Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 562 – HMRP Monday Edition: Intergenerational Views on the Job Market – Part 1

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


This is one of a two-part series on how generations are viewing the job market and what you can do to ensure you are well prepared for whatever comes. 

Background

The US job market has enjoyed one the of the longest periods of prosperity despite many economic challenges. However, anxiety about job security is on the rise according to research done by Joblist.com: 

“The job market remained relatively stable in Q2 despite growing concerns about the broader health of the economy. Job growth continues to be strong, and the unemployment rate is holding steady at 3.6% – its lowest rate since January 2020. Yet, as consumers and businesses grapple with inflation, rising interest rates, continued supply chain and COVID-19 disruptions, many worry that a recession is around the corner. Although the job market has proven largely resilient up until this point, the future outlook appears increasingly uncertain.”

This was published on July 11th, 2022. 

Fastforward 2 weeks. And, on July 28th, 2022 the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the economy contracted for the send straight quarter hitting a widely accepted rule of thumb for a recession.

Given these uncertain times, we did our own research to understand how generations are viewing the job market and how we can survive it. We’ll cover three main points: 

  1. How concerned are generations about being laid off in the next 12-months? 
  2. What game plans do generations have if they are laid off?
  3. What advice would members of different generations give to survive a layoff?

This podcast will focus on point 1. We’ll address points 2 and 3 in next week’s episode. 

Job Market Outlook

Our survey was conducted using HubUX and included Video Questions instead of text-based open ends. These video open ends along with using Research Defender’s screening API, ensured we were talking to real humans. 

Gen Z and Millennials are significantly more concerned that they’ll be laid off in the next 12-months than Gen X and Boomers (those of us over 41 years old).

We asked 300 people, “How concerned are you about being laid off in the next 12-months?”. Gen Z and Millennials stated they are two times more concerned than older generations. 

Q7. How concerned are you that you may be laid off in the next 12-months?  by Q1. What is your age?

Gen ZMillennialGen XBoomer
I am not concerned at all43% 33% 55% 81% 
I am somewhat concerned30% 40% 32% 8% 
I am very concerned26% 27% 14% 11% 

Key Takeaways: 

We then asked our participants a few video questions about their view on the economy and here is what they said. Please note that I choose the videos that had the broadest representation of what was said. If you’d like access to this data, please email at jamin@hubux.com or DM me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to share it with you.  

Let’s start with a Gen Zer and Millennial.

Ok, now lets hear from Gen X and a Boomer. 

Let’s break it down for Gen Z & Millennials. There are two primary concerns that repeatedly surfaced:

  1. They are very concerned that employers will have economic headwinds because of increased interest rates and gas prices which will cause companies to lay people off.
  2. These economic headwinds will result in job opportunities drying up. This is especially concerning for those who are about to graduate and enter the workforce as they are carrying a large amount of debt.

Now, let’s focus on the older generational cohorts: Gen X & Boomers

  1. Since Covid, more people are working for themselves or just retiring. This is creating a hiring void for employers which is increasing job opportunities.
  2. Companies are busier than ever coming out of Covid which will continue to drive their need to hire.
  3. Public sector jobs like teaching will continue to be in-demand despite any economic headwinds. 

Our sample included 85 employers. These are individuals who are either operators or responsible for staffing in their firm. 

If you are an employer, I’m sure the recent quote from Fed Chair Jerome Powell will resonate with you, “You have two job vacancies essentially for every person actively seeking a job, and that has led to a real imbalance in wage negotiating.” The imbalance of jobs to available employees has led to the most competitive job market I’ve seen in my 25-year career. 

However, the ever-increasing employee expectations are simply not sustainable for companies that need to achieve a profit. 

Even one of the best performing companies, Netflix, is struggling to be compliant with their DE&I mandates from their LGBTQ employees. 

In January of 2022, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group excluded Netflix from their Corporate Equality Index. “The Human Rights Campaign suspended the streaming giant’s CEI score for 2022 in connection with the company’s handling of Dave Chappelle’s 2021 special ‘The Closer.’”

Prior to being remove from the Corporate Equality Index, Netflix scored a perfect 100. 

If you have not heard, The Closer was a 2021 stand-up comedy special performed by Dave Chappelle for Netflix. It included, according to Wikipedia, “jokes about the discrimination against the African American community relative to the discrimination against the LGBTQ community. The special received a mixed reception from critics while some LGBTQ groups called for the special’s removal from the service and some Netflix employees criticized and protested Chappelle’s jokes about the transgender community. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos repeatedly defended the special as freedom of artistic expression.”

If you have followed Netflix’s hiring ads and public statements, they had literally done everything perfectly in support of the LGBTQ community up to this point. However, some of their employees & leaders in the LGBTQ community took a very different stance than Netflix on this one point which had a huge market impact on employee retention and, you can argue, company performance.  

This employee-first market pressure is requiring companies to spend as much or more time and treasure on employee experience as they do on customer experience. Examples are a 4-day work week, less real-time availability of key staff, and overall less accountability.  

However, if there is a job correction, our data shows that employers believe a slowdown in the job market will have some positive outcomes primarily centered around their ability to meet the demands of employees:  

  • Employees will have less ability to demand benefits, working conditions, etc. 
  • Salaries will stabilize 
  • Less or no “sign-on bonuses” 
  • Less employee turnover as employees prioritize stability over potential benefits 

Lets hear from one of our employer participants… 

As of July 2022, many companies have announced job cuts including Tesla, JPMorgan Chase, Redfin, Coinbase and Netflix. In fact, Netflix just announced a second round of layoffs to include ~300 people. 

Outcome

Today, every brand is catering to you, trying to get your attention, and trying to make you feel important. This applies equally if you are a potential consumer or a potential employee. 

For those that have never experienced a competitive job market, the thought of a more balanced power base between employees and employers is a scary proposition. 

However, older generations have a positive outlook on both the economy and the job market. I believe this is because they’ve lived through hard times. And the current picture of “hard times” is still better than most of the last 30 years. 

How about you? What do you think?

In the next installment we will address: 

  1. What gameplans do generations have if they are laid off?
  2. What advice would members of different generations give to survive a layoff?

If you would like to learn more about this research or about how you can use HubUX to shorten timelines and save money, you can find me on any social platform or email me directly at jamin@hubux.com. 

Happy Researching! 😊

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 561 – Understanding the Importance of Language and how it can Impact your Research Study with Jill Kushner Bishop, Founder & CEO of Multilingual Connections

My guest today is Jill Kushner Bishop, Founder & CEO of Multilingual Connections. 

Founded in 2005, Multilingual Connections is a professional translation service of documents and websites, foreign language audio transcription, multimedia localization, and interpretation services.

Prior to founding Multilingual Connections, Jill Culture was a Diversity & Language Consultant to Chipotle and started her career as an English and Spanish teacher to elementary school students. 

Find Jill Online:

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody, welcome. You are listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. I’m Jamin Brazil and I’m going to try to get through this intro in this take. Today we are joined by Jill Kushner Bishop, the founder and CEO of Multilingual Connections. Founded in 2005, Multilingual Connections is a professional translation service of documents and websites, foreign language audio transcripts, multi-media localization, and interpretation services. Prior to founding Multilingual Connections, Jill, she was the cultural and diversity and language consultant to Chipotle and started her career as English and Spanish teacher to elementary school students. Jill, welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:43]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.

[00:00:45]

Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats, full-time on campus, full-time online, and part-time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications, insights design or insights analysis. In addition to the certification, all the course you complete will build towards your graduation. If you’re looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSU’s program at broad.msu.edu/marketing. Again broad.msu.edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit HubUX.com. Language is really important and I am very thankful for how you started your career and the service you had towards our young people.

[00:02:04]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Thank you. Language has always been such an essential part of who I am and what I do and I was excited to bring language and culture and the understanding of the connection between the two, to all different ages.

[00:02:17]

Jamin Brazil: And language is culture isn’t it?

[00:02:19]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Absolutely. I mean you can’t express one without the other and so language is so tied up in who we are, what our identities are, how we transmit our culture, how we represent ourselves and the two are really intricately connected. As a translation agency, we’re always making sure that our clients understand the importance of culture and that it’s not just about the language, it’s not just about one for one, word for word translation, but that there’s so much out there and whether it’s translation or research, making sure you’re paying attention to both of those sides.

[00:02:52]

Jamin Brazil: What’s interesting to me as a research is, and I do a, not a syndicated, privately syndicated but publicly syndicated report on intergenerational difference, is that I’ve done this for years, language is so entrenched at a generational level, so for example Gen Z, they might use terms like drip, whereas Gen X might say you look nice or do you like my outfit.

[00:03:15]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Yes.

[00:03:16]

Jamin Brazil: Almost like an inappropriateness of encroaching on other generation’s terms. It doesn’t just happen at a generational level, it also happens at a regional level.

[00:03:26]

Jill Kushner Bishop: For sure.

[00:03:27]

Jamin Brazil: Which really starts bubbling up the importance of incorporating the localization of both surveys as well as qualitative discussions that are coming in.

[00:03:40]

Jill Kushner Bishop: For sure. You want to be able to connect with people and if you’re speaking a different language in that way with different slang, different intonations, different way of connecting, you’re missing out on opportunities to express your voice and hear other people’s authentic voice.

[00:03:54]

Jamin Brazil: Yes you are and you’re really disguising the insights that want to come out. That’s the key for us as consumer insights professionals is making sure that we’re able to draw out that consumer voice and then represent it in a way that’s compelling and accurate to our stakeholders. So I wanted to kind of pull back though before we jump into your business and talk a little bit about your background because language in a lot of ways, it is the foundation of like our homes define that. Tell us about your parents and how they informed what you do today.

[00:04:24]

Jill Kushner Bishop: It’s interesting because I can think about it in a number of different ways and on the language side, my parents grew up speaking English, but their parents spoke Yiddish and English. My brother and I growing up learned Hebrew and my parents were always kind of in the middle where their parents spoke Yiddish and didn’t teach it to them. They missed the opportunity to learn modern Hebrew like my brother and I did. Both of those generations would use that language in front of them when they didn’t want them to understand and they were always left out of the conversation. So it’s interesting those in between generations of when language is transmitted and when it’s not and when new languages become a part of who people are. So English speakers, but they both started out as teachers. My mom was an elementary school teacher and my dad was a permanent sub for some, I think so challenging students who he tells me he used to bum cigarettes from and get down on the floor and do pushups with. That was a temporary measure for him. He went onto work in the computer industry and my mom started a number of different businesses and wound up in the senior independent living, assisted living facility world. Seeing them doing a variety of different things along their paths and try different businesses trying to figure out what was going to make financial sense for them, be fulfilling for them, kind of gave me the idea that you don’t necessarily have to just pick one thing and do it for the rest of your life.

[00:05:43]

Jamin Brazil: I love that. I love that framework. It’s interesting that you came from a family of teachers. My wife is the same way. Her mom and dad both taught and now she’s a sixth-grade science teacher at an elementary school. It is so interesting how your description of how you would have some people in the household, members of the household, who would be able to have a conversation that other members of the household wouldn’t be able to have.

[00:06:12]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Language and be exclusive and it can be inclusive, it depends which side of the desk you’re sitting on or which side of the sofa.

[00:06:18]

Jamin Brazil: Right and in a lot of ways being multi-lingual is a super power.

[00:06:21]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Absolutely and that’s why I went into education actually with a degree in 6th through 12th grade Spanish teaching. I loved helping bring language and culture to my students and then after graduation, I went to Israel and taught high school English as a volunteer, came back and decided that I needed to continue my graduate studies. So I left teaching from a formal perspective, but it was always part and through graduate school and then through early stages of my business, which I originally established as a corporate language training company and only later became a translation agency and only later started focusing on market research.

[00:07:01]

Jamin Brazil: It’s a good segue. Tell us about your business Multilingual Connections.

[00:07:04]

Jill Kushner Bishop: I’m a linguistic anthropologist by background. I got my doctorate in linguistic anthropology looking at efforts to keep a dying dialect, Spanish spoken by the Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492, spoken by their decedents, from disappearing. I planned on staying in academia, but I wound up getting a job opportunity as a user researcher for a business and technology company. That opportunity brought me back to Chicago and allowed me to continue doing researching, albeit in a very different way than in the field in Israel collecting songs and stories from elderly speakers of this language that I was fascinated by. After a couple of years, I wound up having an opportunity at Chipotle and Chipotle was really interesting as a leader in understanding the importance of language and what it could do for employees. At the time, and this was in the early 2000s, many of their line employees were Spanish speaking. The company knew that if they invested in developing the English skills of the Spanish speaking employees, they’d have more productive, more engaged workforce, they’d have happier customers who got the burritos right the first time, and they’d have less food waste, more promotable workforce, and overall a more productive and financially stable company. I was brought on to oversee and roll out training programs in about 100 different Chipotle locations in their central region. It was an amazing job for somebody who loved language culture teaching and burritos to be able to go into the restaurant, hang out with the line employees, and bring training to people that are usually overlooked after their first one-week onboarding training. Much of corporate training dollars goes to the executive level, middle management level and so for hourly employees to get training in language and communication skills to help them do their jobs better, they were so incredibly appreciative and we saw such tremendous improvements in morale and engagement and promote ability. So I really enjoyed it, but I also started thinking about companies that didn’t have the luxury of a dozen people like me doing these services. So I started planning my exit on thinking about ways that I could help companies on the language and culture side. In 2005 when I started the business, we were exclusively going to be a language training company, going into hotels and restaurants and helping improve communication at work. But soon after, I started getting requests for translations and then a couple years later, I decided why not open a language school for adults and children, do bilingual boot camps for immersion weekends and after school programs for kids and summer camps and adults’ programs. Then I realized that I could do it all and do it well. So I closed down all of the training to focus on our translation side. It was really difficult for me because the language training was so tied up in my own identity professionally and personally. But I realized if I was going to run a business and run it successfully, I had to do less and do it better. So for the last eight years, we’ve focused on translation, transcription, voice over and subtitling. But in the last year, given that so many of our clients are within the research space, we started offering multilingual moderation and research support services. That’s something we’re really excited to be able to bring to people who might need just a freelance moderator for a handful of interviews or somebody to monitor online bulletin boards and to do some report writing, really whatever our clients need. We have people now in about 20 different languages.

[00:10:22]

Jamin Brazil: Where are you guys located?

[00:10:23]

Jill Kushner Bishop: We are in the Chicago area in Evanston, Illinois. But most of our team at this point is global and fully remote.

[00:10:31]

Jamin Brazil: Let’s talk a little bit about qualitative, I want to talk about two things quant and qual. So actually let’s start with quant. It used to be the case for quantitative research that if I had a survey that was being done in multi languages, I would have it translated into the language from English to let’s say Spanish, and then I would have it back translated into English. Is that a practice that is still done?

[00:10:54]

Jill Kushner Bishop: It is still done, though far less. We periodically have clients that request that back translation, but for the most part, when we’re doing an outbound survey, we have two linguists work on it. So first a professional translator who is a native speaker of the target language and of the region. If we’re doing Spanish for Spain, that’s going to be very different than Spanish for Latin America for example or for the US. Then we have a second translator who works as an editor and a proofreader. They do side-by-side comparison to make sure the content is accurate and then do the proofing and the polishing. If we’re doing back translations of opens, we’ll only typically use one translator in that because it just gets too expensive and too time consuming. But because we do that two linguist service for outbound, there are fewer requests for that back translation just for informational purposes to make sure things translate.

[00:11:45]

Jamin Brazil: That actually makes a lot of sense that you would do it that way. In fact, I think it is a better practice than how we used to do it just because when it would get translated back into English, there’s always some sort of artistic license that needs to be connected with translation and sometimes that can get kind of screwed up when it comes back and can cause a lot of confusion for clients.

[00:12:05]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Absolutely and I’m glad you mentioned that because we always talk about translation as part art and part science and you can’t have one without the other. Those slight nuances make all the difference. When you’re just doing the back translation to make sure the content is there, you might miss whether the nuance is there. The words might make sense, but are you really getting at the heart of the issue. That’s something you can’t always detect.

[00:12:27]

Jamin Brazil: It’s interesting too, I’m seeing survey designs change pretty dramatically for the first time in my career. Basically for the last 25 years, surveys have maintained the basic format that was created back when we did CADDY or telephone based or in-person research. In other words, you had long questions and answer choices that would be equally as long. Really for the last, I would say through COVID, as more and more researchers moved strictly online, we’re seeing a lot shorter question format and even quite shorter questionnaires which, in a lot of ways, speaks to how people are reading now, but not necessarily communicating at a language level. So I’m curious, are you seeing similar trends?

[00:13:12]

Jill Kushner Bishop: I haven’t noticed that, but that’s something, and as owner, I’m not managing the projects and so I’m not evaluating all of the documents from start to finish, but it’s something that I’m curious about and what the motivation is. You said that people are reading differently or is it that we’re just so beyond we just can’t take any more content so we’re only going to answer things if they’re in short little bites?

[00:13:36]

Jamin Brazil: Some research I’ve done, if you look at younger audiences, actually the younger the audience, then the less proclivity they have to spend time giving you feedback, which means that the implication there is you need to really be focused on the questions that you ask. But in addition to that, the interpretation of the questions or if I’m going to read, let’s say two sentences, then I need to process those two sentences. But the internet has largely trained people to be headline oriented or thumbnail framed which is changing the way that people are internalizing the words that they see.

[00:14:14]

Jill Kushner Bishop: That makes a lot of sense and it means you have to make sure that the questions that you’re answering get people immediately and that they connect to them. When you think from a translation perspective, you’ve only got five or seven words instead of 15. You have to make sure that they’re the right words and phrase in a way that is going to convey things accurately, efficiently, and on a cultural level with that nuance that will make people feel like the questions were written for them and not translated.

[00:14:41]

Jamin Brazil: It’s just an interesting trend that I just started noticed. Maybe we revisit this in a year and see if you’re seeing the same thing.

[00:14:49]

Jill Kushner Bishop: For sure, absolutely.

[00:14:49]

Jamin Brazil: You’re an entrepreneur, which is a terrifying prospect. I think its Elon Musk that said, starting a business is a lot or operating a business is a lot like staring into the abyss while chewing glass.

[00:15:03]

RESPONDENTS: Sounds about right.

[00:15:04]

Jamin Brazil: I know and that certainly kind of resonates with me on various ventures that I’ve done and am doing. I am curious, if you were to go back in time, what’s some advice you would give your younger self?

[00:15:14]

Jill Kushner Bishop: I’d probably start with take at least one business or accounting class in college. I started this completely blind and I also when I started the business, I thought it was just going to be me consulting. I had my stack of business cards, I had my flip phone, I had my laptop, and a website that my husband designed for me and the yellow pages. I was like, OK, I’ll go and worst-case scenario, in a few months if this isn’t working, I’ll do something else. I never expected to build a business. I never expected to have 32 employees across multiple continents and doing the type of work we do. I’m actually glad because I don’t know that I would have done it had I known. I think I would have felt too intimidated by that. So looking at things, taking things bit by bit, and being flexible enough to pivot. I mentioned before, the language training classes that we did that I loved and it was so much a part of who I was. We brought people into our space, we had four classes and a cafe area and I would watch these little kids run around and sing in Korean or Chinese and hear stories of people taking our bilingual boot camp or doing private lessons and then going on a destination wedding and coming back with all these wonderful things to say. So there was so much immediacy and I loved it. But financially, it just wasn’t viable, it was scalable or sustainable and I had to make the really difficult decision to close it down. So being open to pivoting and I probably should have pivoted earlier, but I just wasn’t ready. At the end of the day, it’s not a big deal whether it happened a year or two earlier or not, but you have to be flexible and open to opportunities. You also have to be willing to look at things and be really honest and if the baby’s ugly, say it’s ugly. If you’re losing money, you have to figure out ultimately what’s going to make sense in the long term and how long are you willing to do something that you love even though it doesn’t make business sense and sometimes there’s still justifiable reasons to do it, but other times there’s not. In my situation, there was certainly not. But I would say also, surround yourself with people that know more than you, smarter than you, more experience with you. I did that later, but again, because I wasn’t sure what kind of business I was building, I was just kind of figuring it out. Now days, I would have involved more people sooner and been more strategic. But I’m thrilled with how things turned out. You never know if you had made those decisions earlier on and they might have brought you in a different direction and that could have been better and it could have been worse. But I think just being open to all different possibilities. I’m glad I took the risk and I’m thrilled with where we’ve gotten to at this point.

[00:17:53]

Jamin Brazil: Of course I don’t probably have the opportunity to interview very many people that aren’t glad they took the risk. In other words, most of the people that I have on the show are people who have “made it” air quotes, whatever that is. But I will tell you that I completely agree with all points. I think for me, the biggest blind spot was accounting and there’s a difference between like applied accounting and being able to make money. I’m not talking about being an accountant, I’m talking about being an entrepreneur generating cash like what you did, but then being able to interpret that cash and in a lot of ways, it’s just a language isn’t it?

[00:18:26]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Yes. My balance sheet is a language that I don’t speak. But I’m glad that I have people that do speak it and there are other areas of the business-

[00:18:31]

Jamin Brazil: Who interpret it for you.

[00:18:34]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Yes, thank God. I think for the first year, I had to remind myself P&L, profit and loss, profit and loss, P&L, profit and loss and I was already running a relatively successful business, but I could figure things out, but it’s those little things, maybe not so little. I knew what it looked like, I knew what it did, but I would forget what it meant and forget what it stood for. But I had other things to bring to the business. Somebody that might have been able to understand financial statements from the beginning might not have had some of the creativity or the ideas behind the business. So you need a little bit of everything and you need people who really excel in all those different areas.

[00:19:13]

Jamin Brazil: It is interesting that we have a similar path. I think the other point that you said is that there’s sort of this journey or entrepreneurship and you have a vision of what you think it’s going to look like, but in a lot of ways the market will direct you if you listen to it.

[00:19:29]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Yes. I think about what my vision was and I think when I started the business, I thought I’ll make more money and I’ll have more flexibility than if I had a job. I don’t know how many years it took before that came true and some years it still doesn’t come true. So you have that vision and then you have the reality, which are often very different, but sometimes that reality is even better than what the vision was initially.

[00:19:54]

Jamin Brazil: For sure. If you had it to do all over again, would you?

[00:19:59]

Jill Kushner Bishop: That is a good question and I would say despite the fact that periodically I think, wow 30 years teaching high school Spanish with a Ph. D., I’d probably be doing pretty well. I would have summers off. Great vacation time. Lots of fulfillment. But I still think I would absolutely. There’s nothing that can compare to the ownership and creativity of creating a business not just for yourself and not just for your clients, but for your people. In the last couple of years, I’ve really shifted, of course I care about my clients and I love our clients. We couldn’t do what we’re doing with our clients, but I really want to create a great company for our people and keep them excited and engaged and connected to each other and to the work that we’re doing and to our mission of connecting people and creating connections across the world. It has been such an honor to see the friendships that have formed, the development, the careers that have been launched through hiring and retaining these amazing people. I think that in itself has been such a fulfillment that I can’t imagine I would have gotten anywhere else.

[00:21:01]

Jamin Brazil: My last question. What is your personal motto?

[00:21:05]

Jill Kushner Bishop: I don’t really have one I’ll be honest. However, when I think about what my personally and professionally, it’s always been about creating connection. My company is called Multilingual Connections, whether I was traveling internationally and trying to create connections, hosting foreign exchange students in my home, trying to bring connection to them, it’s my family or at work. The type of work we’re doing connecting people, whether its translation, transcription, or research, it’s always been about the connections. I think that could probably work as my motto if pressed.

[00:21:37]

Jamin Brazil: Our guest today has been Jill Bishop, the founder and CEO of Multilingual Connections. Jill, thank you so much for being on the show.

[00:21:45]

Jill Kushner Bishop: Thank you. It was great talking with you.

[00:21:47]

Jamin Brazil: Everyone else, I hope you enjoyed it. You can fill Jill’s contact information in the show notes. As always, if you screen capture and tag me on a LinkedIn or Twitter post with this episode, I will send you a free t-shirt.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 560 – In-Person vs. Digital Research with Aryn O’Donnell, Vice President of Corporate Services at Fieldwork

My guest today is Aryn O’Donnell, Vice President of Corporate Services at Fieldwork. 

Find Aryn Online:

Find Jamin Online:

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Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. You’re listening to The Happy Market Research Podcast. We are joined today by Aryn O’Donnell, Vice President of Corporate Services at Fieldwork. Many of you know Fieldwork as one of the big three field organizations here in the U. S. I’ve used them for many years. Aryn, it is an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me.

[00:00:26]

Aryn O’Donnell: Well, thank you so much for having me. I love all the guests that you have on here, so it’s really an honor to be a name among so many of the wonderful guests that you get to chat with on the show.

[00:00:39]

Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats, full time on campus, full time online, and part time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications, Insights Design, or Insights Analysis. In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you’re looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s program at broad.MSU.edu/marketing. Again, broad.MSU.edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation, including video audition questions and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com. Yeah. Well, I mean, ironically, I think most of us, if not all, have probably been in a Fieldwork facility. So I’m really curious, you’ve been there 11 years and I want to talk a lot about that journey. But, before we do, how did you first hear about market research?

[00:02:01]

Aryn O’Donnell: Well, I have to admit, when I took my first job with Fieldwork, I had no idea what market research was. After college, I really had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. And just by different connections, I was able to work as a client service specialist in my hometown of Denver with the Fieldwork team. And growing up, there was always an element of market research that I was interested in, but I never knew the vocabulary around it. I really enjoyed learning about people and their motivations and decision-making processes. And once I started working as a client service specialist, I really began to better understand why so many companies use research and insights. And it just all clicked, getting to see what was happening in our facilities with them buzzing with clients that are testing out innovative new packaging and products and medical devices, it really all clicked. And, so, it really wasn’t until I was in the field of market research that I fell in love with what it can do.

[00:03:07]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. It’s funny. I think I was employed by a market research company for, maybe, even three months until I realized it wasn’t really marketing, we were doing, it was just research.

[00:03:19]

Aryn O’Donnell: Yeah. And I think that, as I’ve been in this industry for 11 years, I’ve loved watching it evolve as well and learning about it. So, in the facility, we were really focused on the qualitative side, what was happening in person. But, man, our industry is huge. And there are so many cool ways in which clients are utilizing technology and building on the research that they gained from their research with Fieldwork. And, so, it’s just it continues to evolve and it remains really exciting.

[00:03:51]

Jamin Brazil: So 11 years, you’ve seen a lot, right, in the qualitative and quantitative space.

[00:03:57]

Aryn O’Donnell: Yeah.

[00:03:57]

Jamin Brazil: Let’s talk just really briefly about Fieldwork today. Because, obviously, there’s been a pretty significant evolution over the last four years.

[00:04:05]

Aryn O’Donnell: Yeah. So for those that have been in the industry for a while and they hear Fieldwork, they may think focus group facilities or Critters. And, yes, Fieldwork has focus group facilities all across the U. S. And, yes, we still do have our infamous Critter squishy toys that you can find in all of our back rooms. If you are missing one from your collection of Critters, please email me, I’d be happy to send you some of our Critters. But, really, in the most basic terms, Fieldwork is a qualitative support service. We recruit respondents and host in person, remote, and hybrid research where our clients are able to uncover insights for brand and business impact. And, as you said, it’s changed a lot. And it can mean a lot of different things to our different clients that we serve. It can look different, really, even project to projects with the clients that we work with. So, for some clients, this means in person research at our venues or at offsite locations, whether it’s doing IDIs or taste tests or focus groups or co-creation sessions or we are supporting clients on their path to getting FDA approval for medical devices or it can be supporting mock juries. And, even today, as we’ve seen some teams move to a remote model, we’re able to host ideation sessions for those teams that just want to collaborate in person. Something that was obviously very big in the last couple of years was research online. So we can recruit to our platform, to our other clients’ platform to connect with respondents. And, beyond all of that, we help manage the logistics, so whether it be March of 2020 when a client who’s never done online research was doing online research, supporting every aspect of that so the client could really focus on gaining the insights. And we were managing all the logistics. And that is a theme throughout all of the ways in which we support our clients. Regardless of how we’re supporting them, customer service really is at the core of what we do.

[00:06:14]

Jamin Brazil: Qualitative went through a massive acceleration into digital through COVID. We’re back in person, and I would say back in person with a vengeance. Facilities are booked out well in advance. In fact, I know people that are trying to do research and, unless they’re booking it literally three months out, they’re not able to get into facilities in main- The top six markets. They’re having to go outside of those municipalities. What do you think the mix looks like between in person and digital as we go forward?

[00:06:47]

Aryn O’Donnell: So, first of all, I have to say how great it is to be back in person. It’s been to fun for us while we’re having this conversation remotely, the chances we’re gotten to break bread together and see each other at conferences. So I just, I want to celebrate the fact that we’re in person. And, really, over the last two years, two and a half years, everybody was forced to find a new way in almost every area of our lives. And I think with something like that, it brings up a lot of questions about why we do things a certain way, whether it be in your personal life or professional life. And it really forced researchers to increase their digital literacy quickly. But, with that, I think it also helped all of us really understand what we were missing by engaging face-to-face. So through that process, I think many researchers I’ve spoken to came to the conclusion that while digital is a really- It can be a really effective methodology for a lot of different reasons, whether it’s the target that you’re trying to get or the timeline, whatever it might be, I think digital is a great solution. But, at the same time, humans really crave human connection, whether it be a moderator leading a group discussion in real time where the respondents are really able to engage in a discussion as opposed to what can often happen on a digital platform where it’s more call and response, or those nuggets that come out between sessions when clients and researchers are in the back room and they’re debriefing. Or even those insights that come out of someone’s mouth in the ten-minute walk back to your hotel. So I think we were all better able to articulate why we do what we do, whether it be digital or in person. And I don’t see either of them going away. I see people being more strategic in how they use these different tools. And at Fieldwork, we really believe strongly in the value of in person research. We have beautiful facilities that are really created as these insight generation centers. So our clients can really take that next step that they need. And we believe so much in in person and what its future is that, in 2020, Fieldwork partnered with other qualitative leaders, really, to create the #facetofacemrx initiative. And we created this as a news source for our clients to know what was going on in in person, that it was happening and how it was happening. And, so, I really encourage anybody listening here, check out the #facetofacemrx on LinkedIn to get a snapshot of what is happening in the face-to-face space. We want our clients to have all the tools at their fingertips for them.

[00:09:37]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. And there are a lot of tools. And it is interesting, as thinking about the framework of tools. In person was just the dominate way of doing it, and as the adage goes, to a hammer, everything’s a nail, right? And when COVID hit, we’re like, “We need other tools in order to be able to get to these important insights.” I’m thinking about an interview I did with the head of ethnography at Ipsos. And in that interview, they did zero digital, and then they went to 100 percent digital. It’s a big transition in a matter of weeks for them. And they had to check all the biases they had in place. And now, as they’re into this new normal framework, they’re just so much better equipped to be able to deliver against clients because they have a full set of tools in the toolbox. And, so, to that end, with it, really, the digital enablement or education that we all had to have as researchers, with Fieldwork, do you think that modern facilities are going to be both a combination of physical assets and software companies? Or do you see them more partnering with software companies to build things out?

[00:10:47]

Aryn O’Donnell: That’s a really great question. For us, we want to make all the tools accessible to our clients, while at the same time being the expert in what we do. I think that, oftentimes, it- Maybe not oftentimes. If someone claims to be an expert in everything, you want to proceed with caution. I feel Fieldwork is really an expert in finding the people and getting them to the right place. If our clients are looking for added technologies or tools, they’re able to benefit from our experience, whether it’s something that we’ve done in-house or we have vendor partners who are able to do it. So I think, for us, it’s really understanding what all is out there to be able to bring in front of our clients. Because there are experts out there in that technology, whether it be streaming or eye tracking or biometrics, there’s so many experts in the area. For us, we want to know those experts so we can bring them in for our clients. I don’t think that means a facility is without technology. Throughout COVID, streaming was, really, I think it grew in a way to meet the clients’ needs of offering off site moderation or really allowing our clients to be present when they, maybe, couldn’t physically be present. So I think it’s a mix of both. I think it’s making sure that we’re well connected and understand what our clients’ needs are and matching them with a solution based on our experience.

[00:12:15]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. I like the agnostic approach to that. So we’re in a tight labor market. You’ve been at Fieldwork for 11 years, going on 12 years. What do you see as a key- Some key tips or a key tip to retain quality employees through a very competitive labor market?

[00:12:36]

Aryn O’Donnell: I think culture is one of the reasons I believe we have Fieldworkers who’ve been around for such a long time. Eleven years, I feel like, is a baby in Fieldwork land for some of my colleagues who have been here 15, 20, 21 years. And, at the core of our culture, as I mentioned, is service, both externally and internally. We really believe in partnerships, as opposed to transactional relationships with our clients and with one another. There really is no such thing as too small of a task for someone. And when we’re taking on these larger projects, larger tasks, there’s a support system in place so that no one feels like they’re alone. And a phrase that often is shared within Fieldwork meetings is, when you’re down, find a Fieldworker who is up. And when you’re up, find a Fieldworker who is down. And I really believe at all of our team’s core is we want to see others succeed. And we know their success is our success and that we are better together. Something that we’ve been doing a lot of over the last two years is creating spaces to celebrate successes. And we’ve always had these spaces. We share client kudos with one another, but really having these spaces to gather and share even the smallest of wins, which there were days where there were some small wins. But we’re seeing bigger and bigger wins. And we want everyone to be able to come in, walk alongside one another, and celebrate that success. But, at the same time, be able to share learnings. Be able to share what, maybe, didn’t go as planned and how we addressed it and best practices for the benefit of one another. We have a very collaborative structure at Fieldwork. And I think that helps to highlight individuals’ superpowers and really let one another shine in the ways that they are successful. I really love being in a group of individuals and they have skills that I don’t have. And I feel that we can be better for our clients when we’re able to each home in on the skills that we have because I don’t think one person can be all things. And, as a group, whether it be in person or remote, we really are a group that loves to gather and source opportunities and really welcome new, big, different ideas, whether it be an idea that we’re able to move forward in that moment or something that we need to brainstorm to create alternatives for to find that path to success for either our client or one another.

[00:15:11]

Jamin Brazil: It’s interesting that you use this term superpower. And it’s also in your LinkedIn, under your- I don’t even know what it is, job description, I guess.

[00:15:18]

Aryn O’Donnell: Headline? Yeah.

[00:15:19]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. Right. And, headline, thank you. And, so, the- You create a nomenclature, right? By referring to, “Hey, this is what I do really, really well.” That is unique. That wouldn’t necessarily transfer into another company. But when somebody else comes in, all of a sudden, it creates a sense of belonging.

[00:15:35]

Aryn O’Donnell: Yeah. I think that we talk as well about being in all the lanes for ways to support our clients. As we have so many different roles and there are so many ways to support clients, from our recruiters who are on the phone to make sure our respondents have all the information so they can show up to our client service specialists who are on site making sure that the respondents actually show up and the client has everything they need in that back room. Whether it be printing or the catering that is making sure that we don’t have any peanuts in the catering to make sure that client’s allergy doesn’t act up to our project managers that are providing consistent communication throughout the life of the project. So there just are so many ways that our clients need to be supported. And to be able to see my colleagues support them in these beautiful, unique ways that isn’t my skill set, it’s such a gift. And I think it allows us to show up the best possible way we can for our clients because not every client has the same need.

[00:16:38]

Jamin Brazil: Aryn, my last question. What is your personal motto?

[00:16:42]

Aryn O’Donnell: So this actually changes annually for me. The past few years, I have chosen a theme for the year. It usually ends up being a word or a phrase, but it’s an exercise I like to do near the end of the year. And I look at my different values that I hold close and break down how I want to live out this theme within each value. Last year, I was actually- I had the honor of attending the WIRexec Retreat. And Heidi Dickert actually formalized this process for me, so thank you to Heidi for helping me better articulate why I have a theme, what my theme is. And thank you to the WIR community for helping me remember it, because sometimes life happens and you forget the theme that you chose for the year. But this year, my theme or my personal motto is to hold space. And for those that may be listening that have done yoga, this may resonate with them. But for those of you that haven’t, holding space really just means to be physically, mentally, and emotionally present for someone. So, for me, whether it’s ensuring my colleagues feel supported and appreciated or I’m helping a client navigate a new project or it’s a new client to Fieldwork and I’m trying to help them navigate Fieldwork or a friend having a bad day or a family member going through a life change, I think there is so much power in how you show up and how you share energy. And, so, this year, I am trying to be more cognizant and aware of how I’m holding space for those around me, both personally and professionally.

[00:18:16]

Jamin Brazil: Now, if somebody wants to get in contact with you or somebody else at Fieldwork for their qualitative research, how would they do that?

[00:18:23]

Aryn O’Donnell: LinkedIn is a great place to start. So, please, find me on LinkedIn. You can probably see how my name is spelled in this podcast, but it’s A-R-Y-N. And yeah. I think LinkedIn’s the best place to connect with me. And I would be happy to connect you with any Fieldworker who might be able to support your needs.

[00:18:41]

Jamin Brazil: Our guest today has been Aryn O’Donnell, Vice President of Corporate Services at Fieldwork. Aryn, thank you so much for joining me. Super fun interview.

[00:18:49]

Aryn O’Donnell: Thank you so much.

[00:18:51]

Jamin Brazil: Everybody else, I hope you have a great rest of your day. And, as always, if you take the time to stream, capture, and post this on LinkedIn or Twitter, tag me and I will send you a free t-shirt.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 559 — How Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Play a Role in the Insights Industry with Sebastian Syperek, Head of CX & UX Research at Kaiser-X Labs

This episode is in collaboration with MRMW Virtual Summit 2022. 


Today I’m joined by Sebastian Syperek, Head of CX & UX Research at Kaiser-X Labs.

MRMW Virtual Summit 2022

Find Sebastian Online:

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody, welcome to the Happy Market Research podcast. I am joined today by Sebastian Syperek. I’m probably mispronouncing your last name and I do apologize for that. This interview is being done in conjunction with MRMWs virtual summit that is being held on July 6th and 7th. The MRMW virtual event has 25 top level speakers, case studies from over 20 different industries, and over 1,000 attendees. It is heavily focused on APAC and Europe, and you will absolutely want to join this conference. The interviews as – the panel conversations and the talks will be available post-conversation or post-event if you’d like to consume it there. Sebastian currently is the head of CX and UX Kaiser X Labs. Sebastian is a psychologist with a focus on quant research with almost two decades of experience in both market and UX research. He has worked for agencies, including Ipsos as well as a number of corporate companies including eBay. Currently active as principal CX and UX research within the Elion Group, Kaiser X Labs, he is also a crypto and Blockchain expert. Sebastian, thank you for joining me on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[00:01:22]

Sebastian Syperek: Thanks a lot, Jamin. I’m really happy to be here. Thanks for the slot and telling a little bit about my tour next week and some other questions from the research scene.

[00:01:37]

Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in marketing research program delivers the number one ranked in science and analytics degree in three formats, full-time on campus, full-time online, and part-time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications, insights design, or insights analysis. In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you’re looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSU’s program at broad.msu.edu/marketing. Again, broad.msu.edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation, including video audition questions, and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com. Yes, I’m very excited about having you on the show. It is absolute honor. We don’t get enough conversation on this show about Web3, and I think Web3 is probably the most important thing for us to be thinking about. The analogy I use is it’s 2000 – or sorry, it’s 1998 right now and the internet is – we’re trying to figure out what the internet is, and that’s the impact that Web3 is going to have on our society. So, you have a talk, it’s titled: The World Needs a Crypto Consumer Barometer Tracker. Give us a little bit of a teaser about your talk.

[00:03:20]

Sebastian Syperek: Of course. So, Crypto and other topics in that space like DeFi, which is decentralized Finance, NFTs which means non-fungible tokens, Web3 and even Metaverse are – were in the media quite a lot over the last month. So, our idea was to start a consumer tracker covering all these fields. So, as you said, personally, I’m quite interested in this area. And so, I was happy that we started the tracker in Germany using the Dynata panel in March this year. And we also weighed, I think 3,000 people, so, a lot of samples, and we found 636 crypto users, which is quite a big pocket for this group. And we were not limited to Bitcoin or Ethereum or other cryptos, but we extended the survey to the other concepts that I mentioned, and what we wanted to know in this survey and this degree of awareness people have in these fields, the user trades, and even the understanding of these concepts. And I think that the results were quite interesting in terms of the fact that we even found, in a normal panel, quite a lot of people who are really interested on all six periods in this field, so, that is the main takeout of the study, and we found a lot of other interesting findings including a segmentation of attitudes towards Crypto and the other stuff in this area. And I think this is really a great starting point for a tracker, not even in Germany.

[00:05:06]

Jamin Brazil: Regarding the segmentation component of it, I assume it’s the case that you see higher adoption of crypto related assets such as NFTs with younger populations. Is that – did that materialize in your data?

[00:05:19]

Sebastian Syperek: Yes, exactly. In general, of course there’s a trend that mostly younger people adopt to these new technologies, but not only so, but we also found people in their 50s and even in their 60s and above are involved in these topics, but the general trend is like you said. It’s a new concept and people, I think, it’s the first time, mainly in the history, that everyone gets a fair chance to become rich, to become wealthy through these new technologies and Bitcoin and so on. That was one of the interesting findings here.

[00:05:56]

Jamin Brazil: It is, and certainly we’ve – in the U. S. anyway, we’ve heard many, many stories of early adopters of Bitcoin specifically and how that asset has continued to dramatically grow and increase in value and you can trade using Bitcoin with real world products and that becomes very exciting for us. But when you think about market research specifically, why do we care, as market researchers, about block chain or crypto related assets?

[00:06:31]

Sebastian Syperek: On the one hand, of course, crypto and all these topics are interesting content for a survey, like we did it here, but I think the other component is to apply these new technologies to a research tech. So, if you talk about research tech, you have, of course the more traditional field of research tech like panel aggregators, like panel marketplaces and so on, and maybe we also have new technologies like voice technologies. But I think the third group, and that’s maybe the most interesting one, is to conduct research with Blockchain or in the Metaverse and that is something – I also wrote an article recently about in a German market research newspaper. I think that is especially interesting if you combine it maybe with community technologies, so I designed a big MROC in Germany for the railway company here, but thinking about the Metaverse, I thought it will maybe be a good idea to combine it with Blockchain, so I called it BBMROC, Blockchain based MROC and I think that would have – that there are two drivers of this approach. One is, there could be more gamification when you do it in a virtual world, so the motivation could be higher of the panelists or community members. And on the other hand, we always had challenges with the incentives, so payout of incentives. And if you use a Blockchain generated cryptocurrency to do that in the system, that could also be an advantage. And I think there is something that research tech providers should think about definitely.

[00:08:28]

Jamin Brazil: My current project is a community management platform and incentives are built into that, whether it’s point based or cash based incentives that people have, and I’ve been talking with a developer about adding in a crypto – basically a coin, which would be specific to the community. And the interesting thing about that, and you already know this, but the listeners may not, is that it’s a finite resource. Meaning that, with a scarcity framework, if the participants, the community members, they don’t cash out, then that coin becomes more valuable over time. And the purchasing power of it, in the same way that Blockchain – oh, excuse me, the same way that Bitcoin increases in value. And so, you can actually start working as a material asset for a participant as opposed to really current incentive rates, which, if you look at a – earnings per hour are very trivial to other alternative ways that they could earn money, such as, in the States, driving for Uber or something along those lines.

[00:09:29]

Sebastian Syperek: I think another idea could also be that community members could share their cryptocurrency with each other, so, for example, if they like something that somebody else wrote very much, they could send some coins to them, that these new techniques, based on the Blockchain and on the coins, I think that they add new value to the community. So, you could even think about limiting the number of coins more and more over time and make it more attractive to collect them or whatever. I think there are many mechanisms that you could use to increase the motivation to be in this community and therefore maybe also the activity in the community and – market research could definitely make profit from that.

[00:10:19]

Jamin Brazil: The other thing that’s interesting is, in a Blockchain framework, thinking about at a participant level, you could toggle on access to different data points on you as an individual. So, for example, let’s say that you had your psychographics as part of your profile, or your demographics, or your spending habits, or whatever, vacation preferences. Those could get traunched and then you could toggle those on or off and then have that be in an open marketplace for brands to be able to acquire that data in addition to your self-reported data that would be provided in a survey or one-on-one interviews or those kinds of things. So, thereby increasing the earning potential or the passive income earning opportunity for that participant. There’s just a lot of things that Blockchain unlocks for us relative to data and solves for us relative to the data privacy.

[00:11:11]

Sebastian Syperek: Exactly. In the end, I don’t think this will be a concept for everyone in the near future, but especially in the area where I’m working, where also design thinking is an important approach, more in the qualitative layer of research, this could be a logical next step to add these Metaverse based research techniques. I don’t think it will substitute a representative panel survey in the next decade, but it doesn’t have to. It’s mainly for the qualitative layer and that’s fine, I think.

[00:11:46]

Jamin Brazil: That’s really – super interesting stuff. In addition to your talk, you’re also part of a panel, and we’ve already talked about it a little bit, but the panel is discussing research technology or ResTech, as it’s been coined. What trends are you seeing in ResTech?

[00:12:02]

Sebastian Syperek: mentioned, the more traditional trends like panel aggregation and marketplaces that we as clients can use to manage panel activities on our own, if you want it or not, so – that’s quite different, but that’s one thing that’s also – these kinds of tools not only allow you to conduct primary research, but also to manage the entire knowledge data base or research ecosystem within the software. I think this is also a trend that counts more and more, players like Quantilope and so on. The second one is new technologies like voice. So, I recently saw a new German start-up reSpeak, basically it’s this survey tool with a completely new mold concepted as a chatbot, so that acts as a kind of a dialogue tool. The respondent answers a question and automatically gets deep dive questions steered by kind of AI system. And the cool thing is that this survey tool fits much more natural in the survey dialogue compared to traditional survey tools. I found that interesting. I haven’t tried it yet but could be interesting to try it in the future. And the third one is all that stuff in the Metaverse that be discussed, and I think a lot of options also like virtual test studios and – In the Metaverse now, you can play poker or meet other people and buy shoes and so on. And maybe one day, also, coming to a focus group or to a studio in the Metaverse will be possible. We have to see and think about if this makes sense in any case but – there are so many technological options that we should evaluate for us and then see what’s possible there.

[00:14:03]

Jamin Brazil: My last question for you is, what is one problem that you wish someone would solve today relative to consumer insights?

[00:14:12]

Sebastian Syperek: Being in market research for almost 20 years now, I think it would have really a lot – everything would have a lot that helps to close the gap between qualitative and quantitative research, so, needing to close the gap between the what or how much, and the why, especially in my current main field, UX research, that could help a lot. We usually have qual tests with eight to 10 users, but in most cases, we cannot be sure that our findings would also occur at the larger sample. So, anything that helps, for example in surveys, to get more depth in terms of the insights for instance, an open-ended question that would help a lot in practical market research. And I think that is one of the reasons why I believe so much in the power of, for example, voice technologies as an innovation driver for surveys. So, the closing of the gap between qual and quant, that is my main pain still, so, anything that can help there would be a great resource, I think.

[00:15:26]

Jamin Brazil: It is interesting too; is you see Gen Z becoming a material part of the economy at a global level. These consumers are more comfortable speaking or providing video feedback versus typing, which is very much Gen X, which is my generation and even Millennials. So, there is a big opportunity for us to combine video or voice and structure data that we get directly out of surveys, which is just easier for us to analyze often times. And in order to help close that gap between qual and quant, and I completely agree with your thesis that the future for consumer insights is, in fact, a blended methodology that happens concurrently as opposed to these distinct phases. You’re still going to see quant and you’re still going to see qual happen independently, I’m not suggesting that you won’t, but being able to connect the human why, to the what in the same project framework is a material unlock and big opportunity.

[00:16:25]

Sebastian Syperek: Completely agree. Let’s fight all that together.

[00:16:29]

Jamin Brazil: I like it. Our guest today has been Sebastian, head of CX and UX at Kaiser X Labs. Sebastian, thank you so much for joining me on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[00:16:41]

Sebastian Syperek: Thank you, it was really a pleasure.

[00:16:43]

Jamin Brazil: Everyone else, I hope you will join Sebastian and myself at next week’s MRMW virtual event. Again, that is July 6th and 7th. You can find out information at apac.mrmw.net or just check the show notes. Have a great rest of your day.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 558 – HMRP Monday Edition: Independence Day; Roe v. Wade; & Generational Differences with Chris Hauck, Founder of HauckEye, and Erin Sowell, Founder of Thoughtful Research

Today I’m joined by Chris Hauck, founder of HauckEye. HauckEye is a marketing research consultancy providing insights through deep ethnographic and experiential research. 

Erin Sowell, founder of Thoughtful Research. Thoughtful Research helps businesses understand and meet the sustainability, inclusion, and wellness needs of their customers and employees. 

Find Erin Online:

Find Chris Online:

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Today is July 4th, 2022, happy Monday. You’re listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. I’m Jamin Brazil, your host. Support for the Happy Market Research Podcast and the following message comes from Michigan State’s Marketing Research Program and HubUX. The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats. Full-time on campus, full-time online, and part-time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their whole degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications, Insights Design, or Insights Analysis. In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you’re looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s program at BROAD.MSU.edu/marketing. Again, BROAD.MSU.edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation, including video audition questions and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account visit HubUX.com. If you are in the US, Happy Independence Day. I’m going to provide a bit of a history lesson along with some editorial privilege that I’ll be taking. Given current events, some of you may find this offensive, so I’m apologizing ahead of time. My intent is to help ensure that we as research professionals can continue to have productive conversations and keep open minds during these highly emotional times. Two hundred and forty-six years ago on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally adopted a declaration of independence. From then on, the Fourth of July became the day that we as Americans celebrate as a birth of American independence. But independence from what exactly? Well, in short taxes without representation, but put more simply taxes without direct benefit. According to Wikipedia, American colonists objected to being taxed by the British Parliament, a body in which they had no direct representation. Now at that particular point in time in the 1760s and before, Britain’s American colonies, they had enjoyed a high level of autonomy in their internal affairs. In other words, colonial legislators were the ones that were governing things, from taxes to laws. However during the 1600s, British Parliament passed a number of acts that were intended to bring the American colonies under more direct rule from British government. And increasingly, they intertwined the economies of the colonies with those of Britain, end quote from Wikipedia. Now at this point in time, this is really important, Britain’s monarchy under King George the Third, and the Roman Catholic Church held absolute power over their population. In fact back in the 1700s, a child – and before, a child was baptized at birth. It was at that ceremony, the child’s name would be recorded, and they would be considered a citizen of the British Empire. And if someone didn’t have the Catholic Church baptism, or baptize their child, then that child would literally have no rights and be considered not a citizen, and even the entire family could be considered both criminals and potentially prosecuted. So meanwhile, you’ve got the pilgrims. Now this was a group that was really founded around 1550 or so, they were the American settlers. These are the people that came over in the Maria, Santa Maria, these were English Protestants who were influenced by John Calvin. A big part of their mission was to, in air quotes, purify the Anglo church of its Roman Catholic influences. Now arguably the biggest influence – I’m going somewhere, bear with me. The biggest influence was termed the age of consent, and this is the age that a person is old enough to choose their religious beliefs for themselves. Now when a child was born, they would be baptized, arguably, you know, a ball of snot, and they really have no cognizant awareness of what’s happening. But at that point in time, the child was considered to be a Christian. Now, the teachings – and again, John Calvin and others, suggested that you actually had to make a decision if you were going to be – on your religious beliefs if you were going to be considered part of that group. And so the pilgrims, they believed that the age of consent was around 12 years old and/or older, and you needed to be old enough to really understand heaven, hell, in order to make a choice. So assuming that you chose to be a Christian, then you would have the opportunity to get baptized. Now, this is where you see the actual act of being baptized again. It was literally illegal at that point in time because it undermines the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, it created a distinction of Canon or beliefs that were so fundamental that – to the authority of the Church, that they would literally seek out and prosecute or persecute people that were being rebaptized or the Anabaptists. So from them, you get the Mennonites – my point us, in addition to freedom from taxation without representation, America was founded on the freedom of religion. In fact, the first clause of the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The first clause of the Bill of Rights gives religious freedom to the masses so that we can choose to be rebaptized as an adult without fear of prosecution, or we can choose to not be baptized at all. Today, you can be Muslim, Agnostic, Buddhist, Atheist, or whatever if you live in America. On June 24th, 2022, things took a dark turn, or a light turned depending on your point of view. The Supreme Court overruled Roe in Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health Organization on the grounds that the right to abortion was not, and I quote, deeply rooted in the nation’s history or traditions. That is very, very powerful for us to understand the legislation justification. The topic of abortion being illegal, or a woman’s right to choose, has been massively politicized. People even in my circle have blocked each other on social platforms. I’m talking about fully formed adults who are smarter than I’ll ever hope to be, literally blocking people who land on the opposite side of their point of view. I have many friends who are pastors. In fact, I even hold a degree in theology and biblical studies. My concern is that the Christian church continues to drive legislation on the framework of morality, versus public health. I recently came across an interview with Alexander Sanger an American reproductive rights activist, and the current chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council. He is the grandson of Margaret Sanger, who – she founded Planned Parenthood and opened America’s first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn in 1916. I found this link, it just came across my page on TikTok, interestingly enough. It’s about 30 seconds or 60 seconds or so. I hope you enjoy the clip.

[00:07:28]

Speaker 1: We’re here in New York city asking people their thoughts on abortion.

[00:07:30]

Alexander Sanger: Do you know who you’re interviewing?

[00:07:32]

Speaker 1: Sorry, no.

[00:07:33]

Alexander Sanger: I’m Alexander Sanger. I’m the former President of Planned Parenthood, New York. My grandmother – my grandmother was Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood. You cannot make abortion go away by criminalizing it. All you do is, you make it unsafe. You out women at risk, poor women, women of color, women who don’t have the advantages of middle class, wealthy women to travel somewhere and get an abortion. It’s discriminatory, it’s unfair, it’s unsafe, and to me it’s just a total outrage against women.

[00:08:03]

Speaker 2: It’s a woman’s choice.

[00:08:04]

Speaker 1: Yes.

[00:08:06]

Jamin Brazil: This is a difficult issue for all of us. We are an industry made up of wickedly smart people, but even we can succumb to the propaganda and outright hate that is being spewed all around us. We are an industry that must suspend judgement, at least while we do research. That is our superpower, judgement suspension. The rest of the world, they don’t have that. They don’t even know what that is largely, but that is what we do. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have strong points of view. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that we have the ability to pause those points of view, and be open minded, to understand other people’s points of view. For me, I’m very much in agreement with Alexander Sanger’s point of view. I believe the Supreme Court’s ruling will have an unimaginably negative impact on our society that will manifest itself in increased risks to women’s health, homelessness, mental illness, crime, the list is going to go on and on. And it’s a price tag that our future generations will be paying, not the people that made the choice. And sadly those people, those people that have been supporting this ruling, they largely will be unimpacted by it since they can afford to move out of the poorer areas in favor more attractive and affluent surroundings. However many of my closest friends and family members, people that live under my roof, they could not disagree with my point of view more. Does that mean we can’t have a hard conversation? Absolutely not. We do have those hard conversations, but it also means that I’m prioritizing those relationships above a political position or legislation. That’s just how I’m feeling about it right now. And to that end, I know that this is a very hard issue, and my hope is that you will keep your ears open and that you will be willing to have conversations with people. If for no other reason to help build empathy and try and understand where they’re coming from. It’s unlikely you’re going to be able to change anybody’s point of view. That can’t be the objective, but what we can expect to happen at the outset of this is respect to be built across party lines, and position lines. And so with that, I know it’s heavy, we’re gonna move into a long-form interview. I hope you have a great rest of your Fourth of July holiday, and also some beers, or however it is that you celebrate, enjoy.

[00:10:34]

Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody, welcome to the Happy Market Research Podcast. I’m Jamin Brazil your host. I have two guests today. Erin Sowell founder of Thoughtful Research. For those that don’t know, Thoughtful Research helps businesses understand and meet the sustainability, inclusion and wellness needs of their customers and employees. My second guest is Chris Hauck, he is the founder of HauckEye Research. HauckEye is a marketing research consultancy providing insights through deep ethnography and experiential research. How are you both doing today?

[00:11:10]

Erin Sowell: Pretty good. Excited to be here.

[00:11:14]

Chris Hauck: Actually, Jamin, I have COVID. But I’m doing fine.

[00:11:16]

Jamin Brazil: I know. I’m laughing as a brother in pain, sir. I totally relate.

[00:11:23]

Chris Hauck: Thanks for asking though. How are you, Jamin?

[00:11:26]

Jamin Brazil: I don’t have COVID, thankfully. I don’t have COVID.

[00:11:28]

Chris Hauck: Yay.

[00:11:29]

Jamin Brazil: Very, very thankful for that. Doing well, all things considered. It was so nice seeing both of you really, for the first time in person at QRCA in San Diego, just – of course, that meeting was – a highlight for me was the presentation that you gave. The topic, Connecting Generations, and it was about sparking connection, understanding and empathy in the workplace. But it had this really nice vibe to the presentation that you gave, and I just want to give everybody some context. You basically had a framework of how each age category, so from Gen Z to Millennial to Gen X to Boomers, how we see ourselves and then how we see the other generations. Which seemed to create this really interesting kind of lens, by which we were able to not just understand ourselves better, but also understand how other people see us which was super interesting. What was your thesis going into the research? And Erin, I’m gonna pick on you first.

[00:12:29]

Erin Sowell: So Chris and I, we just wanted to learn more about intergenerational disconnection. So intergenerational disconnection happens when different generations don’t see, hear or value the perspectives of other generations. So Chris and I, just being out in the world, we noticed a lot of instances of disconnection, we were curious to learn more and wanted to see if we could find a way to spark connection, and build understanding, empathy, across the generations.

[00:13:01]

Jamin Brazil: Well, I certainly felt like you guys did that.

[00:13:04]

Erin Sowell: That’s great.

[00:13:05]

Chris Hauck: Oh, thanks.

[00:13:06]

Erin Sowell: The QRCA presentation was so fun. We’re excited to do more presentations. That was our first in-person one.

[00:13:13]

Jamin Brazil: Chris, how about you? What was your thesis going into the research?

[00:13:16]

Chris Hauck: You know, it was sparked – actually the whole thing was sparked by a conversation that we had on the Lunch and Learn program where a professor at UT Arlington, Scott Hanson, got on and talked about hiring Gen Z. And the kinds of things you have to think about, and what you were facing, and there was a lot of stereotypical negative comments from Boomers. And I’ll say my generation because I’m actually a Boomer, but I’m on the cusp of Gen X, but I’m at that age where I’m super close. But that’s what really sparked the two of us to start talking about how interesting it would be to do a project with somebody of a significantly different generation, and kind of figure this out. So figure out how we could make this better. How could we improve these things? And we look at almost everything, our thesis around this is almost – almost everything we do is from the perspective of, how can we improve that environment? What can we do to make this better? So we wanted to see what we could do using our skills to improve workplaces.

[00:14:21]

Jamin Brazil: Now Erin, I know you have a point of view that you’re trying to get across, and I’d love to hear that really quickly. And then I want to try to get through the rest of the –

[00:14:30]

Erin Sowell: That sounds good. I was just gonna chime in and say that I’m on the other side of the age spectrum. I’m technically a millennial, but close to Gen Z.

[00:14:39]

Jamin Brazil: You’re both – actually, it was really an interesting – as an observer, it was interesting because you bookended the age groups that you’re representing.

[00:14:47]

Erin Sowell: Yes. Yes. Exactly. So you have the perspective covered from that age perspective at least.

[00:14:53]

Jamin Brazil: I also find it interesting that you’re both operators in the business of consumer insights, and so that to me was super telling. So Chris, let me direct this to you. Describe for us the methodology involved.

[00:15:06]

Chris Hauck: Sure. It’s qual and quant, we started out with interviews of our contacts and research from different generations. We actually talked to friends and connections, people that we knew would be good people to talk to, people who were willing to talk to us. Because frankly to be honest, we did this on – there’s – there’s no money involved at all at this point. So we don’t have a budget for this, so we just talked to people we knew. But talking to researchers helps because they’re talkative, they’re – it’s easy to get them to talk about the things that they see in their workplaces and how they act from a generational standpoint. So we talked to our friends, but really that was to build a list, a list of terms that we’re gonna use through the quantitative. Quantitative we used – well, Veridata Insights helped us with the programming, and the survey distribution in the sample of a thousand completes, 250 per generation, where we really – of people who work in an office setting, or work white-collar setting, where they work on teams, or in groups. Really, we use my – the big component, methodological component of the study is methodology that I developed to replace or to – as an alternative to MaxDiff. Kind of a quick and cheap alternative to MaxDiff, that is also a lot less. It was necessary to have it because it’s a lot less real estate on the survey. But basically, it’s a short exercise followed by a point allocation. And it did a fantastic job actually, of telling us what were the important terms that a person can use to describe their own generation, the – and we used the same set of terms to describe how you perceive other generations, so the other three generations that we were talking about. And it turned out that it works fantastically, and I knew it would because I’ve used it many times before.

[00:17:02]

Jamin Brazil: And the output of that, just for the audience’s benefit, because this is an audio-only show, was these beautiful slides which had a list of what? It was about 25 descriptors, variables, that were used to describe each generation, and then there was a corresponding sort of degree of connection or association with that generation. So for example Boomers, how they viewed Gen Z and there’d be 25 attributes with decreasing bars, rank ordered by highest to lowest, so most associated versus less associated.

[00:17:42]

Chris Hauck: The technique looks very much like MaxDiff as an output.

[00:17:44]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. The output definitely did.

[00:17:46]

Chris Hauck: Except for in our case, there were 99 attributes that we were going by.

[00:17:49]

Erin Sowell: Can’t do – can’t do MaxDiff with 99 attributes.

[00:17:52]

Chris Hauck: Exactly. Exactly. [CROSSTALK] Oh, and the other thing I want to say before I wrap up my – this section is essentially that I’m an open-source researcher. So if you’re interested in this technique, just call or email me. It doesn’t have to be any more complex than that. I’m happy to share the method.

[00:18:10]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. As always audience, his information, both of – both Erin and Chris’s information will be in the show notes. So Erin, let’s direct us to you even though it’s maybe a little bit backwards. Let’s start with the Boomers. How did they perceive Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X, at a high level?

[00:18:28]

Erin Sowell: Let’s start it with Gen X.

[00:18:30]

Jamin Brazil: All right. Let’s start with Gen X, your show. Let’s go.

[00:18:33]

Erin Sowell: No, no, how [INAUDIBLE sounds like: Baby Boomers] are looking at Gen X. So they see and Gen X very positively, they recognize the generation for their hard work, that they’re knowledgeable, that they take responsibility, structured, wise. Those were the adjectives that were coming to the top. It’s a little bit of a different story when looking at the younger generations, and it’s important to realize that you can’t take this information and say that every Baby Boomer thinks this, or every Baby Boomer is a certain way. There’s – nuance is important, but in general the more negative adjectives came to the top when they were asked to describe Millennials and Gen Z. So those negative adjectives are like entitled, aggressive, rebellious, moves too fast. For Gen Z, lazy, entitled, casual, narcissistic, these sorts of negative adjectives coming up. So given the stereotypes that we are all very familiar with, it seems like Baby Boomers tend to be more likely to stereotype than other generations. But it’s not everyone, and there are some Baby Boomers that see the younger generations for really great things like being socially conscious, fast learners, free spirits, things like that. Being confident.

[00:19:57]

Chris Hauck: I think the interesting thing about Boomers is that they really see younger generations as being extremely tech savvy. In general, they look at a Gen Z or Millennial and see them with a device in their hand and being able to basically run circles around them. So when we’re looking at our MaxDiff alternative, really strongly scoring tech savvy as the thing that is Gen Z and Millennial, relative – part of it is that it’s relative to them. Because we – as Boomers we did not grow up with a device in our hands, or a computer at our desk, but everybody’s better at this than we are essentially, but they have trouble seeing past it. Like it’s something that’s so pervasive and so strong, that they really do see them as little walking computers, and it’s just a stereotype that they struggle to get beyond.

[00:20:58]

Erin Sowell: Yeah. Young people are more than walking computers, but we do – we do like technology. Most of us.

[00:21:04]

Chris Hauck: Erin gets mad at me when I describe it that way, but it is the stereotype of Boomers to see them that way. Obviously, they don’t see all of them that way, but it is a struggle for them to get past this notion of how tech savvy they are.

[00:21:23]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. Really what – the output of what you generated are personas. It’s persona research, where – but it’s the persona of the generation through the lens of other generations, which creates this super interesting montage. Let’s move on to millennials. Chris, how about millennials? How are they are perceived by Gen Z?

[00:21:43]

Chris Hauck: Jamin, I’m gonna flip the script on you and suggest that Erin answer for the younger people.

[00:21:47]

Jamin Brazil: OK.

[00:21:48]

Chris Hauck: Well, I’m gonna answer for the old people? [CROSSTALK] 

[00:21:50]

Jamin Brazil: Erin, you want to talk about the Millennials?

[00:21:52]

Chris Hauck: Erin, how do those millennials see these old people?

[00:21:55]

Erin Sowell: Millennials see the older generations pretty positively. For Gen X, millennials, smart came to the top, takes responsibility, honest, hardworking, knowledgeable. The only thing that didn’t really vibe with millennials, at least with the people that we talked to in our interviews, was the traditionalness of it all. And of course, the younger generations are going to see the older generations as being more traditional, that’s just how – the way that the world works and how it goes, but I think that is an area of frustration for them, and maybe there could be – maybe the innovative researchers and the more traditional researchers could find ways to meet in the middle but let me talk about Baby Boomers now. So Millennials, they see Baby Boomers as family-focused, knowledgeable, traditional, hardworking, wise, feckful. A lot of the millennials we talked to during the qualitative, really homed in on that family-focused and really liked it. One of the quotes we had is, “I think that they value family a lot, which is always great.” I think that’s one value from Boomers that Millennials are trying to copy, so they appreciate the family focus-ness of Baby Boomers

[00:23:11]

Jamin Brazil: Chris, any commentary?

[00:23:13]

Chris Hauck: None. I think she did fabulously well. I totally agree actually. Millennials – younger generations look up and see older generations in much more positive terms than older generations looking to younger generations, from the stereotype standpoint. And maybe part of it is that older generations are just more used to using stereotypes in order to get things accomplished as quickly as they possibly can, or to make quick decisions. And our theory, our working theory is that essentially that is a huge mistake. That’s just not the way to win hearts and minds.

[00:23:50]

Erin Sowell: Well, when you’re – when you stereotype, you’re making assumptions about somebody without even knowing them. And of course, that’s going to cause disconnection if you’re making – especially if you’re making negative assumptions like, that someone’s lazy or someone’s entitled. Maybe they care about other things, they have other priorities, they are prioritizing work-life balance and are putting boundaries around work. Maybe they care more about the efficiency of their work versus the hours that they’re putting in. These types of things.

[00:24:20]

Jamin Brazil: Erin, you’re really hitting on an important point for me as a fifty-one-year-old person. We have operated, I would say historically in a – almost like a meme framework. Where you create these shortcuts to describing a generation, and that really came to surface as the millennials entered the workforce. With a lot of negativity around sort of their differing prioritization and things that they cared about, and the generational differences between the Boomers to the Gen X was pretty noticeable. But there still was a really concentrated effort on like hours in the office, that was really important. You had employees that literally – they didn’t even have the workload to justify it, but they would spend the night under their desk in the 90s.

[00:25:03]

Erin Sowell: Wow.

[00:25:04]

Jamin Brazil: Yes. True story. Just because they wanted to wake up in the morning with that sort of, ‘Oh. I had to work all night.’ Sort of a brand.

[00:25:10]

Erin Sowell: Uh huh.

[00:25:11]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. And now, in today’s workforce, you’d be probably fired. I don’t think that’s legal.

[00:25:18]

Erin Sowell: I think you’re getting on how work culture has changed and evolved, and work culture is a lot different now. Especially around the amount that we’re working, and what we’re putting ourselves through to get that work done. A lot of people are wanting to work sustainably and are trying to avoid burning out and want to have positive experiences at work. And encountering people that are stereotyping you and judging you can make that hard.

[00:25:46]

Jamin Brazil: And – yeah, exactly right. And Chris, I don’t know from your vantage point. I know you work with people from all different age groups, what was that like for you personally?

[00:25:55]

Chris Hauck: What do you mean?

[00:25:57]

Jamin Brazil: The – sorry. The journey of because you and I, we have probably more of a shared – my boss used to not physically beat me up, but just verbal – I would never be able to talk to one of my employees, the way that my – I was treated as an employee. That was- and just like one of the things that came up that was surprising to your – to your audience, was that it used to be the case with Boomers and Gen X, if you wanted to go to the dentist, even take an hour off, that came out of your PTO. You had to get that pre-approved by your manager, and I had to go through HR. It was not a foregone conclusion that, ‘Oh. I’m gonna go, take a two-hour lunch today.’ Even in most small operations.

[00:26:36]

Chris Hauck: And at the same time, that wouldn’t be the branding that you’d want, either? Even if you could – even if your boss is the coolest dude in the world, ‘Yeah, go. Do whatever you need to do.’ You wouldn’t want the company to see you as doing anything but working your ass off all the time. So it really was for Gen X and for Boomers, hardworking is a huge badge of honor. It’s a big deal if the company sees me as hardworking, and hardworking in the terms of putting in time, like sleeping under your desk kind of time, or just being seen as the guy who’s always at his desk, who’s always there.

[00:27:13]

Jamin Brazil: Right.

[00:27:14]

Chris Hauck: But that kind of vision of hard work isn’t real. It’s not based on productivity, it’s based on time.

[00:27:22]

Jamin Brazil: It’s optics.

[00:27:24]

Erin Sowell: I can – yeah. Optics, definitely. But I can understand if you came up in that sort of environment, where you were – you had to work very hard, you had to put a lot of hours in. Sometimes at the expense of your relationships outside of work, or your experience or whatever. I can understand why it would be very frustrating to see the younger generation putting up boundaries and saying no, and – I can understand the frustration, for sure.

[00:27:50]

Chris Hauck: And I think that’s what Jamin was getting to, is – I changed my perspective about that, owning a company, and you probably did too, Jamin. I started looking at younger people who were not of that attitude and liking what they were saying. I suddenly got that I was being – I had been an idiot for most of my working career and working my ass off didn’t mean that I had to live at the office and just work all the time. It wasn’t good for me, and it wasn’t – it wouldn’t be good for them, they’re just strong enough to say that it’s not good for them. Whereas our generation wasn’t ready yet for that, we didn’t feel free enough to do that.

[00:28:31]

Erin Sowell: But ultimately, a lot of it has to come down to the culture that you’re in, and if it’s not socially acceptable to say no, you’re not gonna say no. Now it’s becoming more socially acceptable to have boundaries.

[00:28:44]

Chris Hauck: Even in my own company, where I’ve made it – where I was 50% owner, and I made it very clear that I wanted to know what your boundaries were. And I was open to you taking the time you needed to take care of things, and I actually would do things to make it very obvious that I was very clear on that. Most of the account executives who worked for me were in the Gen X generation, and they were not very happy about it, or very open to the idea of the younger staff doing what they wanted to do and getting out when they needed to, when they became tired or overwhelmed. It’s – it was – I used to – we heard this a lot from Gen X. “I used to work all these hours. Why can’t they? I used to do this, why don’t they have to?” Kind of thing. Almost a jealousy about it.

[00:29:36]

Jamin Brazil: I agree with that. And I think one of the things that I really appreciated about the session that you both led, was the degree of humility that you both illustrated, and I think Erin you just did a perfect job of that, of applying empathy towards the view of Boomers and Gen X on work-life balance. And I believe it’s the case that – well. Actually I know it’s the case that current employers with the job market the way that it’s been for the last three years, they have to come to terms with that. They can’t be based off, “Well, no. Gosh, darn it. I want you in the office these hours and you’re gonna be sitting at your computer, even if there’s nothing to do, you’re gonna stare at it.” What? You know what I mean? That just doesn’t exist anymore. And so consequently, everybody has sort of had to create a degree of empathy and humility in terms of maybe unseating some of their biases and personas that they’ve created for other generations. And that’s created a lot of health I think, for all of us. And we do have two more groups that I want to talk about. The next is I believe, Gen X. So Chris, I’m gonna direct Gen X to you. How do they see other generations?

[00:30:39]

Chris Hauck: They’re actually much more positive. They’re kind of the workhorses of the work environment. So the stereotype for Gen X is that they’re cynical and disengaged, but they’re really not seen that way. They’re seen as hard workers, which is a badge of honor for Boomers. If as a boomer, I said that my Gen X counterparts were hardworking, that’s pretty much the nicest thing I could possibly say about anybody. Right? That’s the thing I want them to say about me. That’s the key driver for them, is that they’re really seen as hardworking, but they’re also the competent core that keeps the whole thing running. Those are work horses of organizations. They’re the bosses-to-be, but they’re really the ones who are doing the labor, they’re really driving the effort. The younger generations look up to them in that way, in a positive way, and boomers look at them and say, “Hey, that’s – ” That they’re hardworking, they’re good people, and see them in very positive ways too. And those are all stereotypes. Obviously, they don’t see every Gen X that way, but Gen X is really viewed as this hard-working group that are making a difference.

[00:31:45]

Erin Sowell: They’re also sort of like a bridge generation. They’re looked at very positively from the rest of the generations, so that puts them in a really great position to build bridges and connect, be connectors.

[00:31:57]

Chris Hauck: The comedy around these guys is that – around Gen X is that they don’t exist at all. Nobody knows they’re there. The other funny thing that you see in comedy around Gen X is that they’re basically latchkey kids, and they grew up as latchkey kids, and so they’re very independent, and very capable. They can handle themselves.

[00:32:19]

Jamin Brazil: Last group, Gen Z. Erin.

[00:32:24]

Erin Sowell: So let’s see. What does – what does Gen Z think about themselves? They see themselves as open-minded, creative, fast learners, detail-oriented. They actually noted that they’re cautious and needy which makes sense because you’re brand new. If you’re Gen Z, you’re brand new to the workforce, of course, you’re gonna be a little bit cautious, a little bit needy, trying to figure out how the lay of the land works. How to navigate the environment that you’re in, but let’s see what they think about other generations. Gen Z, they look up to millennials, they see them as being resourceful, hardworking, takes responsibility. Interestingly, Gen Z is the point allocation – I know that this audio, you can’t see it, but the points that they gave to these adjectives were much more spread out than the other generations. So that makes me think that maybe they’re looking at the world with a little bit of a more nuanced lens, and seeing people in different ways and not seeing other generations in one specific way, if that makes sense? What do they think about Gen X? Really great things about Gen X. Hardworking, efficient, structured, the only negative was maybe a little bit demanding. But maybe that has to do with Gen Xers being more likely to be in management positions, and they’re the ones giving the orders, so there’s always ways to turn your orders into requests and that way, they can be a little bit less demanding. But Baby Boomers, what does Gen Z think about Baby Boomers? Knowledgeable, respected, wise, hardworking, some of the negative ones were traditional, perfectionist, and closed-minded. I liked this quote here. “They are extremely knowledgeable and have a lot of wisdom, but they are not someone I would pick an argument with or try to change their mind.” Maybe some Gen Z-ers are – they see the – see closed-mindedness and they’re like, “I’m not even going to try to deal with that.” So, anything to add, Chris?

[00:34:21]

Chris Hauck: No. Really not. Nothing scientific, other than that Gen Z just makes me hopeful for the world. I think they’re gonna be one of those transformative generations that make a huge difference in our world, and you can already see them doing it, but – and it’s just started. So unlike a lot of Boomers, or unlike the stereotypical Boomer, I actually look at Gen Z and I’m hopeful. Very, very hopeful.

[00:34:46]

Jamin Brazil: And having interviewed many, many Gen Z-ers in the last year and a half, I’m completely aligned with you. There’s simply not a generation that’s been more equipped than Gen Z for change and similarly, they’re acting accordingly. And we’re seeing it right now at the research level, having to rethink all of our demographic questions, and that’s entirely a function of the pressure that Gen Z is putting on market research.

[00:35:14]

Erin Sowell: Yeah, helping everyone evolve.

[00:35:16]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah. Being really that catalyst for change. Erin, let’s start with you. What surprised you about the outcomes of your research?

[00:35:23]

Erin Sowell: What surprised me? During the research, I was really surprised and felt encouraged about people that I was interviewing, they were – they pushed back about generalizing, so we asked them what do you – what you think of Gen Z? What do you think of millennials? What do you think of all the generations, and a lot of them pushed back, and they’re, “I don’t want to generalize.” We had to – we had to kind of encourage them to, “It’s OK. Generalize for us, please.” But that was great. Of course, a part of research is generalizing, but we can all do our best to reduce the amount that we’re over generalizing. Because sometimes when you over generalize, it feeds the stereotyping versus feeding understanding, so just being a little bit mindful about that, is important. And then the response that we got at QRCA was so fun. It was just fun to present, and then afterwards to hear the impact and how it got through to people and how people thought it was beneficial. That was really fun and rewarding, and it feels good to see that kind of feedback.

[00:36:26]

Chris Hauck: The whole thing turned out to be more fun than I expected. Everybody seemed to be having more fun than I thought it would turn out to be. I thought they’d be serious, and it was serious and it was good learning and fun at the same time.

[00:36:40]

Erin Sowell: And that’s what we wanted. The topic of stereotyping or exclusion, it can sometimes be really intense and we wanted to bring some light to it and make it fun and engaging.

[00:36:52]

Jamin Brazil: I definitely agree with the fact that it was fun and engaging. I think, for me, it’s a heavy topic. Because as a father of Gen Alpha and Gen Z, and then also as an employer of Gen Z, it’s a different way of managing. And I think – and for me, one of the things that I’ve had to change – well, there’s two big things from a management perspective. One is the need for instant feedback with Gen Z-ers. So if they provide something in Slack, or they do something, have a deliverable to a client, it’s really important that I go out of my way to respond immediately to them saying – giving them feedback and framed in positivity. I think Erin, your point about request versus order, is exactly right. If ever I were to lead with, “Get this done by X,” which is how I was raised, then I’m probably going to lose that employee that day. They’re just not receptive to that. But if I say, “Hey, this is the client’s needs, and this is what I think it could look like. Is this something you think you could do? Just let me know if that’s not the case.” Or – then – and then they’re happy to jump on the wagon and solve that problem. And I’m not talking about manipulative, I’m just talking about a framework of priority and importance. Because it gets down to the meta of, they’re enabled and empowered, as opposed to they’re a subservient role in the organization. And so for me, the things that are important, that’re really twofold. One that you already raised which is, it’s important to see them as a partner as opposed to an employee in the business. And the second thing is, it’s really important to go out of your way to provide feedback to them, and this has been the single biggest point of failure for me as a manager in the last year and a half. Normally, if that employee were – or historically, I should say, an employee, if they had a deliverable to a client and I CC’d on that deliverable, maybe they need to get them the data set or whatever, I would just – I would not reply or respond on the thread. And now what I do is I will respond only to that person or that employee and give them some feedback like, “Hey. This is really good. Consider something like this.” In terms of if there’s opportunity for constructive feedback, and the relationship is there, or alternatively just giving them a thumbs up, and saying thanks for doing that. Which is again, not a big time commitment but it is a big mental shift.

[00:39:13]

Erin Sowell: Definitely. What you’re just saying, makes me think about being a conductor versus being a jazz musician. So the traditional way of working, it’s you have the leader upfront, who’s the conductor, and they’re telling this – the horns, you play now. Or the – I don’t know. The drums, you play now. I don’t know how to conduct, but that’s the traditional way, versus jazz you’re sort of more collaborative. You’re part of – a part of the process, you’re playing off of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and it’s more collaborative. And I kind of try to ingrain that in my work, in my – in my process. Instead of telling someone what to do, building upon it. Trying to guide them versus, direct.

[00:40:04]

Chris Hauck: I try to manage the same way that you do Jamin. I see my role as being a very good coach, as opposed to being a boss. So when I had a company, I learned early on that being the boss wasn’t that useful, being everybody’s coach and trying to get the best out of everybody for their own benefit and the company’s, was way more valuable and just a better approach. People enjoyed working with me way more when I was supportive, and made the responsibility theirs, because it was – they wanted to own it. Allowing people to own their stuff, as opposed to owning it and making people do things to support me.

[00:40:48]

Erin Sowell: And science says that this type of style is actually better overall, it’s better for decision making, problem solving. Research found that teams that can connect across generations are more motivated, they are better at learning and they have better retention. So everything that we can do to connect across generations or connect across differences, it’s really important and it makes an impact on the business level.

[00:41:20]

Jamin Brazil: Well said and perfect point. Chris, Erin, thank you for joining me on the podcast today.

[00:41:27]

Erin Sowell: Thank you.

[00:41:29]

Chris Hauck: Thanks for having us.

[00:41:30]

Jamin Brazil: Everybody else, if you found some value in this, I certainly did. Please take the time, screen capture, share on social media. If you tag me, I will send you a free tee shirt. Have a great rest of your day.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 557 – Why Shoppers are Changing and how it Impacts Brands with Rebecca Brooks, Founder & CEO of Alter Agents

My guest today is Rebecca Brooks, Founder, and CEO of Alter Agents. 

Founded in 2010, Alter Agents is based in Los Angeles California and is a full-service, strategic market research consultancy reimagining research in an era of shifting decision-making.

Prior to founding Alter Agents, Rebecca has held senior roles at top market research agencies including Hall & Partners, Dialogue, and Diagnostic Research. 

Find Rebecca Online:

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 


This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody. I’m Jamin. You’re listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. My guest today is Rebecca Brooks, founder and CEO of Alter Agents. Founded in 2010, Alter Agents is based in Los Angeles, California and is a full service strategic market research consultancy re-imagining research in an era of shifting decision making. Prior to founding Alter Agents, Rebecca has held senior roles at top market research agencies including Hall and Partners, Dialogue, and Diagnostic Research. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

[00:00:35]

Rebecca Brooks: Thanks, Jamin. Happy to be here.

[00:00:40]

Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in marketing research program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats. Full time on campus, full time online, and part time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications. Insights design or insights analysis. In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you’re looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSU’s program at broad.msu.edu/marketing. Again, broad.msu.edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubUX.com. I guess, I should say welcome back to the show. You were on pre-COVID.

[00:01:51]

Rebecca Brooks: Was it pre-COVID? No, it was early COVID because-

[00:01:56]

Jamin Brazil: Oh early COVID. That’s right.

[00:01:57]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah. It was like towards the end of- or maybe, the fall of 2020. It was a dark time because we had- I think Trump haven’t conceded the election. There were just a lot of things going on. So I think we talked about-

[00:02:13]

Jamin Brazil: You’re right. I can’t wait- you know what? I’m gonna do after this is go back and re-listen to that conversation. That’s- that was an interesting point in our history.

[00:02:22]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah. Well, I actually got scolded my colleague who works with me on this about, “Maybe, you should try to be in a better mood when you get on this podcast,” because I was feeling pretty bleak the last time we talked. So things are more optimistic today.

[00:02:37]

Jamin Brazil: Of course, that’s helped because your business has been doing so well through the pandemic.

[00:02:41]

Rebecca Brooks: Thank you. Yeah, we’ve been very lucky.

[00:02:45]

Jamin Brazil: All right. Well, really the core topic of today is you are releasing a book which I am very excited about. I don’t know if it’s appropriate for me to say. And if not, then I will strike this from our conversation. But you did allow me an early access sneak peak in to the-

[00:03:00]

Rebecca Brooks: Yes.

[00:03:00]

Jamin Brazil: Some of the chapters. And I did read it and found it very interesting. But your release data is April of 20022, is that right?

[00:03:08]

Rebecca Brooks: That’s right. Towards the end of the month, the 26th I believe.

[00:03:12]

Jamin Brazil: There are a lot of books that have been coming out. And in market research, I’m super curious or maybe I should say that- I can kinda answer the question myself, having read it. But why does the world need another book?

[00:03:26]

Rebecca Brooks: Excellent point and something that I asked myself at the beginning of this process. But you know, the topics that we are covering in this book are pretty meaty. We’re talking about how the way that people shop has changed fundamentally. At of molecular level, people are going to be different shoppers moving forward. And it’s not a trend, it’s not a blip, it’s not an adjustment, it’s a reality that I think brands are- we’re trying to wake our clients up too and brands are waking up too. So that’s issue number one and there is a history that we needed to go in there about why is it changing and what’s happening. We also talked a lot about the way we think the industry is missing the mark with this concept of brand narcissism that I can go into about how our questions are very inward facing and not really reflective of the shoppers’ experience. And so, I think we’re missing a lot of really great information. And both of those things were pretty heavy topics so we wanted to give them the space to really flash them out. Also, we did 6,000 interviews in the US, and all of that data’s in the book to support a lot of the findings that we have, and sort of illuminate what we’re trying to talk about. And that needed space as well so it’s a topic I’ve been talking about since 2015 but it really felt like I wanted to get it out there on a bigger platform, on a bigger stage. And then, it was very helpful that somebody actually asked my partner, Devora Rogers, and I to write the book. So that fell into our laps and we took advantage of it.

[00:05:00]

Jamin Brazil: So we, as shoppers, have changed at a molecular level. That’s- or at least our buying journey has changed in a molecular level, molecule level crazy but it really is. How- what are you seeing? Obviously, we’re still gonna buy the book but what are you seeing as the big disruption there?

[00:05:17]

Rebecca Brooks: The big disruption is what we’ve termed shopper promiscuity. And just to clarify that terminology a little bit, we don’t mean promiscuity in at least morals kind of sense. We mean it in a sense of being very open to new experiences. And there are several different factors that have led to this but the end result is that whenever somebody goes into buy in a category, of course there are still gonna be things we buy automatically when you’re running in to the gas station for snacks or you need to just replace something you have in your home. There are still those purchases going on, of course. But if there is any consideration that we had, more often than not now, shoppers are starting from a clean slate and that’s because we have presented them with a lot of options. Everything is at their fingertips. They can search online for anything, they can buy anything from anywhere, they can filter and sort by what their needs and priorities are. We’ve also trained people to get used to the idea of innovation and disruption. So 30 years ago, if I wanted to buy a toaster, I would have gone to Sears, I would have looked at what was on the shelf, I would have bought a toaster from that selection. Maybe next time, I would have known, “Oh, I had a Black & Decker. I really like that. I’m just gonna back and buy that again.” But now, people are- the next time you buy a toaster, maybe spend five or six years, I bet there’s a lot of innovation in the toaster space, or in the toothbrush space, or in the household cleaning. We’re just accustomed to expecting thing have changed. And so, we start with a fresh, open mind, we research, and we look. And in many cases, if you think about the way you shop online, by the time you type in the product you want, filter in all of the things that you need, you’ve already narrowed down your scope before brand does even come into play. So the way that we’ve all been brought up as market researchers and marketers is this idea of a purchase funnel. And I just think that this collapsing and that shoppers are now in a state of kind of constant information gathering and they are willing to change their opinions, they are willing to switch brands. And it’s happening at a faster and faster rate. For those of us that were pre-internet, that grew up pre-internet, we’re learning new behaviors. But for gen Z and the generations that come after them, this is native to them. This is just the way it has always been. So this idea of a purchase funnel which is something that we use as a foundation for a lot of research methodology isn’t going to hold true for much longer, if it even is true today. So that’s how we think people are fundamentally changing. And when we ask questions like, “What brands did you consider when you started making this decision?” A lot of people have a hard time answering that or the hypothetical of, “What brands do you think you would look at?” “I don’t know, it depends,” right? So there’s a lot of the ways that we talked to are consumers are just not in sync with how they’re actually experiencing things in the real world.

[00:08:22]

Jamin Brazil: The whole space has evolved. SCO, of course, playing a pivotal role in what product is chosen.

[00:08:28]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah.

[00:08:30]

Jamin Brazil: And I mean SCO in a broad sense, not just Google but also Amazon if you’re- you could Walmart, etc. It’s wherever people are going to discover or actually make the purchase. How is this impacting- this change in shopper behavior, how is it impacting how brand trackers are constructed?

[00:08:50]

Rebecca Brooks: So this is probably the more controversial part of the book. But having been in this industry for 25 years and having worked on a tremendous number of brand trackers across the budget industries, I just really started to feel like what we were doing was broken. Every brand tracker I’ve worked on, at some point the client loses interest because the data’s not changing, or we’re just not getting the insights that we need, or the teams are burnt out from writing the same headlines every month on the reports. It just- it felt- first of all, that it wasn’t doing what it was intended to do which was to give brands really robust information to help them understand how their brand is being perceived in the marketplace. And I as I started doing a lot of the shopper work- and the shopper work that we were doing started in 2010 to support the Google Zero Moment of Truth research that came out at the time. But if you can remember that, for a time when Google needed to encourage people to advertise on Google. That search was important, that was what they were trying to prove. So back then, we started actually talking to people who have just made the decision rather than talking to people that were intending to buy in the category. We wanted to know what they did so we talked to these recent purchasers and that’s where the label started to go off for me of- actually, what these recent purchasers are saying in these categories is not matching what my tracking data is saying in those same categories. There’s a disconnect here between the reality of what they did and asking an intender a hypothetical. So that got me thinking about the way that we ask our brand trackers and I would say that the first thing that’s broken is the audience that we talk to. Intenders are interesting but for the data that we need, “Why did people buy my brand or not buy my brand?” I don’t think it’s the right group of people to talk to, so that’s issue number one. Issue number two is what we call this concept of brand narcissism which is- the fastest way for me to explain it is like you’re out on a date with a needy guy. And he’s like, “How do I compare to your other dates? And do you like me? And what do you think my best assets are? My best features are?” That’s how we talk to people in these brand trackers, right? “Do you know about me? Do you know about my competitors? What do you think about me as a brand? What do you think about my competitors?” They’re questions that just don’t reflect at all the way that the shopper’s actually going to be thinking in the moment. So for example, you could have a very well-known brand that has a pretty solid brand profile. It’s been around for a while and people compare it that back to you. And because you’re a well-known brand, you might have high consideration because, “Yeah. I guess, I would consider a top brand in the category.” But when that shopper goes in to actually do that, where do they start? They start at research. And in that research process, there are so many opportunities for completely new brands to them, disruptors in the category. All these other opportunities where people would come in and cannibalize that. So if we’re just looking at the hypothetical and we’re asking all of these narcissistic questions, my hypothesis is that we are not getting to the insights the brands need to actually survive in this new promiscuous shopping environment.

[00:12:07]

Jamin Brazil: It’s interesting. It used to be the case that brands were who they said they were. And now- and then, it transitioned to brands are who your customers say you are. It’s almost elevated now to another layer which is around discoverability, right?

[00:12:23]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah.

[00:12:23]

Jamin Brazil: So it doesn’t really matter how many people are saying positive things about you if you’re not on that first- in the early part of the discover- if you’re not discoverable. Then, you’re just irrelevant.

[00:12:35]

RESPONDNET: Yeah. We can’t lean on nostalgia, or history, or a strong brand awareness to hold on to that market share for much longer. I mean, we’re seeing boomers phase out of the dominant wallet share of spenders. And millennials and Gen Z coming up and I think that the change, we sort of feel like a canary in a coal mine. The change is coming, and it’s gonna be dramatic when it really hits, and we’re trying to get people to recognize that they should start making some fundamental changes to the way they think about tracking if they’re gonna be able to keep up with things in the new- in this new kind of reality where you’ve got digitally native people who don’t have the kind of loyalty to brands that older generations do. And who are trained- we’ve trained them to need to do research before they buy in a category. Let me give you one data point from our study that we did. When we looked at- asked a simple question, “Did you start with a brand in mind when you started this journey?” So again, we’re talking to people that actually purchased. So, “Did you start with a brand in mind? And did you buy that brand?” If they started with a brand in mind and they bought that brand, we term them loyalist. “I want a Diet Coke, I bought a Diet Coke.” When we break that out generationally, 56% of boomers started with a brand in mind and bought that brand. That, still to me is a very low number given how much emphasis we’ve placed on loyalty in our research, and then marketing, and branding. When you go- when you cut that down at sort of stair step, gen X is lower than that. Millennials are lower than that. But gen Z takes a precipitous drop and they go down to- I don’t have the number in front of me but I think they go down to 32% started with the brands in mind and bought that brand. And it’s not one of those things where gen Z is going to give up their wild ways and go back to behaving like Boomers. This is an inflection point in history, they’re not gonna go back to that level of Boomer loyalty again. So how are we thinking about how we’re running our brands but then also how we’re capturing insights to make sure we position our clients the best way possible.

[00:14:48]

Jamin Brazil: We have seen through social media a material change in how brands are discovered and relate to their customers. The analogy continue to use that TV. So pre-TV, there was radio and that was a source of entertainment and there was advertisements, etc. But later on through television, there became a whole new medium by which consumers are able to connect with and hear about brands. We’re seeing that in a digital context and I think the big learning there is we have the opportunity of getting in front of it as opposed to being in its way like we were at the television. Market research really didn’t start in full force until the 60s which is obviously well behind the television of evolution. And now, we’re stepping in to yet another new era of the metaverse.

[00:15:36]

Rebecca Brooks: Right. Well, and I would- let me pause there because I would actually push that much further. When TV came on board, it absolutely did change the way we interacted with brands, the way we learned about brands. It was a whole, new direct pipeline to the customer but what didn’t change were the distribution channels. So if I wanted to buy something, I still had to go to the same stores, I still have the same brands on the shelf. What’s happened with online and why it’s not analogous, unfortunately, is that at the same time, all of our distribution channels changed. And our access to brands changed in addition to this new incredibly powerful fire hose of information that you can pass on to your customers. So it’s yes, it’s a media change but it’s actually quite a big structural change in terms of how we interact with brands both in person and online. And like you’re saying, the metaverse coming up, right? Who knows what that’s gonna be? So yeah, I think the reason for promiscuity happening now and not happening in the 40s and 50s when TV came on board is because the opportunity of where we buy and what we buy has completely blown up.

[00:16:47]

Jamin Brazil: Yeah, that’s a great point that you’re making. And it’s not lost on me, right? The whole customer journey quite literally- it was the same from radio to TV, right?

[00:16:56]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah.

[00:16:58]

Jamin Brazil: The brand building media changed but now that I think about Dollar Shave Club, for example. They completely bypassed whatever- that was 10 years ago, right?

[00:17:07]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah.

[00:17:08]

Jamin Brazil: And it completely bypassed all traditional consumer journey.

[00:17:11]

Rebecca Brooks: And you know what? And that’s the other thing. When we talk about innovation, it’s not just innovation of products but it’s innovation in experiences. You could have never convinced me a year before Uber made it big that I would have ever gotten in a stranger’s car. And now, I Lyft all the time. Same with Airbnb. But we have created these sort of experiences that people are becoming really comfortable with really fast.

[00:17:36]

Jamin Brazil: Right.

[00:17:38]

Rebecca Brooks: And I think that that translates into all other experiences. A great example is the way that many restaurants have moved to digital pay during COVID. They didn’t want their staff exchanging money or cards with the customers. So now, they put up QR code on the receipt or there’s some other sort of way that you pay digitally. And for almost everybody I know, that is a positive. They see that as a real positive, they don’t have to wait on the waitress, you can actually split the check in very interesting ways when you do it that way. It’s faster, it’s less hassle. And we adapted to that very, very quickly. So I think that this idea of training people to research, we’ve also trained them to get used to some pretty big changes quite quickly.

[00:18:21]

Jamin Brazil: All right. Let’s pause time for a minute. And then, fast forward to five years so that would be 2027. What brand is winning in five years?

[00:18:35]

Rebecca Brooks: You want a brand name or what kind of brand?

[00:18:37]

Jamin Brazil: I do, actually.

[00:18:40]

Rebecca Brooks: For me, Patagonia is such a gold standard because they have a real good handle on exactly who their audience is and exactly the kind of experience the audience wants. And I think that it’s the combination of- brands just can’t be lazy. You have to have a very clear identity. That identity has to be evident throughout the process so people now understand that you can have a great company and treat your employees like crap but they’re not gonna buy you or you could have a great company but your supply chain supports misuse of people in another part of the world and they’re not gonna buy you. So across all levels, a company like Patagonia in every single thing that they do from the products that they use, the materials they source, the way that they treat their staff, it all fits with their brand identity. It is all very cohesive. And that also means that the customers experience whether it’s online or in a retail store also fits into that identity. And I think that that’s the kind of holistic- like a brand needs to be looking at everything, really know who they are, know who they’re talking to, be comfortable not appealing to everybody. I think those are the brands that are gonna be agile enough, and interesting enough, and give consumers enough back to stay relevant in the future.

[00:20:09]

Jamin Brazil: That’s interesting. Nike’s a brand I look at.

[00:20:12]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah.

[00:20:12]

Jamin Brazil: It was super interested. Roblox, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, the metaverse gaming company.

[00:20:17]

Rebecca Brooks: I got little kids, yeah.

[00:20:20]

Jamin Brazil: Exactly. They went public, I think it was Q1 of 2021 with a market value of $48 billion so a big, big evaluation. And then in November of last year, Nike teamed up with them and created Nike land. Right?

[00:20:38]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah.

[00:20:39]

Jamin Brazil: And so- and the interesting thing about Nike land is it’s like this NFT rich framework where you can buy your NFT and wear your digital shoes or your- on your Avatar in Nike land. But then also, it transcends – or can transcend if you want to – to a physical item as well. Do you think the metaverse is gonna- in the next five years, is gonna be- not disrupt the in person experience per se, but is it an augment or maybe it is a disruption?

[00:21:11]

Rebecca Brooks: You know, I am so fascinated by this. I got to have a really great, long conversation with Lindsey McInerney who was at Anheuser-Busch and is now CEO of an entertainment company that’s focusing on the metaverse called Sixth Wall. And she is really bullish on this and believes that the things that we own in the metaverse- once it becomes something that is transferrable across platforms, so my identity, my digital identity on Facebook is the same as my digital identity in Instagram, it’s the same as my digital identity in Roblox. You bring this thing with you to all of these other places. Then, that starts to create much more of a demand for uniqueness, and identity, and authenticity, and curating the best things. So from that perspective, I think the technology- the concept of the metaverse is fascinating to me. I think the technology is a few years away from what the actual concept could be. And so, I don’t know the brands where we have a clear path yet in terms of how impactful that’s going to be. But I do know from my kids because of the experiences with Roblox and other YouTube, and TikTok, and all of these other things that they’re involved in. It is such a natural progression for them to go into a metaverse. It just feels like a natural extension of what they’re doing. Where for old folks just like me, I’m just like, “What’s a metaverse?” It just doesn’t fit with my view of the world. But for them, it’s really just a natural extension of what they’re already doing. So I think it’s inevitable and I think that brands should be thinking about- again, but it still comes back to that authenticity. And I think Nike actually building a Nike world is authentic with their brand. Do something that really connects people to your brand and enhances that brand experience for them. If they can do that, then I think there will be a fairly easy transition into that space. But I don’t think that you can stay absent from it.

[00:23:15]

Jamin Brazil: One of the interesting statistics I’ve been paying attention to, Harvard Business Review has a couple of posts on the speed of innovation, adoption in US households and they actually start with the telephone. And they look at electricity, and refrigeration, and clothes washers, and dryers, and air conditioners, and microwaves- the whole thing. The internet, cellphones. As you probably already deduced, there’s a truncation that happens in each step, right?

[00:23:42]

Rebecca Brooks: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:43]

Jamin Brazil: So electricity was faster than- adoption was faster than the telephone. And refrigeration, electricity, and so on and so forth. It will be interesting to see how fast the technology on the- in the metaverse is going to be adopted and what ultimately that means. I think in some ways if you’re thinking about augmented reality, that becomes- we’re already doing that with Google Maps, right?

[00:24:08]

Rebecca Brooks: Yeah. No, I know. It’s a whole thing. And then, often you’ve got young kids too and I often think about kind of what world would they live in and what it’s gonna be like. And I just think that at this point, I’ve given up trying to speculate. It’s gonna be very different, that’s all I know. And I probably won’t understand half of it but yeah, change is coming for sure.

[00:24:28]

Jamin Brazil: All right. My last question, what is your personal motto?

[00:24:32]

Rebecca Brooks: So I struggle with this, you asked me this before and I think I’m gonna go back to what I said then, which is that I don’t really have a personal motto but I have kind of adopted or tried to adopt this philosophy that Maya Angelou shared. I got to see her speak in North Carolina many years ago and somebody asked her, “How did you get to be so amazing?” Which is a pretty great question. And she said, “I don’t know that I’m amazing but I do know that I go to bed every night and I think I’m gonna do better tomorrow. And I get up in the morning and I make a hundred mistakes and I go to bed that night and I think I’m gonna do better tomorrow.” And that’s really what I’m trying to do is just I’m trying to be able to a little bit better- better mom, better boss, better business owner, and better everything. Make a hundred mistakes, go to bed, say I’m gonna do it better tomorrow.

[00:25:20]

Jamin Brazil: Our guest today has been Rebecca Brooks, founder and CEO of Alter Agents. Rebecca, thanks for being on the podcast.

[00:25:26]

Rebecca Brooks: Thanks, Jamin.

[00:25:27]

Jamin Brazil: Everybody else, as always, I hope you found value in the episode. I certainly did. Like, re-share, Tweet it, tag me, and I will send you a t-shirt. I still have a few left. Have a great rest of your day.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 556 – HMRP Monday Edition: Tips For Managing Your Gen Z Employees

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


You’re listening to the Happy Market Research podcast. I’m Jamin Brazil, your host. 

Support for the Happy Market Research Podcast and the following message comes from Michigan State’s Marketing Research Program & HubUX. 

This is episode 556.  And, 20 years ago today, according to Alexa, Thong Song by Sisqo was the number one song in the US. 

Enjoy!

Alright, let’s make this a kick ass day!   

Management Tips for Gen Z (Part Two)

This is the second installment of a 2-part series on the topic of “Tips For Managing Your Gen Z Employees”.

In May 2022, Chris Hauck, founder of HauckEye and Erin Sowell, founder of Thoughtful Research gave a talk at QRCA’s annual event in San Diego titled: “Connecting Generations”. Their work analyzed how each generation views both itself and other generations. 

You can find links to both of their profiles at the end of this blog post. I know both of them would love the opportunity to engage with you about their research on generational differences.  

How Gen Z Views Themselves 

According to Chris and Erin’s report, Gen Z views themselves as: 

  • Tech savvy
  • Open minded
  • Creative
  • Fast learners
  • Detail oriented

How Other Generations View Gen Z

All generations see Gen Z as Tech Savvy. However, there are some negative views held by older generations when describing Gen Zers including… 

  • Entitled
  • Lazy 
  • Needy
  • Moves too fast
  • Narcissistic

While all of us have struggled with scrutiny from older generations, things are different today. We are in the tightest labor market in the last 30 years. This tight labor market means companies are having to cator more and more to employees wants, needs, and even desired. Simply put, if your first job was in the 80s, 90s or early 2000s, you probably had to do a lot of adapting to your work environment. 

For me, Gen X had to conform to the value system of Boomers. The outcomes where on work life balance. In fact, Gen X had to get approval for doctor appointments during the workday. 

My first job was in the mid 90s. We were required to get approval for even a 30-minute dentist appointment. And, if you were out of the office for any length of time, the minimum PTO cost was half a day. 

Not only were corporate policies prioritizing time at work, Boomers and Gen Xers saw working long hours as a badge of honor. In fact, employees would expect social shaming by peers and managers alike if you had several doctor visits in a month. 

The advice I was given by my dad was, “If you want to be the best employee, be the first in and last out every day.”

Compare that to this TikTok of a Gen Zer explaining to their boss about what their boss should care about: 

BE WARNED! Don’t be offended. Being offended because a generation has a different value system is a trap. Listen to what the Gen Zer is actually saying. 

“You told me what to do…I did it…what’s the problem?” 

This leads to our first tip…

Tip 1: Identify What is Important (Outputs) 

As a manager or owner, you need to prioritize what you care about. Is it attendance? Is that more important than the actual deliverables? If it is, that is fine. 

You just need to be clear on what your internal expectations are. This will give you a lot more peace as a manager. 

I can’t underscore this point enough, be true to yourself. Don’t feel bad for prioritizing things like “early starts” over “work done”. 

Tip 2: Don’t Micromanage  

Let your employees have a strong influence on when the workday starts. The flip side is you also need to be clear on what work needs to be done in that timeframe. 

Remember, just because you can’t see them working at their cubicle doesn’t mean work isn’t being done. Trust your team and don’t micromanage. 

For example, if I see an employee is often offline on slack my Gen X mind says, “They are likely watching Stranger Things for the 3rd time.” And this thought can lead to mistrust and even resentment. 

Don’t give in to that. 

In my early days as CEO of Decipher, I would walk around the office to check in on people. This walk was never about making sure people were working. It is just too easy for employees to hide inactivity. Alt-Tab has always been a thing. 

Don’t over index on green bubbles that are supposed to show active status when managing remote staff.  

Tip 3: Verify Outputs 

Trust is the first half of the equation. The other half is to verify the outputs. 

If you prioritize start time, for example, please be at your computer no later than 8am every day, then track when people are not at their computer. 

How would you do that? That’s up to you. 

However, if you prioritize doing a specific task or project, then measure that. 

Here is my management framework:

  1. At the start of the quarter I set a specific goal for each direct report, e.g. number of leads generated per week, ontime project delivery, etc. 
  2. This gives each subordinate a clear picture of what they need to do and helps them prioritize their time. It also creates a clear and unbiased assessment of how they are performing. 

I then meet every two weeks for 30 minutes with my direct reports. Here is the structure of that meeting: 

  • Review stated goal vs actual performance
  • Gap analysis: 
    • If they are behind, “why?” and “what can we do about it?”
    • If they are ahead, “Woohoooo!!!!” 
  • Start: Any activity or behavior I’d like them to start
  • Stop: Any activity or behavior I’d like them to stop
  • Continue: Focus on the things they are doing well 
  • I end every one-on-one with this question, “Is there anything you need from me to do your job?”

Action: How often do you have one-on-ones with your direct reports? This will help you set the culture of measurement and accountability. 

Tip 4: Celebrate Success 

Gen Z loves recognition. Consider a small discretionary fund for managers to use for these micro celebrations.

Managers should look for opportunities to celebrate the same work milestones that would be celebrated if we were all in the office together. 

But don’t stop there! Managers should also be looking for opportunities to praise their employees for little things. 

Example: Some companies are recognizing employees with videos that celebrate workers’ contributions. These videos can be placed in the public domain like your website and social media. 

I’m on the board for a solar company who does this and it has 2 outcomes: 

  1. Attracts new talent that is in the Employee of the Month’s network. What is powerful about this is that good people attract good people. 
  2. The second benefit is that it connects with current and potential customers. By publicly recognizing employees you are making a statement about your culture. And, today’s buyers want to buy from companies that share their values. 

Qualtrics even has an award they give out for the biggest failure of the month. In an interview I did with their CMO he talked about a customer support employee troubleshooting an issue with a client. The employee had to use the bathroom and forgot to mute their phone. 

While it was embarrassing, this incident underscored the priority the company had on servicing the customer at all costs. 

Tip 5: Challenge Yourself to See the Other Side

This is really hard. We all get dug into thinking our view is the right one when the reality is there is truth on both sides. Here is an example of a post for Employees who are being taken advantage of…

Now, we have the other side. Here is a post by an owner who feels he is being taken advantage of by his employees. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@downanddirtyservices/video/7058333126245928239?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7078398368863520298

It is vital we try and check our biases and prejudices at the door when managing staff. I believe the single greatest super power a manager can have is adaptability. By that, I mean the ability for you to not apply a cookie cutter approach to managing staff. We are all unique and, today, we expect to be managed as such. 

For Further Consideration 

If you’d like to learn more about the work referenced in this post:

  • Chris Hauck, founder of HauckEye. HauckEye is a marketing research consultancy providing insights through deep ethnographic and experiential research. 
  • Erin Sowell, founder of Thoughtful Research. Thoughtful Research helps businesses understand and meet the sustainability, inclusion, and wellness needs of their customers and employees. 

Some of the data for this report was gathered using HubUX, A research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

If you’d like to learn more about HubUX please reach me on social or via email at jamin@hubux.com. 

Lastly, you are always invited to attend the MRxPros’ Virtual Lunch. This is a group of UX, CX, and market researchers that meets every week for 30 minutes to do 3 things: learn one new thing, make one new friend, and have fun.

Happy Researching! 😊 


References: 

Sponsor MSMU: https://broad.msu.edu/marketing

Sponsor HubUX: https://hubux.com

Chris Hauck, founder of HauckEye 

Erin Sowell, founder of Thoughtful Research

Sisqo – Thong Song (Official Music Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oai1V7kaFBk   

Millennials at work by PWC: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/documents/millennials-at-work.pdf

The Science Behind Social Media’s Hold on Our Mental Health BY BRITTNEY MCNAMARA: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-science-behind-social-medias-hold-on-our-mental-health

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 555 – The Role of Empathy in Your Business and Research with Rob Volpe, CEO of Ignite 360

Today I’m joined by Rob Volpe: Author, Speaker, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and Empathy Activist at Ignite 360. 

Ignite 360 is a consumer data-driven insights and strategy company based in San Francisco. 

Their work has three primary goals: 

  1. Elevate your thinking. 
  2. Expand empathy. 
  3. Explore through intuition. 

They work with the world’s leading brands including Pepsi, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, and Whole Foods.

Find Rob Online:  

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

References:

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey, everybody. This is Jamin. I am joined today by Rob Volpe, author, speaker, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and empathy activist at Ignite 360. Ignite 360 is a consumer data-driven insights and strategy company based out of San Francisco. Their work has three primary goals: elevate your thinking, expand empathy, and explore through intuition. They work with the world’s leading brands including Pepsi, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, and Whole Foods. Rob, welcome to the show.

[00:00:34]

Rob Volpe: Jamin, thank you so much. It’s so great to be here.

[00:00:39]

Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats. Full time on campus, full-time online, and part-time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three core certifications, insights design or insights analysis. In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you’re looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSU’s new program at B-R-O-A-D.msu.edu/marketing. Again, B-R-O-A-D.msu.edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation, including video audition questions and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com. It’s such an honor to have you. Let’s start with some context. Tell us a little bit about your parents and what they did to inform what you do today.

[00:01:55]

Rob Volpe: So my parents, Mike and Margaret. When I was growing up, my dad was in sales all of my life, and my mom was a homemaker until I was in junior high/high school. She went back to school, got her MBA, and then she started working in the military for the Navy, ultimately building or working on the design and build-out of a new class of submarine to which she obviously had some- I don’t even know, some level of secret clearance. And at one point, a picture of an artist’s illustration of the submarine came out, it was in Time magazine. And I think I was in college at that point and we were talking on the phone and she’s like, oh, did you see that illustration? Yeah. And she’s just like, it’s wrong. That’s not what it really looks like. So I think from my mom, there’s a sense of keeping confidentiality and secrets, which is important in the insights industry. But from my dad, I learned a lot about storytelling and relationship building, and how to connect with people. And I remember really clearly in high school when talking about different career paths and sales, and I was just like, I don’t know how to sell anything. And he told a story about how somebody in an interview gave someone a pen off of their desk and said, here, sell me this pen. And I was like, I wouldn’t even know how to do that. And my dad proceeded to ask me questions about how I use pens in my life, what type of pen do I like and what sort of hold do I have? How much weight do I like about a pen? And well, let me tell you about this pen. And he proceeded to sell me a pen. And it was just so fascinating to me and inspiring in the ways that he was asking me questions to understand my needs and then ultimately, explain why his pen fit- that he had, fit the needs that I had and what would make a good recommendation. And that’s so much about insights and research and finding out people’s needs and then figuring out how a product or a service can actually fit that, so I learned quite a lot from him. And then, of course, there’s the- him and my grandma are both storytellers and love to share stories. So there was a lot of that going on, the Italian family storytelling that I grew up with and was just naturally drawn to when I was a kid.

[00:04:22]

Jamin Brazil: The, sell me a pen, I had heard- I can’t remember exactly where I heard it. I think it was from Wolf of Wall Street in one of the scenes where a new salesman was coming in, and then they had an existing salesman actually take on the challenge of sell me this pen. And I think his sales pitch was, you got a pen? And the guy says no. He says something to the effect of, well, write down your name, and the guy goes, I can’t. And he goes, you gotta buy this pen. I totally botched that, but it is interesting how we can borrow from that example and translate it into what we do, both in terms of being business owners and creating products and services that we sell to the market, but then also helping our customers do the exact same thing.

[00:05:11]

Rob Volpe: Absolutely. It’s all about the relationships that we have with other people and the ability to build those relationships and have empathy, see the point of view, to get at this is what this person might need, and here’s how my product can do that. And then I think it’s about having the- what is the right word? It’s not necessarily humility but being able to be honest about whether your product is the right one. Or, hey, you might actually be better served by what this guy has to offer because we don’t really specialize in this. And ultimately, that’s a better relationship-building tool I have found because then you’re really becoming a partner to your clients and really being of service to them.

[00:05:55]

Jamin Brazil: And we really are a relationship-based industry. As you fast forward, thinking about five years in the future, which I know is a lifetime, do you think market research or consumer insights will continue to be as heavy? Like, pick up the phone and call your favorite sales guy at the company that you like versus more online transactions?

[00:06:17]

Rob Volpe: I’m trying to think when the last time was that I picked up the phone and called somebody, but I didn’t do just an online transaction on an automated platform and ordered 50 widgets. I think the relationship still remains really important. What’s interesting now and to see how things play out, there’s the written communication because so much of this is done via email or you’re texting if you’ve got that relationship with your clients, and they’re reaching out to you. So there’s still that personal connection, and especially in the work that we do, where so much of it is very custom. There’s a problem that the teams are trying to solve and so we need to have that intake and conversation. But even then, we’re reaching out as we’re extending our hands to our partners to try to put the right teams together or get the resources for the recruiting. Or if it’s a quant project, where are we getting the sample, the analytics, all the pieces from? I think relationships are fundamental to humans. I think we are social creatures, so I think it will always exist. I think there’s always a desire to automate more than less, but I think we also overstep and then we realize that we’ve gone a little too far here, we need to pull it back. And then the market rejects that approach or way of interacting.

[00:07:38]

Jamin Brazil: You wrote a book. The book is titled, Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time. Why did you write the book?

[00:07:48]

Rob Volpe: Because there’s an empathy crisis. And you don’t have to look too far anymore –

[00:07:54]

Jamin Brazil: I love it.

[00:07:54]

Rob Volpe: To see the breakdown that’s happened in our society. But I remember in 2010 when the study of studies came out of the University of Michigan, that found a 40% decline in empathy skills amongst college students from the span of ’79 to 2001. And it didn’t get any better or worse, but it didn’t get any better until they concluded the study in 2009. 40% less ability to see the point of view of other people. That to me back then was like, oh, my god, this is like we’re not- everything that you’re seeing playing out now in society and the way that we’re so polarized, we’re not getting along, we’re not taking the time to listen to each other. People are quitting their jobs because they’re not feeling supported empathetically by their leadership. All of that is a result of that decline in empathy skills, and there’s a lot of different things that led into it. And as that relates then to our industry, we’re all about empathy. We’re all about understanding human behavior and other people. And so at Ignite 360, that was part and parcel of what we were doing and the storytelling of bringing all of that to life, that we were finding as clients are hiring us for empathy engagements and quick get to know my brand champion types of things, that there was a lot of judgment that was coming up that they were getting stuck on how to actually listen or they weren’t paying attention. And we recognized that there was a need to help people understand how to do this, and what to actually do in the moment. And that’s something in my DNA and in the organizations of helping people understand the how. Like, here’s how to do this. So if we’re teaching storytelling, it’s about how to tell stories in the workplace. Not just that you need to tell stories, but what does that actually mean? What does that look like? Let’s bring that to life. And so with empathy, it’s been about how to be more empathetic in the moment, in your engagements. And so the impetus for the book, I knew as a CEO, I got told- right after I started the company, a few people were like, oh, you’ve got to write a book. That’s what CEOs do. And I was like, in what free time? Because I was really starting the company. But then in 2016, I was talking to a group of college students. And I was talking about the industry and insights and qualitative and quantitative. And then I was talking about empathy and the importance of it and going into some of the five steps to empathy. And I was using my stories from out in the field doing ethnographic in-homes, and the students were just hanging on every word, they were eating it up. And a voice inside my head said, this is what you need to do, you need to tell these stories to help people understand empathy. And so I set out to write the book. And I wanted it to be a book that works on multiple levels and from different angles. So it’s a personal growth professional development book, you can learn about empathy and how to be more empathetic and what that means. But you’re also being entertained by stories of my own experiences trying to have empathy with people that are completely different from me in some of those crazy situations that only market researchers find themselves in. And doing it in a way then the people are learning and able to reflect, but in an organic way where it’s sitting inside them and they start to think about it. Like I was talking to someone yesterday, who is almost finished with a book, but she was commenting on how it’s already sitting inside her and she’s thinking about, like, she was in traffic and somebody cut her off. And while she wanted to raise her fist in anger, she said because of the book, it made her rethink. Like, I don’t really know what their story is and what’s going on with them, so let me just exhale for a minute and not get so upset. And that’s it, that’s what I was going for. I wanted something that was gonna give people the skills that they could take with them personally or professionally, to understand more about empathy. And it’s set in the exciting world of marketing research.

[00:12:06]

Jamin Brazil: It’s an interesting time right now, and we are really- our points of view are so cemented by the internet, which is really a giant algorithm that wants to keep our attention. Which of course, as you know feeds me what I like and –

[00:12:23]

Rob Volpe: Or it gets you upset, and so –

[00:12:26]

Jamin Brazil: And further galvanizes the position, right? Exactly.

[00:12:29]

Rob Volpe: Exactly.

[00:12:30]

Jamin Brazil: And so what surprised you as you-? Of course, you wrote the book and that’s a process of discovery, I would imagine. What surprised you as you went through the process?

[00:12:41]

Rob Volpe: There was a lot of peeling my own onion, so to speak, and really thinking about it. When I first- the very first draft of the book was just the stories. And I wasn’t even narrating it as much as observing on it like a researcher would, oh, and then they did this, then they did that. And then I realized, and there was an energy healer that I work with who is intuitive. And I was on the table having a session with her and she was like, you need to put more of yourself into the book. I said OK, and so the subsequent drafts were putting more and more of myself and really doing the work to understand the challenges that I was having in those moments. Like, why did these stories stick with me? It’s not just for their entertainment value, it’s really there’s something about them that affected me or said something about myself. So one of the stories, a chapter called Mother would never do that. And we’re on an in-home, we’re there to find out about people’s use of dry packaged side dishes. But I got really fixated because the house was a little creepy, and there was all of this exposed drywall or two-by-fours and things. And it was a renovation that the respondent had actually moved into the house. He had put tchotchkes and things on the crossbeams and the two-by-fours, and I got really fixated on that. And I went upstairs to go to the bathroom at one point, and I write about it in the book, there was this second bedroom and I thought I saw a figure in there. But the guy never mentioned having a roommate or a partner or a spouse or anything, who is that? And I go and of course, the door is open so I stick my head in. And there’s a Resusci Andy doll that you would train on and then all these free weights. I was, who is this person? And he kept talking about Mother, and that’s part of where the mother in the title came from. He kept talking about Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother. Mother would do this. Mother would do that. Too a way that just didn’t feel natural to me, I was being very judgmental. It didn’t feel right and that was just- it felt weird. So I was being really judgmental and all these exposed two-by-fours and I’m like, am I in some serial killer’s house? Is Mother down in the basement like in Psycho? And that was really bad, I wasn’t even listening. I couldn’t to this day tell you what insights came about Hungry Jack mashed potatoes. From that interview, all I remember are the things that my judgment was fixating on. And so in writing the book, I actually had to reflect back on myself and my own actions. And my own childhood too. I was able to understand more of my own journey of empathy and why it’s so important to me, pains in my childhood, and then resolution to it. So the book is like a bunch of nesting dolls, lots of different things fitting inside of another, and the meta, largest arc is my own coming to terms with being bullied and abused- not abused but bullied and teased as a child growing up in small-town, Indiana.

[00:15:54]

Jamin Brazil: That is a- you went deeper than I thought you would. It’s a seriously interesting point. And we have the- I’ve done a fair amount of in-home ethnography and there is some self-preservation that takes place. So I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself about potentially finding somebody that’s chained up in an attic. But I think that’s OK, just clearing the air here, a little bit of grace.

[00:16:23]

Rob Volpe: But when it gets in your way- I appreciate that, thank you. But when it gets in your way to the point where you can’t see that –

[00:16:32]

Jamin Brazil: Anything else.

[00:16:32]

Rob Volpe: Anything else, then you’re never gonna have that empathy. I’m never gonna be able to sell the pen to that person or help my clients sell a pen to that person because I let my judgment get in the way.

[00:16:46]

Jamin Brazil: And that really is the superpower, I think, of the industry. It may be a three-legged stool, but the first one for me is curiosity. And the second one is this capacity to actually listen, which I guess maybe in the underpinnings is you have to give a shit about the other person.

[00:17:02]

Rob Volpe: Yeah, you have to be curious. You have to actively listen, be present in the conversation, and hear what they’re saying. And then at the end, you have to- and I think judgment comes back into it, where –

[00:17:17]

Jamin Brazil: That’s the third leg.

[00:17:18]

Rob Volpe: You have to be able to stay objective and not let the judgment get in your way as you’re analyzing the data or you’re asking the questions, or whatever it is that you’re doing. Absolutely.

[00:17:31]

Jamin Brazil: You started Ignite 360, I believe it was 2011. Is that right?

[00:17:35]

Rob Volpe: That is correct, 2011.

[00:17:36]

Jamin Brazil: Why did you start the business?

[00:17:39]

Rob Volpe: Because every fiber of my being- I was faced with signing a contract to become an employee. I had been consulting with a small boutique firm out of LA. Had busted my butt, I helped them grow. I don’t really know how- three, four times in size. But I was a contractor and I was working so much, there was no way I could be doing anything for anybody else. And so the way the laws in California are written, I really needed to become an employee. And I apparently have an allergic reaction to the word employee, and I would make this little scrunchy face every time Rob employee came up. And I didn’t realize I was doing it, but at one point the woman that owned that firm was like, you’re making this face every time I say the word employee with reference to your name. And I was like, I think I have a psychological block to this. But I said I’ve been working really hard, I’ve helped grow the business, I asked for some equity. And she was willing to consider it, which I really appreciated, and went through and had all the conversations that she needed to have. Months and months of back and forth on it and ultimately decided she was unable to do that. To which I was disappointed, but I thought, well, I bring a lot of value to the organization, show me the money, show me the contract, and they put together an incredibly generous offer. Really, really significant. And I remember standing in my kitchen on a gray day in November looking at the- and I had a psychological block to it, so weeks had gone by after they’d sent me the contract. And she kept following up with me. Have you looked at it yet? Any thoughts/comments? We need to get to the lawyers. Fine. So I looked at it and I saw my name and the legal definition in the agreement, parenthetical quotation mark, employee, all caps. And literally Jamin, every fiber in my being was screaming out saying no, don’t do this. This is wrong. This is not you. I mean from my head to my toes, my brain, I’ve never gotten an intuitive signal message- I’ve never had a reaction like that before and it was like, I need to listen to this. And took a deep breath like, it’s a really generous offer, but something’s telling me no, don’t do it. What does that mean? What do I do? And then it was like, I think I have to go out on my own. And so I contacted my lawyers and started to figure out what all that looked like and less than two months later, Ignite 360 was born. And really with the goal to tell great stories, build empathy and connection, do really creative, great things for our clients, so really the things that I embody and what I was bringing to projects. And we were really fortunate. It was 2011, the economy was certainly recovering quite nicely. And a lot of my clients came with us and we had a lot of great opportunities early on from our clients. And I’m eternally grateful for all of that support. And then we grew really quickly and that created its own set of issues.

[00:21:06]

Jamin Brazil: Did you have a partner at the time?

[00:21:08]

Rob Volpe: No, I did not. I went out on my own.

[00:21:10]

Jamin Brazil: Sorry, I mean a domestic partner.

[00:21:12]

Rob Volpe: Oh, yes. Yes, I did have a domestic partner, and then we’re legally married now. But yes.

[00:21:18]

Jamin Brazil: And how did they respond to your decision to not take a generous employment offer?

[00:21:25]

Rob Volpe: I was already- because I was a contractor and had been for about five years at that point. And even, gosh, so that was- all of that obviously happened in 2010. I had gotten laid off in 2006, which is what moved me into the insights space, to begin with. But back in ’99, 2000, 2001, I had my own consulting practice in PR and communications for small businesses in New York. My husband and I met in 2001, so we’ve been together for quite a while. He understood the roller coaster. And his dad actually had started his own company and was in the computer space back in the ’70s or so, was quite successful with that. So he understood a lot of that. He understood the travel. I was already doing that because I was working in qualitative as a contractor.

[00:22:19]

Jamin Brazil: The hardest job you could have, by the way.

[00:22:21]

Rob Volpe: Oh my gosh.

[00:22:23]

Jamin Brazil: Don’t be a quantitative researcher, it pays five times more per project. It’s the best-kept secret.

[00:22:33]

Rob Volpe: Qualitative means get on a plane and go all over and just go, go, go.

[00:22:38]

Jamin Brazil: So it sounds like he was supportive because he already had the context. He already knew Rob.

[00:22:42]

Rob Volpe: He already- yes, he knew me, he knew the situation. He knew the situation with the other firm. He knew this had- and he understood. And we were hearing from some initial conversations I’d had with some clients that I considered friends where I just- because I didn’t know. I had only been in the space for like five years at that point or four years, I didn’t know how it worked. Is everybody on retainer or is this a-? And they were like, oh, this is a relationship business. If people wanna work with you, they’re gonna come with you. And it was like, all right. So we had that behind us and thought it was going- and I don’t wanna say it wasn’t a struggle. But like I said, we really hit the ground running, so we didn’t have that huge runway necessary. Or there wasn’t a dry spell, it really went from one- I was not working for like two weeks, basically.

[00:23:37]

Jamin Brazil: And then it just grew?

[00:23:39]

Rob Volpe: It just grew, yeah.

[00:23:41]

Jamin Brazil: Straight out of the way. And not everybody has that experience, of course, when they start a business, but you’ll take it when you can. Let’s talk a little bit about Ignite 360 as a business, what does the business do exactly? Of course, I gave my perspective based on what I know, but I’d love the correction.

[00:23:57]

Rob Volpe: No, I thought you were pretty spot on. So we do this full-service qualitative. We’ve grown from just more qualitative to now qual and quant. And then we also offer training programs, so there’s multiple legs to the business. On the research side, our work tends to focus on innovation, journey work, and then brand strategy and brand communication. So all the things where you really need to get to know how somebody’s thinking, that sort of System1 stuff. And doing it qualitatively and then quantitatively helping measure it and dimensionalize it. Everything has- empathy is a key focus of ours as is strategic thinking. And then the other thing our clients always talk about that sets us apart is our storytelling and our ability to turn a phrase, create the framework that allows the insights to live on, and the key recommendations for the team to be able to grab onto those and run with it. Because as you know, the work is only as good as what ultimately becomes of it. And there are too many times where I’ve been in meetings or heard about meetings where, great deck, that’s awesome, and the people go off to their other meeting and nothing ever happens with the project. And you follow up with a client a month later and they haven’t done anything with it. I didn’t like that. I don’t want that. So we focus on not just the what, but the so what, the now what, and putting it into action. And helping- and then what I see is the opportunity. And what we’re seeing in the industry with the growth of consulting really happening is helping our clients bridge from the research share-out to getting it into the workstreams.

[00:25:44]

Jamin Brazil: The impact of research is something that I think a lot of researchers are coming to terms with. The degree of impact that takes place that has a direct relationship- correlation, is that-? Maybe it isn’t a correlation, it’s causation, of additional work. So the more impact that your research has inside of a business and the better the relationship, the more you’ve really helped that person’s career and the more opportunities that you’re gonna have downstream.

[00:26:10]

Rob Volpe: Absolutely. When I started the company, I recognized that clients didn’t have the time to think. And technology was enabling clients to do more and more and more projects concurrently, simultaneously, and they were losing all their thinking time. So if we could at least come to them with some thoughts on here’s what we think you should do with this, and be that consulting partner, it may not ultimately be the thing they decide to do, but it’s easier. From a cognitive load perspective, I believe it’s easier to respond and react to something than to have to rev up the engine to create original thoughts. So if we can help the clients by giving them things to react to and then they’re able to build on it, whether that’s a totally different direction or they’re going yes, but, or yes, and it’s helping them do their job. And then that makes them look better, do better in the organization, have impact themselves, and ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to do.

[00:27:12]

Jamin Brazil: Yes, and, I have heard that so much. It’s an improv approach, right?

[00:27:18]

Rob Volpe: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:18]

Jamin Brazil: And I don’t know what it is, like my karmic directive for the last- I’m gonna say four weeks, at least once every two days, I hear somebody make that reference.

[00:27:30]

Rob Volpe: That’s really interesting, there’s something there.

[00:27:36]

Jamin Brazil: My last question, what is your personal motto?

[00:27:39]

Rob Volpe: I think I connect very strongly with- in the Enneagram, for anybody that follows that personality typing, I am a seven, which is the adventurer, the explorer, the discoverer. And Auntie Mame is like a movie and stage and literary character that is the epitome of an Enneagram seven. And she has a motto that says, you’ve got to live. Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death. So that’s my motto, is to live, to do the things that you want to do. Life is too short, don’t starve yourself.

[00:28:19]

Jamin Brazil: We have been joined today by Rob, author, speaker, CEO, Chief Catalyst, and empathy activist at Ignite 360. Rob, thank you so much.

[00:28:28]

Rob Volpe: Jamin, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

[00:28:31]

Jamin Brazil: Everyone else, I will include a link to his book, as well as The Wolf of Wall Street‘s sell me a pen excerpt on YouTube and his company. I hope you’ll check all three out.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 554 – Getting to Know the Metaverse with Vera Chien, Executive Director of Global Research, Insights, & Analytics at Warner Media

This episode is in collaboration with MRMW North America 2022.


Today I’m joined by Vera Chien, Executive Director of Global Research, Insights, & Analytics at Warner Media. 

Warner Brothers Discovery was founded nearly 100 years ago. Annual revenues are estimated at $36B with 26,000 employees globally. Some of their brands include Adult Swim, AT&T, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CNN, HBO, and Hanna-Barbera to name just a few. 

Prior to joining Warner Media, Vera served as a senior insights leader at Mattel, Del Monte, and Microsoft. 

MRMW North America 2022: 

Find Vera Online:  

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

If you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their 3-course certificates: Insights Design or Insights Analysis. 

In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build toward your graduation.

If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s programs at: broad.msu.edu/marketing.

HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. 

For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com


[00:00:00]
Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody, this is Jamin, you’re listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. I am joined today by Vera Chien, executive director of global research insights and analytics at Warner Media. Actually, name change, Warner Bros. Discovery. Warner Bros. Discovery was founded nearly a 100 years ago, annual revenues are estimated at 36 billion dollars with 26,000 employees globally. Some of their brands include Adult Swim, AT&T, Bloomberg, Cartoon Network, CNN, HBO and my favorite, Hanna-Barbera, just to name a few. Prior to joining Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s going to take me a while to get right, Vera served as a senior insights lead at Mattel, Del Monte and Microsoft. This podcast is being done in conjunction with MRMW’s North American event in Atlanta on June 15th and 16th. Now every year, MRMW brings together forward thinking clients, innovative agencies and technology disruptors to discuss the latest trends and innovations that are driving our industry forward, that is consumer insights. The theme for this year is inspiration, innovation and insights. As in past years, I will be chairing the entire event and I really hope to see you there. Vera, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:13]
Vera Chien: Thanks so much for having me.

[00:01:17]
Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats, full-time on campus, full-time online and part-time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications, insights design or insights analysis. In addition to the certification, all of the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s program at broad. msu. edu/marketing. Again, broad. msu. edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com. You are opening the conference as the Keynote speaker and your talk is titled Meet the Metaverse, Is It Hype or Hope? What can attendees expect to learn from your talk?

[00:02:35]
Vera Chien: Sure, I’ll be starting off with an overview of what it is, and what it is not, which we’ve been finding very useful in helping people understand sort of the concept around the metaverse. We’ll also take a look at what the current landscape looks like, who are some of the key players and really use that as a way to illuminate the on-ramps or partnerships possible for attendees and their lines of businesses. Then our – articulate what it all means and why the metaverse matters, really what we think is one of the most important takeaways of the presentation and we’ll just cap things off with some internal insights around consumer needs around this space and other opportunities to provide some food for thought. At the end of the day, I hope that what we can do with our presentation is lead those themes you just talk about in – not only inform the audience about what the metaverse is, but really to inspire experimentation in this space regardless of your function or the vertical or category you work in.

[00:03:38]
Jamin Brazil: We’ve seen explosive growth in the metaverse category and I’m not sure if I’m even referencing it exactly correct, but NFTs of course have just blown up over the last 24 months through COVID.

[00:03:52]
Vera Chien: Yes.

[00:03:53]
Jamin Brazil: And it’s interesting because it’s something that’s existed in our ecosystem for decades, right? Video games of course being really that – where you see non-fungible tokens, Fortnite being one of the most popular where you buy skins and that’s sort of your asset if you will.

[00:04:09]
Vera Chien: Yes, absolutely, I think NFTs, open world games like Fortnite, like Roblox that you’ve already mentioned, all of these are viewed as precursors of the future metaverse. They already encompass some of the key elements that are going to be necessary for the metaverse and so to your point, we’ve already had a couple of decades of this under our belts, if you will, and especially with younger generations.

[00:04:35]
Jamin Brazil: Yes, gen Z and highly likely gen alpha are making stronger connections to brand in a digital framework than in a traditional framework, which is super interesting and it’s funny because, I’m a gen Xer and I went through the whole dot com craze. It feels very much like the – and I was in – lived in Palo Alto through that, through the 90s and then left in 20 – right after the crash, but it feels very much like that, not in a way of – I guess in a way of hype, but also it’s the Wild Wild West, we don’t know exactly where it’s going to go, but it’s going to be really big.

[00:05:07]
Vera Chien: Yes, absolutely, and I think that’s a really interesting way to think about it, because around that time, we were starting to move into what I think some people refer to as internet 2.0 and we are now crossing a similar point in time where we are potentially embarking on the next version of the web, which is why some people are calling this web 3. The metaverse, NFTs and other kind of decentralized kind of platforms.

[00:05:36]
Jamin Brazil: So just to be clear, when you say metaverse, does it require a VR headset?

[00:05:43]
Vera Chien: I think in the short term, it probably will require something to – whether wear on your head or something to – a modality you need to kind of ‘look’ into and kind of immerse one self’s into this virtual idea, in the kinds of ways that thought leaders are thinking about the metaverse. I think in the long term, these kind of clunky looking devices right now will and should eventually get slimmed down, maybe thinner, may feel and seem more like regular glasses due to developments in 5G, and edge computing and other technologies that will hopefully usher in kind of more inconspicuous devices. But yes, I think in the short term, there will be some kind of virtual reality component to it, and – as a way to experience the metaverse.

[00:06:37]
Jamin Brazil: Not to be too nerdy, but is it –

[00:06:40]
Vera Chien: No, nerd out, for sure.

[00:06:42]
Jamin Brazil: Are we thinking augmented reality is part of this here, or is it full immersion?

[00:06:48]
Vera Chien: Yes, it’s believed that metaverse will be able to encompass all – a whole range of experiences, all the way from completely occluded experiences like the one you’re talking about with VR, to more hybrid experiences that might encompass parts of your everyday real life, including augmented reality. And so it’s viewed that the metaverse will be able to operate across a spectrum, ranging from AR to more mixed reality, somewhere in the middle, to – all the way to the far end of true, complete virtual reality.

[00:07:23]
Jamin Brazil: What’s interesting about, and I’ll pick on NFTs again, is some of the NFTs are connecting to the physical environments, aren’t they? You can buy a Gucci handbag for example as an NFT, and then that might come with an actual Gucci handbag in real life. And so now you’ve got this crossover experience. Brands, to your point, we don’t exactly know what the right thing is, but what is interesting about the evolution of NFTs is they become more and more community centric. Bored Ape Yacht Club for example is really a good case study I think, where you’ve – just to be able to buy other NFTs, sometimes you have to have – you’ll get preferential treatment or A-listed if you have one of those blue chip NFTs in your portfolio. And so it feels like, to your point, about brands need to be experimenting because the metaverse is definitionally about community, is your talk going to cover some ways that we should be thinking about experimenting?


[00:08:19]
Vera Chien: Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of the research, because of this hype you’ve been talking about around the metaverse as well as NFTs, one of the things we wanted to do with our kind of workstream that – and research around this space is to be additive to this, and the one way we thought would be most additive is to really start understanding what consumers, not only if they’ve heard of it and what they think about it, but really taking it a step further and understanding, what are some of their needs? What are some of the pain – potential things they’re concerned or the things they’re excited about? So we really dug deep into that area of understanding kind of just what consumers are most interested in and we will definitely be sharing a bit of that in our presentation.

[00:09:07]
Jamin Brazil: That’s going to be fun. I have a biweekly blog post on gen Z, and there’s a growing body of research that supports the connection between social media time, or time on social media, and mental illness. What lessons learned from social will help inform our individual behaviors as it relates to the metaverse, if any?

[00:09:32]
Vera Chien: Yes, that is such a great question and such an important one. We do know that especially – we ourselves doing research with younger audiences like gen Z, gen alpha and even it affects other – consumers in other age generations as well, but such an important question where we really do need the best mental health experts, thinkers, policy makers and industry players to really help shape and advocate on behalf of every day consumers like you and I. I think as individuals, we now have had over 15 years of social media under our belts, as a society, and because of this research and this body of research you’re referencing, why not leverage all that we know about the negatives of social media, as well as the positives and carry that forth into this next version of the internet, the metaverse. I think that comes from, as individuals, being aware of UI, kind of designs or mechanics that unfortunately foster potentially addiction, anxiety, depression from users and trying to combat that by self-care, self-reflection, moderate one’s usage and of course, more specific tactical tools around limiting time on these platforms. Thinking – putting another cap on for myself, as sort of representative of our respective industries, whether it’s research or technology or entertainment in my case, I think we do need to play an active part in advocating for healthier user experiences, whether that’s applying more user centered design principles in UI, in user interface, potentially greater moderation of conversations and activities that are happening on platforms and in future platforms, perhaps even thinking about alternative business models, perhaps one that are not as advertising based. Just variety of ways I think we can as individuals and as spokespeople potentially of our respective industries, just learn from what has happened in the past, learn from the 15 years of our experience with social media and helping make the future space better, more inclusive, more safe and with greater levels of privacy.

[00:12:03]
Jamin Brazil: And I would say that I think social company – and companies in general, entertainment based companies in general are thinking about that, at least in the ones that – the people that I’m talking to, right? And some of the lessons learned that we could even reference is tobacco, which obviously as we know, very negative from a health perspective, but can have a very addictive property to it, even targeting younger generations, but I think because we have that backdrop, we’re a lot smarter today as it relates with how we design our systems and our economic models, which I’m optimistic that we will continue to leverage.

[00:12:36]
Vera Chien: Yes, one thing I do want to just at least mention or perhaps clarify, the metaverse, while it certainly will be a highly social place, it is not going to be just about social media, and it’s really believed to go quite a bit beyond that in being this sort of ‘next version’ of the internet, which will have some obviously social elements to it, if we sort of project the current internet and then past iterations of the internet forward into this next version, certainly there’s going to be a mixture of positive elements to it, hopefully, as well as negative elements as we’ve just been talking about. But I am cautiously optimistic, like you said, that we can take what we’ve learned in the past and really apply it forward, in making the future kind of version as good as it can be.

[00:13:24]
Jamin Brazil: I love that, and absolutely right. I think that’s a really important point that you’re making, which is in some ways, it is apples to oranges from a comparative perspective. My last question, what is your personal motto?

[00:13:34]
Vera Chien: My personal motto is a little bit simple, it is to be agnostic about sources of data or information. And what I mean by that is, as a tried and true researcher, I’ve certainly been in the world of primary research, whether that’s qualitative or quantitative, and certainly data from those sources are fantastic and certainly my bread and butter, but beyond that, looking at syndicated data, syndicated reports and then even beyond that, around social media. There are so many learnings we can get around consumer attitudes and impressions from that kind of source, service, usage data for example, for us, HBO Max, or even device telemetry, so for me, that was looking at people’s usage of the Xbox console. Really it – data and information can come from any place, and perhaps even places where you least expected, and so I encourage everyone to be thinking about information in kind of a more agnostic way.

[00:14:41]
Jamin Brazil: Super, super insightful and exactly right, I think that’s probably one of the best things that’s happening to us as an industry right now is our access to non-primary research has never been greater, and to that end, it’s important for us to think outside of our normal ways of, maybe just do a survey or some one on ones, and how we can create more context through leveraging alternative data sources.

[00:15:06]
Vera Chien: Yes, absolutely.

[00:15:06]
Jamin Brazil: Our guest today has been Vera Chien, executive director of global research insights and analytics at Warner Bros. Discovery. Vera, thank you for joining me on the Happy Market Research Podcast.

[00:15:16]
Vera Chien: All righty, thanks so much.

[00:15:17]
Jamin Brazil: Everybody else, I hope you found some value, I would love it if you would join me at MRMW this year in Atlanta, on June 15th and 16th. Have a great rest of your day.

Happy MR Podcast Podcast Series

Ep. 553 – Understanding how to Leverage Ecosystems in Your Research with Vidyotham Reddi, Director of Growth Analytics & Market Intelligence at Mars

This episode is in collaboration with MRMW North America 2022.


Today I’m joined by Vidyotham Reddi, Director of Growth Analytics & Market Intelligence at Mars. 

Mars is an American family-owned multinational manufacturer of some of the world’s most iconic products including M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, ORBIT®, EXTRA®, and Skittles. 

Prior to joining Mars, Vidyotham served as an insights leader at AT&T, Nielsen, and General Mills.

MRMW North America 2022: 

Find Vidyotham Online:  

Find Jamin Online:

Find Us Online: 

Music: 

This Episode is Sponsored by:

The Michigan State University’s Master of Science in Marketing Research Program delivers the #1 ranked insights and analytics graduate degree in three formats: 

  • Full-time on campus 
  • Full-time online 
  • Part-time online

NEW FOR 2022: 

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[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody, I’m Jamin, host of the Happy Market Research Podcast, today we are joined Vidyotham Reddi, director of global analytics and market intelligence at Mars. Mars is an American family owned multinational manufacturer of the some world’s most iconic products, also some of my favorites, including M&Ms, Snickers, Orbits, Extra and Skittles. Prior to joining Mars, Vidyotham served as an insights lead at AT&T, Nielsen and General Mills. This podcast is being done in conjunction with MRMW’s North American event in Atlanta, which is being held on June 15th and 16th. Every year, MRMW brings together forward thinking clients, innovative agencies and technology disruptors to discuss the latest trends and innovations that are driving our industry forward. The theme of this year’s event is inspiration, innovation, and insights. As in past years, I’ll be chairing the entire event and I hope to see you there. It would be great to get some face time and maybe even some cocktails. Vidyotham, welcome to the Happy Market Research Podcast.

[00:01:02]
Vidyotham Reddi: Hey, thanks, thanks Jamin, really appreciate it, glad to be here.

[00:01:06]
Jamin Brazil: The Michigan State University’s Master of Science and Marketing Research Program delivers the number one ranked insights and analytics degree in three formats, full-time on campus, full-time online and part-time online. New for 2022, if you can’t commit to their full degree program, simply begin with one of their three course certifications, insights design, or insights analysis. In addition to the certification, all the courses you complete will build towards your graduation. If you are looking to achieve your full potential, check out MSMU’s program at broad. msu. edu/marketing. Again, broad. msu. edu/marketing. HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free, if you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit HubUX.com. It’s an honor to have you on, you and I were able to touch base briefly in Philadelphia, I am super excited about being able to attend your talk. The title of your talk in Atlanta is Observational Research and Action, A/B Testing as the Gold Standard of Learning. What can attendees expect to learn from your talk?

[00:02:32]

Vidyotham Reddi: I think the title pretty much gives it away, right Jamin? We were looking for the right words and make it really kind of sexy if you may, but eventually settled on kind of spelling out what the talk was going to be about it. Really I think what attendees should expect to learn from the talk is, an understanding of how to leverage ecosystems, especially ecosystems where you can tie first party data with kind of sales data. The whole idea here is that as consumers observe content, then how we can observe them in how that content influences their purchase decisions, right? That’s the whole idea here, and it’s kind of the gold standard of market research pretty much, if you think of the old school way of doing it, right? You would observe behavioral research was where the money was at, and this is actually takes it to the next level. I think what attendees can expect to learn is how that still is super important, is at the core of robust learning and understanding consumer behavior, and probably more importantly, how we at Mars have actually leveraged it, pretty effectively in one of our key markets.

[00:03:36]
Jamin Brazil: It’s interesting that you’re drawing that connection to sort of the origin of market research, ethnography of course being a cornerstone discipline in consumer insights, even today, and one of the things that digital enables is ethnography at scale, which is quite literally unprecedented. Of course, the problem with that is that observational data is not well formed, which means that it’s hard for an insights professional to be able to take it, structure it in a way that can be analyzed, and then turn it into something that is connected to the self-reported data.

[00:04:11]
Vidyotham Reddi: Yes.

[00:04:12]
Jamin Brazil: My question is, how do you solve that problem?

[00:04:15]
Vidyotham Reddi: When you think of the challenges facing us when we got into the whole digital space, and you’ve defined all of them, right? It’s the whole kind of questions around the integrity, or the sanitization if you may of the information that we’re looking at. Now one thing I’ll tell you about the digital age is that the amount of information we have is amazing, the kind of information, the granularity, the quality of it if you may, but the other thing also I think is that just because it’s digital, doesn’t mean that all of it is useful, you know what I mean? So like in the old days, we would not look at any data, we would look at specific things that really we thought had the significant signals in them. I think those principles still apply in the digital world. If you kind of keep that principle in place, I do think you can actually overcome some of those challenges. Here’s the thing though, in the digital age, the amount of information you can collect is unprecedented, and it’s unlimited, but just because you can, doesn’t mean you should, right? So if you go in with an a priori mindset or if your philosophy is that, hey, I’m going to go in and I’m going to go in with a hypothesis mindset, that I have some theories as to why A is happening, and I have some theories as to why B is happening, if that remains your fundamental construct, I think that’s what protects you. I don’t know if that answers your question specifically, but that’s what – that’s how I’ve done it and that’s how I coach leaders do it, and pretty much that’s how we recommend things to happen at Mars as well.

[00:05:40]
Jamin Brazil: If I understand the framework, it’s basically be hypothesis oriented, in other words, enter your research with a very clear hypothesis of what your belief is and then – and your test strategy against that, and then taking it to the next step, it’s almost like you’re writing the report ahead of time, which then informs what questions you need to make sure that you’re answering, which gives you obviously the data points needed.

[00:06:04]
Vidyotham Reddi: Right, right, now I know this probably makes a lot of people squirm, especially in kind of today’s popular press if you may, like my god, what do you mean? I have to go in with a – like write the deck first, right? Which you just said. Here’s the thing though, you don’t give that job of writing the deck first to anybody, right? You give it to the subject matter experts, you know what I mean? People who have honed their craft, who have sharpened their craft in the space and those who really truly understand consumer behavior, the insides and the outsides of it, they can absolutely go in, rest assured, with the task of writing the deck. This is what a good analyst does, right? A good analyst basically says, hey, based on the information I have, here’s what I think is going to happen, but they don’t just then put that position out there and exit, they stay with the question, they stay with the answer to say, was my prediction or was my forecast correct? And if it was correct, great, let’s do more of it. It wasn’t, then a great analyst would say, what was the gap? Why did that gap happen and can we learn from it? So you still have to go through that process, you know what I mean?

[00:07:06]
Jamin Brazil: Yes.

[00:07:07]
Vidyotham Reddi: And that process would still be the same no matter what the data source is, but yes, I think writing the deck, as long as the people who are writing the deck or who are tasked with writing the deck come from deep experience and expertise, then you’re comfortable writing the deck before you actually go in and commission research. It’s almost like going out there and boiling the ocean, right? Because you can’t, and the idea is that you don’t go and boil the ocean, you basically start in a general space, an area that you think you have chances of more success, right? That’s the whole idea, right, correct? It’s the same thing here as well. Just because you have larger machines and faster machines, guess what? The data conundrum has actually geometrically exploded, that it doesn’t matter how much computing power you have. If you don’t have a hypothesis mindset, you’ll drown in it eventually.

[00:07:53]
Jamin Brazil: There’s another benefit that recently surfaced for me in doing things the way that you described which is, a stakeholder involvement along the whole research process, so the old method, how we used to do it, we would maybe have a business question and then the researchers would do all the research and they’d present that to the business stakeholders, but now in this new model, by writing the report up before you’ve actually done the research, you’re having to involve the stakeholders in that whole hypothesis creation process, which can create a shortcut to connecting that insight to the stakeholder.

[00:08:27]
Vidyotham Reddi: Yes, totally, so I think – yes, absolutely right, and if you really think about it, there’s really no news here, right? This is how it used to be done in the good old days, right? You had to have your stakeholders almost attached at your hip to be able to make progress and give good, actionable insights to the organization. Here’s another thing to watch out for, I completely understand and buy into the philosophy of saying, there are some of those patterns that you wouldn’t have seen and observed, so you need to almost have an objective eye looking at the information to pop to the top, what are potential patterns that you wouldn’t have necessarily seen if you didn’t go through those processes, right? For it gives you, whether it’s due to biases, due to not having the full information, I totally buy into that philosophy, but even when those first ideas are kind of popping up or if you let a system to identify the patterns and pop them up, I would still say that you have to have a hypothesis before you start going and looking at those patterns, because then you can get inundated by the patterns themselves and really have no way of understanding if that pattern will frankly drive my top line or not, does that make sense, what I’m saying?

[00:09:38]
Jamin Brazil: Yes.

[00:09:39]
Vidyotham Reddi: So media creation for example, automating effective media is all the rage these days, I’m sure you’ve heard about this too, right? That we are dreaming the big dreams of the day when we create effective content without humans being involved, right? That’s the promised land, and I think it’s a great vision and ambition to have, I think it’s fantastic, but I honestly think that you can look at effective media creation, and you can have a million pieces of copy, right? But if you didn’t understand which pieces of copy actually are driving your penetration, and which pieces of copy are driving your buy rates, I would say you’d waste a lot of time throwing effective – ‘effective’ content out there, unless you actually establish that hypothesis up front, does that make sense?

[00:10:22]

Jamin Brazil: Yes, that’s super interesting, and it’s funny because in a lot of ways, at least what I’m kind of taking away is, there’s a qualitative assessment that’s taking place along with the quantitative view inside of the data.

[00:10:34]
Vidyotham Reddi: That’s right, that’s right, and I think both those are inseparable to be honest, I don’t know how you could get to any insight by somehow saying that the behavioral is all you need to look at. You need to understand why the behaviors are happening, right? It’s the antecedence, and this is not new news. This is something that our colleagues in the education sector have been using for decades. It’s like, what are the antecedent behaviors? And unless you understand the antecedence, you can never understand how to influence the behavior.

[00:11:01]
Jamin Brazil: I have one last question for you –

[00:11:02]
Vidyotham Reddi: Sure.

[00:11:03]
Jamin Brazil: What is your personal motto?

[00:11:07]
Vidyotham Reddi: So my personal motto is curiosity, I’ve lived by it, I’ve grown by it, I’ve observed people around me who have been super successful at what they do, demonstrate it and role model it, and I believe that curiosity is the bedrock of leadership and growth.

[00:11:20]
Jamin Brazil: Vidyotham, it has been an honor having you on the podcast. Thank you for joining me on the Happy Market Research Podcast today.

[00:11:23]
Vidyotham Reddi: Thank you very much.

[00:11:26]
Jamin Brazil: Everybody else, I hope you found some value here and I also hope you will join both of us at this year’s MRMW event in Atlanta on June 15th and 16th. Have a great rest of your day.