In the 30 market research predictions some professionals have done for 2019 (in a large article published in the GreenBook blog), innovation is a common denominator. According to them, technology companies will continue to steal market share from traditional research agencies; there will be a boom in the demand for consumer insights since the market demands a more holistic view of the consumer; social listening, AI and big data will continue to be important forces that the client-side world will continue to grapple with.
The barriers among the research industry and the analytic industry will start to fall away this year, in the opinion of Karina Besprosvan, DataStoryteller, Insight & Innovation/Consumer Behavior at Sony Pictures Entertainment. "We will smoothly become one bigger and modern industry, giving us the advantage of melting the best of both worlds".
"The most forward-looking brands and agencies have shaken off doubts about the use of social data for market research, and old beliefs that online audiences can be monolithic”, says Davide Berretta, VP of marketing at Pulsar, the audience intelligence tool and strategy consultancy. According to Berretta, “Today they're applying sophisticated tools, artificial intelligence, and the best research methods to social conversation data in order to surface new user behaviors, language and feedback, and then personalizing their marketing around key audience segments".
The best positioned players in the sector
At Audiense we have worked closely with some of the big companies and agencies in this industry, so we wanted to add depth to who they really are, who influences them, the most relevant organizations, what moves them…
We identified a social audience composed of people, institutions and agencies that include #MRX, "market research" or "market researcher" in their biography. By analyzing these profiles with our Audience Intelligence report, we were able to identify six main segments, among which there is only one that represents one of the 10 largest market research companies in the world: Kantar.
- Market Research core community
- Digital Marketing
- DJS Research community
- Market Research in Spanish
- Euromonitor community
- Kantar/WPP community
This gif gives us hints of the interconnection between the segments: the Kantar/WPP community, for example, is not followed by any group although it does follow the segments of Digital Marketing and Euromonitor. The core audience of MR on the other hand is followed by all the other segments, however it seems to be somewhat disconnected from them, following only members of the Digital Marketing group.
We have found some interesting findings:
- 31.9% of the audience is from the US, while 24.7% is from the UK, followed by France (4.5%), Canada (4.3%) and India (4%).
- Euromonitor (with 15 offices in different continents) has a strong base of brand ambassadors with great social activity, such as its Head of Retailing, Michelle Grant, and the Head of Digital Consumer Research, Michelle Evans.
- The Market Research in Spanish segment - Spain (37%) and Mexico (33%) as top countries - also has its most unique members, such as the co-founder of the GreenBook in Latin America, AMAI Mexico (industry association) or the founder of Consumer Truth, a Peruvian agency.
- Comparing the Kantar/WPP segment with the total audience we find relevant influencers for that group that have been quite interesting to us, such as Will Galgey, CEO Kantar's Insights division in U.K. & Ireland, and Kunal Pattany, Digital Marketing Manager in Kantar TNS.
- The Digital Marketing segment has its most unique members, such as Jeff Barrett (Adobe consultant), John Hall (co-founder of Influence & Co.) or Nathan Jokers (Social Media Director at VMLY&R Chicago).
- DJS Research (English family agency) emerges in our reports thanks to the more than 30 thematic corporate accounts it has.
The core Market Research community
The main community of Market Research represents almost 50% of the audience that we are dealing with today, so we decided to investigate this segment a little more to discover that among other things:
- There is a subsegment closely linked to innovation and at the same time to the French group Ipsos. The Customer Experience accounts and that of France of the multinational are among the most unique for that group, as well as professionals/consultants in innovation.
- 30% of this subsegment is from France, followed by the US (23%) and UK (12%).
- Of Belgian origin but with offices on four continents, InSites consulting has also an exclusive subsegment within the core segment of MR.
- Similar to the Euromonitor group of our initial audience, the InSites subsegment has workers who are very active brand ambassadors in social, starting with its CEO, Kristof De Wulf.
The Market Research influencers
Using the Audience Influencers Report we have been able to find almost 20,000 influencers for the Market Research audience in question. When analyzing our data we have discovered that there are some common profiles that influence both the main audience and its segments and subsegments.
In general, the Insights Association, ESOMAR and Research Live are the top reference organizations in the sector. On the other hand, Dr. Annie, Ray Poynter and Leonard Murphy are among the most influential professionals.
TOP influencers for the MR audience
- Research Live
- ESOMAR
- Insights Association
- Dr. Annie
- Ray Poynter
- GreenBook
- Market Research Society (MRS)
- Quirk's Media
- Leonard Murphy
- Kathryn Korostoff
As we have said some profiles are repeated if we look at the influencers for the segments, but more relevant and unique influencers emerge for each group compared to the total audience. For example:
Top influencers for the Kantar/WPP segment
Top influencers for the Euromonitor segment
Top influencers for the Ipsos (Innovation) subsegment
If you want to identify the best influencers for your brand, try Audiense Insights. Request your demo NOW and discover who they are!
Pic by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash.
