practical application to real-life business. Whereas when it was first introduced maybe three-ish years ago it was just this concept and we really couldn’t map it to this is the terms of trade or this is how you apply it to better the researcher’s life. It was much more theoretical. My theory is that with technology, you have an adoption curve and it just takes a little while for things to percolate enough and for us to have a meaningful conversation about it. What IIeX does is it gives you a way to see what you’re going to be talking about maybe in a year or two.

[03:06]

Absolutely. IIeX as a platform for innovators to maybe preachers the wrong word, but to make it a topic of debate about what’s going to happen in the future. It’s a great platform.

[03:20]

Yes for sure. The theme of this one has been automated insights clearly, right? It’s funny too because if that was not planned, I don’t believe by the conference. It just has worked out that way. What do you think about automated insights? What’s driving that?

[03:34]

It’s funny, automated insights, AI. (Laughs.) You talk about artificial intelligence, but automated insights know the same acronym as such. Automation is going to play a major part moving forward. It’s all about making things not necessarily faster, better, cheaper, which used to be the old mantra, it’s really about making things definitely more efficient. Rather than a faster, it’s more about making it more efficient. It’s all about making things more tangible, real-life experiences in terms of making things automated through various sources. Then the other aspect is really in terms of adding value. Automation plays an interesting part in bringing things together and adding value to the bottom line, but I want to see, it’ll be interesting, see how that pans out over the next 12 months.

[04:36]

Then in the reality is that automated insights is a little bit, it’s like we’re naming things that have already been in existence, right? You have a storied career, Nielsen.

[04:48]

Yes.

[04:50]

Comscore?

[04:50]

Comscore?

[04:52]

Correct.

[04:53]

Both of those companies, of course, have a ton of automation built into their insights. It’s just about automating workflows really, isn’t it?

[05:02]

Yes, absolutely. You could argue that if you go back 20 years ago and things were automated then, but just in a different way.

[05:09]

Totally.

[05:10]

I would agree with that. Yes, definitely.

[05:11]

For sure. We’re naming it right. That’s what I do like about it is it’s like cloud computing. There was cloud computing before there was cloud computing. Just like conjoined exists and a lot of ways what we’re calling AI is a version of conjoint. By naming it, it is nice because it is prating a centralized focus on what I’m seeing is a big theme, especially with the Qualtrics acquisition of like integrated insights. I would say that is maybe the eye AI here is probably even a better name for it because that the integration of the data collection or the consumer opinion as early as possible in the product creation stage is going to create a better, more efficient outcome for the brand.

[06:05]

Yes. There was, I can’t remember maybe it was today or yesterday. There was a brand talking about, getting to continue consumers early enough to collect that data and put it through the processes so they can really then get things a lot earlier in the life cycle. As I said, you and me had the story about telling you a true story. When I was at Kantar another where we had a leading client that used to say that 70 percent of the research they did was never implemented in any way or form, purely because by the time a project was instructed and then done by the research agency and then the research consultant will come in and present it. It was out of date.

[06:45]

Interesting. Yes because the market is always constantly moving and evolving.

[06:49]

Totally.

[06:50]

There is no flash freeze of market conditions. Correct. That’s where you need, you think about like product decisions. If you’re a UI designer or a user interface designer and somebody is in, you’re creating and you’re iterating, if you could inject though, what does the customer think about this particular unit? An ingestion of insight at that point in time into those UI tools is a potential. Now, all of a sudden, you’re moving outside of market research, right in a big way. That’s where, like market research, needs to grab hold of this and then empower the whole organization.

[07:30]

I would agree. There is this gray area, you talk about market research and talk about market intelligence, syndicated data the likes of Forrester or Gartner. We’re also providing research as a vehicle. We talked to consumers, they talked to stakeholders and I can see a great synergy with automation and AI bringing in a lot of those things together. That’s where the real value proposition is. Let’s see what happens. Interesting.

[08:00]

Tell me a little bit about Pathmatics based out of Santa Monica and we are in Amsterdam.

[08:08]

Absolutely. Pathmatics, it’s interesting. We just talked about the companies in the periphery and Pathmatics is not really, we don’t see ourselves as a market research company. We see ourselves as a data analytics company around advertising content. What we do is we capture digital advertising and then present all of that data in a meaningful way for marketers, agency folks, and media publishers to utilize that data as a competitive intelligence source. The simplest example would be, if I’m a Coke exec, I could see everything that PepsiCo is doing in the digital ecosystem. I understand the messaging, the creative formats, the size where they’re advertising, when they’re advertising, so that’s data that we provide. It’s very unique, whether as I say, the Nielson of Digital. Nielsen does for TV and have done it for many years very well and that’s what we do for digital.

[09:11]

Do you think there’s going to be room for voice in that, like thinking about Alexa or Google?

[09:18]

That is being looked at the moment in terms of companies are looking at, how do you capture the whole area of VR, especially on media, from the media measurement point of view. It’s one of those ones where the adoption has to reach a critical max before the research agencies say, “Right, we’re going to make an investment in terms of how do we start collecting that data.” It might be a question of where you’ve got the likes of Amazon and Alphabet who might have to work with a leading agency to say, “Look, guys, let’s pair up here.” Similar to the things that Facebook have done with companies like Nielsen and Comscore in terms of understanding what’s happening within the Facebook ecosystem for social media data. Yes, that will happen.

[10:07]

If someone wants to get in contact with you, how would they do that?

[10:14]

The simplest way I would say is roy@pathmatics.com.

[10:13]

That’s P-A-T-H, Matics, M-A-T-I-C-S dot com. Of course, it’s always in the show notes. Roy, thanks for being on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[10:18]

My pleasure Jamin.

[10:22]

Safe travels, sir.

[10:24]

Thanks.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Paul Hudson, Founder and CEO of FlexMR.

This Episode’s Sponsor:

GreenBook

Contact Paul Online:

LinkedIn

FlexMR

[00:00]

My guest today is Paul, FlexMR. Paul tell me about FlexMR.

[00:08]

FlexMR, we’ve been around for nearly 20 years, the last 10 building a research platform. We’re a technology-driven agency and our platform is a technology platform that is enterprise wide and our service level is everything from assisted service to full service. We’re an agency with a platform provider.

[00:27]

Very interesting, so tell me about the platform.

[00:29]

Yes, so the platform combines qual and quant. It was the first and I think it’s pretty much the only one that has qual and quant in one place as opposed to different things plugged into an API. That allows our clients to agilely move research from qual to quant back again, and that’s really been very useful for our client moving to more intuitive techniques in the years.

[00:49]

That’s interesting. It almost creates this, it propagates an agile point of view on your research.

[00:55]

It does, exactly. We deliberately built a live chat in there, not just discussion boards next to the quant so that you literally you can do a survey, you can field that, and then you know obviously stakeholders say why did they say that? Well, we can then follow that up now. We can recruit specific people to answer this specific question and then pop them into a live chat or a discussion board and then follow it up.

[01:18]

How are you, how much time is around that, like let’s say that I’m you know whatever doing my quants, then I have a question, right. How long is it from inception of the question to delivery of the insight?

[01:30]

It varies really. It depends on—

[01:32]

Hours? Days? Weeks?

[01:33]

Well, it’d be days probably. Yes. I mean hours if you wanted one or two responses probably. You could get a quick poll out there in 24 hours.

[01:41]

Yes, got it.

[01:42]

And get the results back.

[01:43]

How are you getting respondents?

[01:44]

Typically it’s, we work mostly directly with brands, so we’re using a lot of their client lists. But again we work with sample providers as well to recruit in and fill ad hoc surveys. A lot of our clients do these and want to use our platform and then serve ad hoc surveys outside of recruited panelists.

[02:04]

What does a typical engagement look like with FlexMR?

[02:08]

It’s a partnership one, so it’s a continuous one. It’s a subscription to our service model on a 12 monthly basis and clients subscribe to the platform, to the tools they use, and then the service level that they want because we are at the end of the day, researchers, not just technologists. We have, you know, a full-service agency behind the scenes.

[02:28]

That’s pretty exciting. If someone wants to get in contact with you, how would they do that?

[02:31]

Direct through the web, FlexMR.net is the place to go. You can look at videos and lot of content on there as well and get in touch through there.

[02:41]

That’s FlexMR as in market research dot net.

[02:45]

Dot net.

[02:47]

Really quick, I know you got a flight but IIeX, we’re ending day two. What did you think?

[02:52]

Yes, fantastic. Just as good as last year when I came to the EU one for the first time. It had some really good stuff at automation AI, obviously, but I think the take away for me was around democratizing in sight. Not talked about enough so it stands out for me.

[03:08]

Yes, that’s right. You know, I was just talking earlier with another guest and for me, that was my big take away, is market research is more relevant than ever before, and at the same time though, there’s a democratization of access to insight that’s happening across the organization. So now, it’s a responsibility and an obligation, I believe, of market researchers to reassert themselves, ourselves, as the sage on the hill and help everybody else empower to do research.

[03:36]

Absolutely. I mean, I see FlexMR’s mission and our mission, if you like, is to try and get insight into as many decisions, every decision, in an organization. That’s we all should be trying to do and that’s really why we got that enterprise-wide platform. But, you have to remember 20 years ago market researchers were out collecting data.

[03:55]

Yes.

[03:56]

That’s gone.

[03:57]

It was like a logistics exercise.

[03:58]

It was a logistics exercise. That’s gone, so data is democratized already in an organization whether we like it or not. Really, it’s about taking it to the next stage, embracing it and not being scared of it. I think democratizing organization is a powerful thing, it will get insight into the point of decisions, and I think we as researchers have to think about where we fit in that chain. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Where do we fit in that mission?

[04:25]

Just lovely. Paul, FlexMR, thanks so much for being on the Happy Market Researcher podcast and safe travels my friend.

[04:31]

Thank you. Cheers man.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Nik Samoylov, Founder at Conjoint.ly.

This Episode’s Sponsor:

GreenBook

Contact Nik Online:

LinkedIn

Conjoint.ly

[00:02]

Nick Samoylov from Conjoint.ly.

[00:04]

And Conjointy.ly has been making a big impact in the industry. I’ve been running into you guys a lot lately. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the company.

[00:13]

Yes, thank you for the kind words. What we do is help companies with product and pricing research. In particular, we help with MCG clients, technology clients, other industries when they have questions about feature selection pricing, selection of claims, packaging and other things that go with it.

[00:30]

Yes, for sure. You started the company?

[00:33]

Yes, seven and a half years ago.

[00:35]

So fairly recent. What was your background before that?

[00:40]

I did marketing at uni and I graduated, so I went to Australia National University. At that time, I really wanted to work in market research and I applied for about 30 market research jobs, but nobody took me, so I had to go into consulting. I worked for a company called Bane for three years, then I left and started this. I made my way into market research, not because somebody took but I basically made my own way.

[01:06]

I love that story by the way. Do you have any co-founders?

[01:12]

At the beginning, yes but now it’s just—

[01:15]

Just you? It can be a little scary or daunting, starting a business?

[01:21]

It was and in this industry in particular when the sales cycle is quite long, it’s about six months because what we offer is not something that people may need immediately. It takes time to warm up to this type of research. The research question does not come very often. Yes, it can be but now we’re lucky to have clients who need this type of research and we’re happy that we can provide it through automation and through custom projects as well.

[01:53]

MRMW North America is coming up. It’s a conference in April. April 10 and 11, are you guys going to that?

[02:01]

I don’t think it’s scheduled at the moment.

[02:04]

The only reason I’m asking is that the topic is research automation and on the back of your business card it says automated product and pricing research. Can you talk just a little bit about what that actually is.

[02:19]

Yes, absolutely. Most of the projects we do are not done by us, humans, they are done by the platform. Our approach is to take projects that are starting as custom projects and to put them into automated tools. For example, we worked with a client on about a dozen markets for a claims test and now claims test is a methodology available on the platform so you can just copy and paste your claims for a product from an Excel file, even if you have 300 of them, and then have them tested in a very efficient manner without the need of a custom project.

[02:56]

Conjoint.ly obviously connected to Conjoint from a methodology perspective. Is that the dominant use case on the platform?

[03:06]

Yes, absolutely. Whenever people have questions about feature selection, price elasticity, what happens if you increase or decrease the price upon promotion. Conjoint is a very useful methodology for that and our tools are set up to help with that.

[03:23]

You do other methodologies as well?

[03:25]

Yes, they’re mostly what some people call advanced analytics except we transpire them into usable, user friendly interfaces that lets you put in your stimuli and then wait a few days and then get an output which tells you what is the winning combination of features and claims and press points.

[03:49]

The data reporting is actually pretty interesting as well. Your platform has real time access to analytics?

[04:00]

Yes, in the sense that, for example, if you are running a project and you want to see doth results, you can see them. You don’t have to wait for the other collection to be complete. If you want a sneak peek of what’s coming out, you can. In that sense, yes.

[04:24]

Most of the analytics it sounds like happened with SPSS.

[04:33]

With us, no. The system will do it for you. You don’t need to be an expert at all.

[04:36]

So all utility weights and all that kind of stuff, we don’t have to worry about calculating that anymore?

[04:45]

You can download the Excel file that will describe and explain and contain all the raw data if you want to but inside is what’s coming out at the end of the project.

[04:58]

My guest today on Happy Market Research podcast has been Nick, founder of Conjoint.ly. Sir, thank you very much for joining me.

[05:05]

Thank you for having me.

[05:07]

Real quick question, what do you think about IIeX so far?

[05:11]

It’s good. It’s a great city to be in. Very interesting.

[05:16]

Amsterdam’s unreal. This is my first time to Amsterdam, so I’m like blown away. I thought Stockholm, and I do still think, Stockholm is absolutely spectacular, but this is like taking it to a whole new level.

[05:32]

Yes, it’s good to be here.

[05:35]

For sure, and the show, is it working out? I know it’s early days.

[05:38]

Well, it really just started but we’ll see. We see some familiar faces which is good. It is good to reconnect with existing clients.

[05:48]

Yes, for sure. Great! Have a great rest of the show.

[05:51]

Thank you.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Nick Thomas of MrWeb.

This Episode’s Sponsor:

GreenBook

Contact Nick Online: 

MrWeb

[00:02]

I’m Nick Thomas. My company’s called MrWeb. MrWeb Limited, and a producer of Daily Research News Online as well.

[00:09]

You are my honored guest on Happy Market Research today. I have been, as has the entire industry, consuming your content for many, many years. You are the leader, I believe, in what’s happening right now in market research.

[00:26]

I like to think so. It’s a small market, so there’s not a vast amount of competition (laughs).

[00:29]

It’s true.

[00:30]

If we were the leader of 1,000 competitors then that would be great, but very few. It’s been going on now for 19 years, or 19 years next month, we’ll have been doing the news. The company is 21 this year, so we’re dinosaurs in internet terms (laughs).

[00:44]

Yes, that’s true.

[00:45]

Some would say we’re dinosaurs in the way we do it as well (laughs). We’ll come back to that later.

[00:51]

That’s hilarious. I can’t wait to dive in more. IIeX day two is winding up. How has the show been for you?

[00:57]

The show’s been excellent. I’m always telling people, whatever show I’m at, that… Which I’m not at very many, by the way. I’m trying to get out more these days rather than sit behind the PC. I’m always saying that there are quite a lot of shows around these days. It’s, if anything, quite a crowded market.

[01:13]

Very. It’s one I’m glad I’m not in.

[01:15]

Yes. You have to look at it and say that you’ve got to differentiate yourself. Would there be consolidation? Possibly. There are people collaborating in Quirks and TMRE in the US. Things may not mean consolidation, but there are a lot of events around companies that feel that they need to go to all of them. They’re now having full-time staff just traveling from (laughs) place to place for certain parts of the year.

[01:38]

It’s a heavy lift. We’re doing—

[01:39]

It is, yes.

[01:39]

At PureSpectrum, we’re doing 16 conferences this year up from zero.

[01:44]

You’re in second place then. Congratulations (laughs). I have a 20, a 16 and a 15 now. This company’s spending all their time on the road. Having said that, IIeX, this particular show, which is the only one I’ve been to, the European one, has easily got a place notched in there. There’s no threat to this one because it’s an incredible conference, incredible location. They do very well.

[02:09]

They’ve absolutely nailed it. What’s interesting about IIeX is they have… GreenBook at large, with GRIT as well, has really assumed this Sage leadership role of insights or cutting-edge technology in the insight space. What I like about this is you walk around the show floor. You’re meeting a lot of… I don’t know. We’ll call it $1 million to $5 million companies. In five years, some won’t be here and some will be big, which is neat.

[02:42]

It’s a good space for them to be in, and it also makes it a very interesting show. I’ve particularly enjoyed the startup competition this year because it’s showcasing… There are people competing for quite a reasonable prize.

[02:53]

Yes, $20,000.

[02:53]

Twenty thousand dollars.

[02:54]

Yes, it’s real money.

[02:55]

We’re trying to add in a little prize of some bonus advertising on DRNO.

[02:59]

Are you?

[03:00]

Yes. Only a small amount, don’t worry, Jamin. (Laughs.) That will be part of the prize, hopefully. The organization that—

[03:08]

I love that.

[03:08]

Scoops it gets as well. It’s a bit of exposure. We’ve had seven companies picked out in total, and the winner will be picked this afternoon. We got a chance to go and talk to each one of them yesterday and decide who to vote for. Sorry, not each one of those. A qualifying group to get a place among those final seven, which meant talking to some entrepreneurs about their company’s one-to-one of this group.

[03:31]

I definitely have my favorite of your group, but I’m not going to say who.

[03:34]

No, you have to say—

[03:36]

I have to be, yes, agnostic (laughs). It’s tough. You’ve got a tough job for this year because there are some great companies.

[03:45]

Yes.

[03:45]

There really are. Tell me about MrWeb. What’s going on?

[03:49]

What’s going on? This is a year of trying to expand the audience. We always are, but we’re going to make a particular effort to do that for Daily Research News this year. We’re looking at the idea of doing it through associations and agreements and partnerships with other people. That’s one of our strategies for the year. It’s a year of trying to do interesting things with the job board.

We started off as a job board, certainly in income terms. We completely dominated 90 percent plus from job advertising. The news, funny enough, started off as just a way of promoting the job board 20 years ago, 19 years ago. That’s taken on a life of its own, thank goodness. It does very well. The job board, it’s a totally changed market from what it was 19 years ago, 20 years ago. A lot of people probably even hear the expression job board and think, “Are people still running those?”

[04:50]

It’s the dinosaur in us.

[04:51]

Yes, it is. It’s like running an old-fashioned panel company, as they say. Don’t quote me on that. It’s not got a mobile angle or an AI angle, whatever, but it’s still very much a market that’s alive and has a good point to it. It’s just more difficult to compete than it used to be with the likes on LinkedIn and Indeed. We have to try new things with it. We have plenty of plans for it, so watch that space.

[05:18]

We’re going to be watching. You’ve got to give us a little bit more though.

[05:22]

Just what might happen, there’s a lot of potential in picking up jobs ourselves on a permissioned basis rather than having them forms filled in by people. On a longer-term agreement with companies, to make sure that we stay in the position where we’ve got more market research jobs listed than anybody else, which is still the case. Not quite sure how many market research jobs LinkedIn has worldwide. That may be more, but certainly in terms of only specialists board. We want to make sure that you can find jobs more easily through us and find jobs that you won’t find anywhere else and know that it’s very focused on research professionals. We still think we add a lot to the game on that one.

[06:04]

It’s interesting because LinkedIn is very far away from nailing groups. That probably happens best on Facebook. When you get into niche markets, like market research, the probability of you getting hired is entirely based and predicated on your network. Knowing what jobs are available becomes the issue. You don’t get it in aggregate, whereas you deal with a major Fortune 500, for example. There’s a huge value opportunity that’s created for job seekers and hirers, employers.

I want to shift a little bit towards the news. When I launched, I launched two podcasts simultaneously. One, Happy Market Research. The other, MRx News. I stopped MRx News about three months into it, because of resource allocation. It was just taking too much time for me to focus on it. I just needed to be more disciplined. I would say that a lot of value was in the distribution of news in an audio format. Do you see that as a possible future for you?

[07:23]

I certainly do. Perhaps it’s something we’ll talk about (laughter). Got that to talk about afterward. It’s not a new idea. What was it called? MrWeb’s EarPiece at one point, or DRNO’s EarPiece. It was a little 5, 10-minute podcast produced by a guy in the UK. This must be 15 years ago or something. Produced a little piece once a week for us. It fell through. He had resourcing issues like you did as well. It took him a long time to edit the piece. He used to record it for us every week and we used to put that out. Something we did long ago, stopped and probably shouldn’t have stopped. If the opportunity had arisen we would have carried on. We’re always quite keen on the idea of bringing in different media if you like. Different types of news, different formats. We’ll do that.

[08:10]

Very exciting. This is my prediction. We’ll see what happens. In 2020, IIeX, Barcelona or Amsterdam, we’ll figure out where it’s going to be next year. My prediction is voice is going to be the new blockchain or new Automated Insights. We’ll see.

[08:32]

Quite possibly. Will it be dominant, or will it just be starting to take over? It takes more than a year, usually, for something to do that.

[08:38]

Yes, it is going to start. I predict it’s going to start. You’ll hear two or three talks about it next year.

[08:45]

Definitely, a lot more than this year, because I haven’t heard very much this year.

[08:48]

Zero. Nobody’s talking about voice.

[08:49]

No, it’s quite surprising.

[08:50]

Yes, it’s interesting.

[08:52]

You’re flying the flag for it by having this voice format here. That’s good. Technology moves at the speed of humans to a great extent, doesn’t it? The market adopts it.

[09:01]

That is well-said.

[09:03]

Sometimes you can hear people stand up at conferences. I won’t mention any names. BIG conference, 2011, somebody stood up (laughs) and said, “Traditional market research will be stone dead in five years time.” I don’t see it stone dead yet. A lot of people might tell you that it is.

[09:16]

Give me a break. It’s the opposite. Literally, it’s the opposite.

[09:22]

Even traditional market research. We still publish articles about people opening call centers to telephone people. It’s not unheard of.

[09:28]

It still happens.

[09:29]

That’s opening, never mind continuing to run.

[09:31]

Growing. There are some call centers that are growing that I know of.

[09:32]

Yes. Everything becomes a niche, everything goes into the toolbox. Things don’t die out nearly as fast as you think.

[09:40]

One hundred percent.

[09:40]

I wouldn’t disagree that voice is going to be a big tool, as it were, in the future. It’s going to be widely used.

[09:45]

If you look at units sold, that’s where I go to, you look at the market data, it’s very, very dominant right now from a consumption perspective. Now, we’re doing stupid things like music and stories, and maybe some games to a smaller extent. The iPod started in a similar vein.

[10:06]

You’re talking about Alexa and the revolution that’s leading in voice.

[10:09]

Yes, exactly.

[10:11]

Out of interest, do you have one?

[10:14]

I do.

[10:14]

You do?

[10:14]

I have three.

[10:15]

Do they argue with each other about who’s going to do things for you? “No, let me get that.”

[10:19]

My children’s favorite game right now is, “Alexa, play hide and seek,” which is a very entertaining three-minute exercise for the kids. This is being done by a two and a three-year-old. Voice as a medium is passively consumed. You and I could have a conversation and be on our phones at the same time, or driving a car. Something like that.

[10:48]

Yes, especially driving a car.

[10:51]

Especially driving a car.

[10:51]

It’s very good while you’re driving a car, yes.

[10:53]

You can consume it, whereas visual or reading, or whatever is a big problem. Big, big problem. My thesis is that the next generation, Z, voice is going to be part and parcel with a user interface.

Thinking about your automobile, now, you don’t have to type in the address anymore. You can say, “Directions,” or, “Take me to…” If it’s a Tesla. That technology is just going to continue to… Voice is going to continue to assert a dominant position in user interfaces

As that happens, we as researchers are going to need to start thinking about that the way that we had to start thinking about mobile compatibility with surveys when that medium changed. Anyway, that’s my view.

[11:51]

From our point of view, bringing it back to home turf again, a hybrid model is going to be a good idea. We’ll continue to put things out in print for a long, long time to come. Not print, print, but in words. That’s the quickest way to scan through things. With a voice or a video, it’s very hard to do that.

[12:10]

It’s impossible.

[12:11]

There’s a fairly well-established US Bob Lederer’s Daily Podcast Video. Going for a while. It brings out one issue a day and talks about it, but also hits on various other areas of news. Whereas it’s a very useful format to have, it’s very difficult to scan through a video.

[12:33]

You can’t.

[12:33]

Even if it’s got a summary or a quick rundown of what’s going to be covered today. It’s very hard to do that. A mix is always good.

[12:39]

This is what’s interesting. We went from a pen, a one digit input device to 10 digits. With our fingers now typing, so highly efficient. To two digits, your thumbs (laughter). You see what I mean?

[12:58]

Mm-hmm (agreement).

[13:00]

My theory is that users are lazy, I’m lazy, and voice offers an inefficient mechanism for communication with technology. To your point, it’s not replacing the world by any stretch of the imagination.

[13:21]

It’s a difficult way to scan things.

[13:23]

Yes, it’s impossible.

[13:23]

Visual is, by far, the best for that.

[13:25]

Yes, I agree.

[13:27]

I’m sorry. Voice and video have a fantastic impact. It’s much better for making an impact, perhaps, than being memorable than something that you’ve seen in print.

I just wanted to congratulate you on your paper this morning, and your use of some impactful techniques in that one. I have to admit when you started with the selfie and the company description I was a little worried (laughs), but then you became very… Sorry, I’m always rude (laughs). You became very interactive towards the end and we’re getting people to stand up and sit down depending on whether they use makeup and other features like that. Very entertaining.

I was just saying to some of the organizers that even at a show like this that brings in so many different media and has such technology, perhaps because it’s that kind of show, people seem to have forgotten the advantages and the benefits of a good old bit of audience participation. There is a lot of one-way presenting, even at IIeX. I have to say that because IIeX has been great. Of people just presenting something. A bit of participation woke people up. I don’t think they needed waking up, but they woke up even more when that happened. It’s a fantastic thing to do.

It’s the benefits of mixed media, I feel like. It’s getting different things happening, different senses being used. That’s a good reason to try and mix them up in whatever you do. Great job.

[14:46]

My guest today has been Nick Thomas, MrWeb. Sir, thank you very much for being on the Happy Market Research Podcast.

[14:53]

Thank you very much. A pleasure to be here.

[14:54]

Absolute honor.

[14:55]

You too.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Nancy Hernon, CEO and Co-Founder of G3 Translate.

This Episode’s Sponsor:

GreenBook

Contact Nancy Online: 

LinkedIn

G3 Translate

[00:03]

My guest is Nancy with G3 Translate, she is a, I’ll call it a lifetime friend in the market research world anyway. Nancy, thank you so much for joining me live at IIeX Amsterdam.

[00:15]

I am so excited, thank you so much, Jamin, for having me.

[00:18]

What do you think about the show?

[00:19]

I think it’s great. I wasn’t sure what to think. I’ve never been here before to this show and I thought, “Let me go check it out.” I’m really impressed. The speakers have been awesome and some of the conversations that I’ve had, just standing around, have been truly inspiring.

[00:35]

Do you have a favorite moment so far? I know it’s pretty early in the first day.

[00:40]

My goodness. I think my favorite moment, this morning, I was chatting with someone who’d been talking about a workflow tool that they had developed for an end client they had presented on. It was so interesting to see how artificial intelligence is being implemented in market research and to talk to some of the different software providers here and see where they’re going with it. It’s a little scary and a little exciting so those kinds of things rack up well for me. (Laughs.)

[01:13]

G3 Translate, by the way, the official sponsor of the Happy Market Research Podcast, thank you very much for that. Tell me a little bit about the company and what you guys are working on.

[01:24]

We’re foreign language services for market researchers. All we do is translate your research into a plethora of languages, all different combinations. We do the translations, the transcriptions, and now, after being here, and talking to some of the providers I’m starting to wonder. We’ve been talking about and working on some engines at G3 and I’m wondering how that AI can come to play in our future.

[01:51]

That’d be interesting, wouldn’t it?

[01:52]

Yes, definitely.

[01:53]

Yes, because Google Translate doesn’t work. For Google Translate it works but it doesn’t work in real life and a straight-up translation services can’t do market research either. I’ve tried. It doesn’t translate.

[02:13]

Exactly, yes. It is a very specific language, so to build something around that in a very specific and meaningful way is a big challenge, but I think it’s something that I would like to look into a little further, to try to be quicker, faster, and more agile. We’re very good with turnaround times now and our translators are wonderful, but the future is in technology in many ways so I am very curious to see how we can make that play out for us.

[02:42]

Yes, me too that sounds really exciting. Then you have the opportunity of integrating it into… I’ve always thought that there is an opportunity in your space for a translation company to integrate into a tool so I’ll pick on Qualtrics, for example. You’ve got a survey platform, obviously. International or multi-language is fairly commonplace nowadays. You can’t just push button it, right?

[03:08]

Right.

[03:09]

It would be interesting if there was a way to inject it in the process, actually have a translate button, that would not be Google Translate but would actually start the process of the translation.

[03:22]

Yes, I don’t want to give anything away but there are some tools that we are talking to about integrations.

[03:27]

Are you serious?

[03:28]

Yes, I am. (Laughs.)

[03:29]

I totally nailed it! (Laughs.) You heard it here on Happy Market Research Podcast. (Laughs.) Are you going to get to see any of the sights here in Amsterdam?

[03:37]

I don’t know, maybe. I’ve been here a few times before it’s a gorgeous city, but let’s see. Let’s see what tonight brings.

[03:44]

Yes, I’m going to go to Van Gogh tomorrow.

[03:46]

Nice.

[03:48]

That is my plan.

[03:49]

Very nice. It’s gorgeous. Do a canal cruise if you can. It’s such nice weather.

[03:52]

I can only squeeze one thing in. I can’t decide if it’s going to be Van Gogh. I know I’ve heard the canal cruise is a must do.

[03:58]

Evening, after dinner.

[04:01]

We have a research club tonight.

[04:03]

That’s right. They really pack us full here, don’t they? (Laughs.)

[04:07]

We are 100 percent on this one. It is absolutely crazy. You go to a lot of events, right?

[04:18]

Yes.

[04:19]

When you’re going to go to an event, do you have some, like, “I want to get this out of it,” or is there a specific objective in mind?

[04:30]

That’s a good question. You always go into an event hoping to get new business out of it, that’s always top of mind. For me, I really like to look and see who’s going to be there that I already know and I look to reconnect, to further develop the relationships that I have with people. I think it’s really important to go to these events and support them because there’s nothing better than facetime. There’s nothing better than actually being able to hug your partner and say, “Hey, how’re you doing?” Face to face look you in the eye and know who you are. There’s no artificial intelligence, no webcam, no telephone, no text message will ever replace that human connection and these conferences, for me, are all about human connection.

[05:20]

One hundred percent. I love that. It’s funny, I was talking with somebody else earlier, they were asking me about the impact of AI. I’ve been doing this, I’m 22 years now in the industry. We’ve seen all kinds of things get injected into the industry, disruption, change, new methods, massive spending pattern differences, economic downturns… What’s funny about the space though is, consistently, it’s all about the human beings, right? That just doesn’t change. I think it’s very reassuring if you can see the world through that lens. It becomes a lot less about how sexy your tech is, and a lot more about the connections that you make and the depth of those connections. These kinds of events are actually pretty good for creating a high concentration of people you should know.

[06:13]

Absolutely, I agree with you 100 percent. Some of my very, very good friends in life have come from these events.

[06:20]

Totally.

[06:21]

I mean, I met you at an event. (Laughs.)

[06:22]

Right. I was going to say I hope I’m there. My guest today has been Nancy, G3 Translate. Thanks so much for joining me on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[06:29]

Thanks so much, Jamin.

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Mike Storm, COO at Neurons.

This Episode’s Sponsor: 

GreenBook

Contact Mike Online:

LinkedIn

Neurons

[00:02]

IIeX Amsterdam, I’m here with Mike the COO of hold on, wait for it, there we go, Neurons. That’s actually a pretty heady—

[00:15]

That’s pretty catchy, isn’t it? (Laughs.)

[00:16]

(Laughs.) It is.

[00:18]

It was a good name. (Laughs.)

[00:20]

I am surprised Neurons, Inc. was available. That’s pretty good. So, your business has been around about six years.

[00:28]

That is correct.

[00:29]

And you had mentioned to me you’ve been there five. Tell me a little bit about what you guys are doing.

[00:34]

Neurons, Inc. is what you would call a consumer neuron science company, meaning that we work with insides of the consumer. We do it with a very specific methodology of synchronizing EEG brain scanning and eye tracking. Meaning that we can adapt to various different touch points of the consumer being everything from marketing and advertising testing to website and retail testing and finally, of course, the final product and packaging. That’s what we’re doing.

[01:04]

I did eye tracking back in, and this is aging me a little bit, but in 2000, for Disney and ESPN, specifically. So, early web stuff, it was a process and a tremendous amount of gear in order to set it up, right?

[01:23]

That’s right.

[01:24]

It was quite literally like building Frankenstein. I just was at your booth and was admiring the hardware. So, it’s gotten lightweight—

[01:35]

It’s gotten so much better. Honestly, both the science behind it, the hardware, the software, the precision, everything has just been improved so much over the last 10 years that we’ve gotten to space where we can even test people in moving environments. Meaning that people can actually walk in a store with an EEG and eye trackers on, and we can follow not only what they do, but also what they see and what they feel. It means that you can tap into the mind of your consumers, and get some insights because sometimes, it’s not because we believe consumers want to lie, we just believe it’s hard, sometimes, to both remember what I just did, remember what I felt when I did it, and think about what I’m going to do soon. Therefore, having predictable tools and tools that can actually break things into second by second, emotional and cognitive levels, we just think that’s a whole new era of things that you need to look into.

[02:29]

I totally agree with you. I’m a quantitative researcher by trade. What you say is often times not getting to the actual purchase intent or— So that I think the ability for observed data to get connected to self-reported data is very powerful. Coupling that with, as you just said, being able to garner those insights in the context of an experience. You and I could be sitting here having a conversation, I could, which is very common, scroll through my feed quickly and see an ad. That context of the ad consumption needs to be taken into consideration, and so being able to passively garner my reaction to that ad is, I think, powerful. What kind of companies are using your services.

[03:32]

We’re mainly working with some of the larger companies in both Europe and the U.S. Fortune hundreds and people thereabout. It’s very much in various different spaces, because the consumer journey is important for all of these companies, and some might only be a website experience but still having that website optimized for whatever need it is, very important. The same for their marketing strategy. They want to know their campaigns are actually working on Facebook or on a website, and on TV for that sake. It’s a broad part of clients we have, but the biggest part is in technology, in clients like Google, Facebook, and others. Then, also in retail like in IKEA, Tesco, and people like that. Finally, for product providers that can be anything from Estée Lauder, Hershey’s, and so forth. It means all of these are some of our very well-established clients.

[04:34]

Do you have a favorite project?

[04:36]

We have been doing quite a few very interesting projects. We put our strategy a little bit around right now to making more simple protocolized and straight forward for the client to understand how to use these kinds of insights. It can be very difficult when you talk brain scanning and eye tracking to understand where should I apply this. Prior to doing that we’ve been doing a lot of interesting research. One of them was actually published stuff that we’d done together with Facebook where we tested people’s responses to meeting the first time in virtual reality versus in real life, and here we have found some strong evidence that introverts have a much more calm and interest in emotionally in meeting with people while not seeing them in person for the first time. It also made them want to meet the person afterwards. Meaning that virtual reality can bring a whole new experience to the world, that was tested with brain scanning and the understanding of eye tracking.

[05:36]

That’s very interesting stuff. That’s funny, intuitively I never put that together, but it’s exactly correct. The opportunity to build that relationship… Meeting somebody cold in real life versus cold online is a completely different risk element to it, so that’s a fascinating project. Thanks for sharing that. What is the size of engagement? What does a project look like in terms of cost with you guys?

[06:06]

It’s interesting because we have put together— The minimum sample size that you need for EEG and eye tracking is about 30 people, so you need about 30 completes within a sample or segment to be able to replicate across the same sample. Meaning that it could predict for certain culture, a certain region, or anything like that. If you want to test different segments, you, of course, need to go larger. We have changed our approach a bit. Meaning that you can now with just advertising with brain scanning and eye tracking all the way down to around 5,000 Euros for a single access. Meaning this is becoming interesting. If you want to kick it off ad hoc and some place in the world it’s still less than 15,000 Euros. There’s a huge change to what the cost is for doing this. Just half a year ago, our cost started at 25,000 Euro meaning that we’ve optimized our processes to be able to accommodate what the clients need today. They want quick answers and precise answers.

[07:08]

How long does a project usually take?

[07:10]

It takes everything from five days now up until months. It depends on the specifics of the certain project. An ad test, if we do like a TV ad test, from kicking off the data collection until final report, can be just around five days. Meaning that things have revved up a lot. Academically, we were looking at six months to do something like that.

[07:34]

Do you think there’s an opportunity for you to be more of the technology provider to, I’ll call it a TNS, and then they would do the analytic piece of it?

[07:46]

That’s a good question—

[07:48]

That is a good question.

[07:51]

We do work together with both TNS and Ispos so we are doing stuff with both these companies and being their partners in certain ways where they need it. We could definitely see a way that we could provide knowledge inside benchmarks and data-driven parts of that. Both in terms of hardware, software, and also the knowledge. Then they add on the client knowledge to the interpretation of the actual test.

[08:17]

How’s IIeX working for you?

[08:21]

IIeX, this is one of our fours. We love this conference. It’s specific about what people are here for. They’re here for the new thing. They’re here to see how do we get inside from our customers, and it’s just even better this year. Bigger, better. I’m looking forward to the rest of this one. We’re also in Austin, so we’re looking forward to that one too.

[08:41]

Yes, that will be great. I’m excited. Now are you guys speaking at this one or in Austin?

[08:45]

We’re not speaking at any of them this year. We spoke last year, but hopefully next year.

[08:49]

We’ve got to make that happen. Mike, thanks so much for being on Happy Market Research podcast.

[08:53]

Thank you very much.