Entries Written By Alistair Vince
Lifting carpets, twitching curtains – comparing the merits of different video MRX approaches
There are 2 levels of video research. The brush-the-surface vox pop. And the lift-the-carpet, twitch-the-net-curtains, back-of-the-cupboard discovery pieces.
Guess what is now polling 3rd in the US Presidential race…
I went to the MRS Impact 2016 event last week in London. I hadn’t been before so didn’t know what to expect – I admit to a little bit of skepticism before I walked through the doors on Tuesday morning. The below is a summary of some key findings/thoughts as well as some things I learnt which I will be bringing into the organization.
Those pesky Discounters…
They won’t go away it seems. So for the latest of our shopper film series we wanted to find out more about them now.
2016 – the dawn of a golden age of mobile video? I thought that was 2015?
Everyone talks about how consumers are going to consume video on their phone – but don’t get fed this, source it. Use it. Make this “era of mobile video” work for you.
4 problems you can easily avoid when conducting consumer video research
We thought we’d spend a few minutes explaining how you can save hours, maybe days, when using video insights. For sure, there’s more than just 4, but these are the ones we hear all the time…
How “Barn”-storming changed the way we work
We’ve just come back from our first ever global team retreat. Yes we climbed trees. Yes we built rafts. Yes we had fun. It was a brilliant few days in an old converted Barn.
Finding wonder in the ordinary
When remembering John Webster (creative director, BMP), Dave Trott tells us how John looked to answer the question what are real people doing? to come up with ideas/insights for adverts that then went on to win major advertising awards.
Defending a decision by pretending you didn’t make it
Rory Sutherland said this week that there have always been 2 roles for market research – one is looking for real consumer insight and the other is ‘arse covering’ or to put it another way, ‘a way of defending a decision by pretending you didn’t make it’.
Student (FMCG) Packaging Designer of the Year
I’m extremely proud to today launch Watch Me Think’s (first) Student Packaging Designer of the Year competition, where students in the UK can submit redesigns of FMCG products across 5 different categories (getting older, one-handed, sustainability, waste, the future).
Payment terms – why we’re bucking the trend
This weekend saw more headlines about payment terms given by the big fmcg companies, all of whom happen to be our clients.
Whether it be Premier Foods and their alleged ‘cash for contracts’ demands, 2 Sisters Food Group with their alleged 3% discount requirements for paying within 90 days or Heinz allegedly telling their suppliers that their payment terms have moved from 45 days to up to 97 (none of which, it’s worth noting, we’ve experienced).
The stories don’t mention the majority who pay promptly within 30 or 45 days.