BIG Conference 2003

Innovation and Challenge -
Myths and Realities in B2B Research

Click on shortcuts to jump to sections:
1. Adding Value & Customer Insight
2. PR & Advertising in B2B
3. Challenging Conventions
4. B2B Research & Corporate Reputation
5. Exploring Technology

Adding Value & Customer Insight

The first session of the BIG Conference was given a flying start by our keynote speaker on Thursday, Chris Arnold. The session, chaired by Frances Hoskin was entitled "Adding Value and Customer Insight" addressing a theme which is very much to the fore for clients and agencies alike at present - for clients in terms of maintaining the relevance of research to today's marketers, and for agencies in terms of providing differentiation in a crowded market and being able to provide the wider client base with what they need.

Chris, formerly creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi and now leader of a "new generation" ad agency, "Feel", talked about creativity and its importance in today's creative economy. Although not always good news for us as researchers, we took to heart his message that it is important sometimes for business leaders to follow gut instinct and intuition. His imaginative and lively talk was followed by two thought provoking papers, the first from Sharon Dimoldenburg (NOP World) and Paul Heikel (KPMG) and the second from Trevor Wilkinson of The Purple Business Ltd.

Sharon and Paul argued the case for broadening perspectives in the way we do research (what role does research play in wider business decisions and where does it "fit" with other data coming in from alternative sources). Trevor's paper "Tunnel Vision - why B2B researchers are missing a golden opportunity to add value" picked out some of the main ways we can help our clients. In all, the three papers gave a resounding start to the conference and we hope to pick up some of the issues raised (how to use creativity to advantage in our research approach, how to think with more latitude about the part research plays in business decisions and how to add value) in the conference next year as the issues raised were evidently extremely topical and of interest to all."

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PR & Advertising in B2B

Julian Green (IQ Research) kicked off proceedings in the day’s second session with a paper entitled working with consultants to provide business answers. The premise of Julian’s paper was to demonstrate that in tackling B2B research we should be cognisant of the need of businesses for research that gives answers, not just opinions.

Julian’s cogently argued theme was that in B2B research we cannot risk becoming a commodities tool in the marketing armoury. Given the complexity of most industrial clients we need to move towards conducting research where we are not fearful of collaboration with other external consultancies, strategists and influencers who can add extra depth and a business acumen to what we do. Moreover, we should not rely on the traditional ‘qual/quant’ approaches, which, in the content of many commercial and industrial markets, reveal little insight.

Whilst B2B and B2C research show many commonalities, Julian highlighted the fact that fundamental differences do exist. Consumer research he believes is rarely life changing for the companies who commission it, whereas, in industrial research, it frequently is.

Julian posited 5 scenarios in B2B research which often trigger the needed for an external input; Quick Wins; Supply Chain Mapping; Blue Sky; New Owner New Brand; and Selling Systems, Not Products. In each scenario, Julian forcibly argued that the need is to be flexible both in how the research is conducted and who it is being conducted in conjunction with. In particular, he stressed the need to be rigorous and tenacious in making sure that the research involved bringing on board others professionals who can help inform decisions and make judgements and who don’t rely on a black box technique. He also reminded the audience that B2B research is an integral part of business strategy, not an intellectual pursuit.

Kate McGhee (BPRI Group) delivered a thought-provoking paper on the relationship between B2B advertising and its consumer counterpart. The basis of Kate’s paper was to dispel the myth that B2B advertising is the naturally inferior cousin of consumer advertising.

There were, she pointed out, a number of factors which fed people’s preconceptions of B2B advertising. Notably, that B2B advertising is rarely accorded the same size of budget or glamour as B2C communication, but, this did not mean that there was any less enthusiasm within the marketing community for B2B advertising. Rather, the B2B advertising industry and those who research it, have been slower to shout its praises and talk about the significant progress that has been made in making B2B campaigns which are innovative, daring and successful.

Whilst Kate acknowledged that the history of B2B advertising has had its fair share of stultifying campaigns she made the point that marketing a B2B brand is a more complex, dynamic and challenging task which demands more than the ‘clip on art’ executions which have traditionally been the forte of this sector. The task of communicating about complex, expensive products and solutions to difficult to reach audiences should bring out the best in agencies’ abilities to be both innovative and creative in the use of advertising budgets.

Kate concluded that B2B advertising research is not ‘languishing in the doldrums’. Conversely, there is much that B2B advertising research can contribute to the wider debate on the applicability and effectiveness of advertising research in general. In her view there is a need for B2B advertising researchers to be more forthright in challenging clients on the generic approaches in formulating B2B communications. And to help advertisers to realise that there is a better way to attain effective, high quality advertising without falling back on the pastiche, hackneyed approached of the past.

Rune Mortensen (i to i tracker) focussed on the issues confronting the industry in relation to measuring the effectiveness of PR, an area which to date has lagged significantly behind other forms of research measurement. Yet, in the changing economic climate clients are increasingly requiring proof that their PR spend is delivering for them, in the same way that their advertising does.

Moreover, the techniques of measurement traditionally employed are often subjective and unsophisticated. The ‘success’ of a PR campaign being more likely to be based on ‘column inches’ in the press regardless of what is reported and whether the key messages actually come out as intended. And, whilst the PR industry had introduced ‘Advertising Value Equivalents’ (AVEs) in the 1990s as a way of calculating how much PR coverage generated in column inches might cost in advertising terms, this method remains rudimentary though still widely used.

The key issue, Rune stated, is that the PR industry (and by implication the B2B research community) has been focussed to-date on measuring the ‘output’ of PR rather than how the PR itself may have changed people’s perceptions or patterns of behaviour. He used the ‘Pay me Direct’ campaign orchestrated by BACS and its PR agency, as a case study to demonstrate how research could be used to measure the effectiveness of the client’s PR campaign – the aim of which was to educate businesses about the benefits of using Direct Credit for B2B payments. As the campaign had no direct advertising support, this meant that the research had a good chance of measuring the effectiveness of the PR in relative isolation.

Utilising a combination of primary research and media planning tools over 3 phases, Rune explained how research was able to contribute initially in helping the client to understand the key issues (ie. that a large number of businesses were still using cash). This enabled the client to focus its efforts on getting the right message out and achieve reputable coverage in the press.

Rune believes that it is possible to research and evaluate PR successfully and, in so doing, demonstrate that it can be a good return on investment. Moreover, and in common with others, Rune was keen to persuade B2B researchers that they can ‘think outside the box’ to solve such complex issues and – it is in our interests to work more closely with other disciplines such as media planning in order to add value to the measurement of PR.

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Challenging Conventions

The session, chaired by Neil McPhee, comprised three papers focussing on the notion of challenge & change.

Tim Britton (IFF Research) began the afternoon’s session in lively form, with a paper jointly written with Jan Shury, challenging us to think again about whether the long proposed argument that B2B research was substantively different from B2C research was in fact based on anything more than Myth, and not Reality. Certainly he was able to trace the lineage of this argument back to the 1970’s, and his contention that there were actually a surprisingly large number of similarities, rather than dis-similarities, was a thought-provoking one, and one that deservedly gave us pause for thought. Exactly what the Conference theme was intended to do.

The paper was well presented, with Tim in energetic form, as he led us through a range of issues, covering

1. Sampling – in terms of population size, sampling frames and approaches taken
2. Unravelling and understanding decision making
3. Data collection skills
4. Analysis techniques

The change from mass marketing to a more targeted one has reduced the sampling “population” for many projects, Tim suggested, while the encompassing of the wider decision-making units influencing the household DMU has brought B2C and B2B units closer together in scale and complexity.

The interview “fallout” of a badly conducted B2B interview (upset respondent, upset Client etc) does outweigh the effect of an unhappy consumer respondent however so there were some differences here, but the usage of complex analysis procedures was less different, and was more a function of sample size rather than the difference in respondent types.

Tim’s conclusion was that the claimed differences were rather more in the breach rather than the observance, but equally importantly limited and undervalued our skills as researchers, and ran the risk of forcing younger entrants down one road or another, and ultimately was less than useful to clients for whom a wider focus was more beneficial.

Tim was followed on to the platform by Alan King (Research International) who presented us with a paper entitled “Thoughtpieces”. This is in essence the use of “thoughtpiece research” to raise the profile of the sponsoring company through encouraging debate and dialogue within an industry. The basic principle is to interview people (often opinion leaders and senior business executives) about their thoughts on a particular topic.

Alan made the point that such research typically had two stages, commencing with an exploratory element, in order to define and scope the topic area, and to tap into the experience of experts in the field, using either/both workshop sessions and/or qualitative research to feed the topic and project and questionnaire development.

Critical to success, Alan said, were the composition and management of the Workshop process, and key stakeholders, industry experts and communications specialists were just a few of those recommended for inclusion. Given that the objective of the thoughtpiece was to raise client profile, it was also vital for the subject matter to be focussed in terms of viewpoint, aligned to the client’s strategy and equally, controversial and unique.

The methodology was more often quantitative rather than qualitative and this was largely a matter of figures being seen as more reliable, credible and factual. Clearly the media needs more education!

The end product was required to be more professionally put together than a typical research report, having more in common with a journalistic article, and often it seems, this is exactly how it is prepared, using more sophisticated presentation skills, including:

• An eye-catching written report either sent to the target audience by email or post. It might also be posted on the sponsor company’s internet site to be downloaded
• Conference papers
• Press releases
• Individual client and potential client presentations

It is, Alan said, important that the dissemination of the results is controlled by the central group to ensure that a consistent message is being communicated.

An interesting usage of higher level communications skills here and a paper that should encourage us to think outside the rather narrow parameters of traditional research practice.

The final paper was to have been given by Phil Hearn (MRDC Ltd) but unfortunately for Phil, client commitments made his appearance impossible and with a week to go we were hugely grateful to Nicky Perrott (Illumination Business) for agreeing to step into the hot seat and run us through her views and predictions for Possibilities and Probabilities.

Nicky is well known to BIG audiences, and indeed to research audiences elsewhere, and as always her paper was thorough, almost too thorough, as she was still reducing her presentation from 80 slides down to around 40 at lunchtime before the session!

She gave a very interesting and well-received talk on how the industry might evolve over the next few years.

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B2B Research & Corporate Reputation

Those who didn’t get up in time on Friday morning for the keynote speaker, Professor Malcolm McDonald, from the Cranfield School of Management, missed a treat. He was most entertaining and thought-provoking in his talk ‘Corporate Reputation and Marketing Due Diligence’.

His theme was whether marketing investment created value for shareholders and the importance of aligning marketing activity with shareholder value objectives. He outlined how in his experience the wrong kind of information is fed back to company boards – the financial figures which are reported can hide the other more crucial data such as market share, or how many dissatisfied customers the company has and consequently there is often little understanding of the customer at board level. The key elements of world class marketing are a deep understanding of the market and creative segmentation of that market. Defining markets and understanding their value is vital for formulating marketing strategy – and of course is key to what B2B research is all about. And as he pointed out, investors value a company’s reputation even if accountants don’t.

Nigel Jacklin from Objective Research talked about the research his company had done for the Financial Times, focussing particularly on a couple of ‘Snapshot’ surveys – one amongst frequent travellers post September 11th, to understand the likely long term effects on their air travel, and a second survey post Enron. This concluded that despite the concerns of Management Consultancies, they were unlikely to be adversely affected in the same way as auditors, who were the group whose reputation really suffered.

The session was rounded off by Allan Hyde of MORI, who echoed some of the themes of Professor McDonald’s paper. If the boardroom only looks at financial performance, they have already missed the point where they can do something about it. Senior company executives mainly think their share prices don’t reflect their company’s true value – so they would appear not to be getting their message across. They think they are communicating their company’s value but analysts and investors disagree. There appears to be an understanding gap of what’s important and a reporting gap, and also a quality gap – is the information good enough? Enron has led to an intense focus on corporate governance and reporting – without trust and better reporting, businesses will lose their licence to operate. And while research can objectively identify change options and their likely acceptance, ultimately it is corporate behaviour which will determine a business’s future.

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Exploring Technology

The last session on Friday morning addressed the issue of the effect of technology on B2B research. Everyone agreed that, whilst the initial reports that internet data collection would take over market research had been greatly exaggerated, nevertheless progress was being made and we need to be very aware of the changes the web will bring to the way in which we do B2B research.

Darren Noyce, MD of SKOPOS UK, gave an overview of the effect of e-commerce and new technology on B2B markets and firms. He pointed out that, whilst development was initially hampered by lack of industry standards for technology, and disparate languages, taxes and currencies do not help the evolution of the global market place, nevertheless, 2002 saw a huge resurgence in the use of the web for B2B transactions, and we can use technology to improve the research process for both buyers and respondents.

He presented us with some interesting B2B buyer segments:-

• The Primitive Savage – minimum information, few resources
• The Static Philosopher – maximum information and time for paralysing deliberation
• The Modern Industrial Speed-Philosopher – plentiful information and resources, but little time.

We can use technology to improve convenience and save time for both buyers and respondents but we do need to be engaging, interactive and entertaining to excite and engage respondents.

Yuri van Geest of NIPO Software then talked about product innovation using the internet with a description of do-it-yourself web surveys based on the ASP model (Application Service Provider). Yuri specifically made the connection with CRM databases to enrich B2B customer profiles, both from a business and technology point of view. He covered issues such as security, privacy, policy and time. The key point being that if data can be collected so easily and cheaply, then the role of the researcher to understand and interpret the data through qualitative and deeper quantitative research becomes even more important. Yuri proposed that integration of data into CRM systems is a solution to many MR challenges.

Ray Poynter of Europinion, a 100% on-line agency, then had the last word in his presentation ‘If the internet is so clever, why aren’t we all rich?’ Ray summarised very effectively the reasons why Internet based research had not grown as quickly as expected in B2B markets, but pointed out that things were changing. Research into the efficiency of their web-site had caused clients to become more familiar and comfortable with web-based methodologies, and attitudes to data integration were evolving rapidly. We need to be more open-minded about the value of individual information and not remain locked into our old MR values of anonymity etc. which are now outmoded for both client and respondent (and probably always have been for B2B research).

It was particularly refreshing that all the speakers were very open with their experiences, and specifically about the relative costs of conducting internet research: set-up costs are high and so the client’s perceived savings tend not to be realised on the smaller sample sizes which are typical in B2B research.

All the three speakers could be characterised by the Audi tag-line ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ and they stimulated the audience to be aware and think more carefully about the implications of technology on B2B research. We all need to watch these leading-edge innovators so that we can adopt the technology effectively in our business and not be left behind to become late followers or laggards in the cycle.

Ray Poynter won the Best Speaker Award for his presentation and Kate McGhee won the Best Newcomer Award.

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Workshops

For the first time the training workshops were repeated in order to give delegates an opportunity to attend more than one. A couple of the more popular ones were:

International B2B Research

This workshop consisted of a panel session chaired by Jack Murray (TNS). The panel consisted of David Gidney ( Dow Chemical), Karen Riddell, (ex BT) and Ruth McNeil (Response Consulting). The two sessions generated a lot of discussion on what is important to clients conducting international B2B research and how agencies/consultants should respond/are responding.

• Key client issues when deciding on research projects to undertake and agency selection were not felt to be particularly different now to those that have always been important. Even if tighter budgets do mean that extra justification in terms of potential bottom line impact is now sought. They are:
  
  • Cost
  • Flexibility and resource
  • Knowledge of the market
    
• Agencies need to remember that the cost element also includes the internal cost associated with spreading knowledge throughout an international business. This can be a disincentive for conducting international research, and anything agencies can do to help in the dissemination of findings is a potential element of added value. Web based data delivery systems offering interactive query facilities are becoming more commonplace and are an effective means of communicating survey findings to a large multinational audience.
  
• Flexibility revolves around agencies adapting to and understanding how clients resource needs may change. There is a growing emphasis on interpretation of survey findings from within client companies, but there is still a desire to outsource to agencies when internal resources are stretched. Larger global client companies are looking increasingly to agencies with international networks to provide this flexibility.
  
• Knowledge of the market and the ability to speak to valuable customers in a credible fashion, whilst a hygiene factor, were stressed as important in some B2B markets, but in those with higher volume customer bases, research expertise assumes a higher status.
  
• The wider discussion in the research industry over attributed feedback is prevalent in the B2B international world. A number of clients now value and expect it, but come up against resistance from both agencies (for code of conduct reasons) and account managers (for fear of the research being used against them). Given that the 80/20 rule applies in most international B2B markets and the increasing need to have research which impacts on the bottom line, it is recognised that attributable feedback from large customers can have a major impact on action plans arising from research programmes.
  
• From a practical point of view, the importance of keeping comments in the local language for feedback purposes was noted.
  
• The growing use of the web for research has obvious implications for international B2B work. The channel of the web is evidently useful in all forms of research and the use of web based international panels is growing. Clients in both sessions expressed interest in a panel approach. However, it was suggested that the specialist nature of many B2B audiences and the fragmented nature of international work means that they are unlikely to become the main approach taken to data collection and certainly not the only one. Justification for setting up a panel must be based on a predefined need for a programme of research over time.

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• Non market research, web enabled companies are seen by some agencies as a threat in that they offer data collection avenues to companies (as part of CRM systems etc.) that can usurp the role of the research agency. However, there are quality issues attached to what they are able to deliver (can they really ‘interview’ major industrial customers? etc.), and clients recognise the value that experienced agencies can bring. That said research needs to work with this technology and these suppliers, it must recognise the benefits that they can bring (turning round conjoint projects in a week) rather than fight against them.
  
• The other threat mentioned was that of off shore call centres (particularly in India). The client reaction was one of quality: if the same quality and control can be demonstrated then they would not have a problem using offshore resource, however there was widespread feeling that this, at least at the moment, could not be delivered and their was some scepticism over the quality of the language skills on offer (with the exception of English and Asian languages).

Overall the feeling from the workshop was one of deliver well on the basics, intelligently apply new technology where appropriate and work together to communicate the findings as effectively as possible.

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Qualitative Research in B2B

The workshop was jointly led by Frances Hoskin (NOP World) and Neil McPhee (Nuance Research) and was attended by 25 delegates over the two sessions.

The goal was to cover not only some of the practicalities of B2B qualitative research, but also to review and outline some of the more advanced and newer techniques and approaches available to specialist B2B qualitative researchers.

The sessions were offered a lot of opportunity for interaction, and for essentially self-selecting the topics to be covered, and not surprisingly, they opted in the main for the “new techniques” route, giving Frances most of the work to do, as the material focussed here on the use of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), Semiotics and projective techniques.

Hot from her success at the recent AQR~QRCA Conference, Frances ran us through the topics in her usual friendly and authoritative way, drawing on her paper at that Conference to outline the complexities in a thoroughly understandable way.

Neil covered the area of logistics, and Transactional Analysis.

The most pleasurable aspect from the workshop sessions was the degree of interactivity and participation from and with the delegates.

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Previous Conferences: 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 - 2002 - 2001