10 things I learned at the Atlanta ESOMAR Congress

– by Cam Davis, Canadian ESOMAR rep

1. ESOMAR held its 2^nd congress outside of Europe. (Montreal was first) Not too surprisingly, the country with the most members is now from the US.
2. In the latest 2012 ESOMAR Global Market Research 2012 report issued at the Atlanta Congress, US’s MR net growth was 2.1% (1011/1010) while Canada retracted 3.1%. If the US continues to experience even slower growth in 2012 as it now is doing, Canada should do even worse according to this trend. 2013 watch out!
3. The best discussions at the congress were unscripted panel discussions. Off the cuff remarks and “whoops I should not have said these comments” made for a lively discussion. The “Tell the Truth and Nothing but the Truth” award goes to Kees de Jong of SSI.
4. There was a great discussion of whether larger companies are acquiring innovation or fostering it in a larger organization. Or does most innovation primarily come from smaller organizations? The debate was fascinating and came to a draw. There are 60 M&A a year in the MR industry.
5. The three young Researcher Finalists were excellent. In fact they were were outstanding. Shame their papers were not included in the final conference papers.
6. The boundaries of MR are changing. If we include business intelligence, then, according to Outsell, we should add 14 billion to the traditional MR industry of 26.7 billion. Worldwide business intelligence is growing about 8% and traditional market research is increasing .4% (that’s decimal 4)
7. Traditional MR probably will see a steady decline over the next 5 years according to Lenny Murphy. Goodbye focus groups and surveys! Welcome neuroscience, heatmapping, gamification, behavioural economics,etc.
8. Bazaarvoice is a good example of the future where all information will be integrated. This company will test privacy to the utmost. Maybe that will be the difference between MR companies and business analytical companies. Bazaarvoice will present at NetGain7 in Toronto on Jan 31.
9. I was shocked at the incredible power of Google Consumer Surveys that was demonstrated in a light hearted presentation. Don’t think in terms of 1 or 2 questions. Paul McDonald of Google built and tested a new product with consumers using many iterations within 24 hrs and under $2500. Is this the future?
10. Wendy Clark of Coca Cola said that their most important partner outside of marketing was IT not MR when it comes to utilizing Big Data.

Atlanta Congress papers

If anyone wants a copy of a paper given at the ESOMAR congress, please get in touch with me.

Here is the best paper which won an award at ESOMAR.  “Research in a World without Questions”

Here are some blogs about the congress.

• Lenny Murphy
• Research Live
• Pravin Shekhar
• Consensus Point

I want to welcome Roland  Klassen of Cido Research in volunteering as the the new Canadian co-representative of ESOMAR. If you have any suggestions for speakers for ESOMAR breakfasts, please let us know. We’re thinking of an event in the late fall and one in the spring. One for Toronto and one for Vancouver.

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