MRS Conference: Put It Another Way

Storytelling was a major theme of the conference and the 'Communications Breakdown' session, chaired by Tim Philips of Talk Normal, looked at how market researchers can communicate their findings with clients in new and engaging ways. Teresa Lynch reports.

The three papers covered a spectrum from 'what to do with eighteen months and large amounts of the government's money' to 'What to do with an understanding client and the luxury of debriefing more than one observer of a focus group' to 'What we should all do even if we are on a tight budget and an even tighter deadline'.

The eighteen month project was presented by Simon Shaw of Brahm in a paper entitled 'Communicating creatively: From digital media to stains on the bedroom floor'. In this he described the lengths his agency had gone to in order to immerse their client (DCSF) in the world of 'Digital Natives' (people born after 1994). This included building a teenager's bedroom complete with dirty dishes and a fug of 'Lynx Africa and dirty clothes' next to their boardroom. Simon's conclusion was that 'creative communications equals better results'. Philips' comment was 'Public sector work pays well?'

Just as touchy feely but also more pragmatic was the paper by Peter Totman of Jigsaw Research: 'The Rashoman effect: Exploring the meaning of qualitative research'. For those not in the know, Rashoman or Rashomon is a Japanese film classic by the director Kurosawa, in which the same events are described by four different observers, who have radically different takes on what has occurred. Totman explored the 'Rashoman Effect' as it pertained to observing a focus group by debriefing: The Moderator (himself); The Client (3 of them); one of The Respondents; and two other Researchers who only watched the group on DVD. He found sufficient variation in the findings of each group to make him question what was the real truth of the story. He concluded by quoting Kurosawa: 'Rashoman is a reflection of life and life doesn't always have clear meaning'.

...an observation to which the presenters of the next paper would surely take exception. In 'Tell the truth and shame the devil: How can the discipline of journalism improve insight': Neil Swan of SwanUpping and Brian Cathcart Professor of Journalism, Kingston University delivered a talk on some of the basic rules of journalism which they thought were clearly applicable to market research. To the point, concise and making every word count, they were true to their own dicta and gave us some rules we can apply to any presentation or debrief which cost nothing (but do sometimes take a little longer).

A good session, reminding us that improving our communication of results isn't just about better use of multimedia or less of PowerPoint (not that that would hurt, one might argue): it's also about thinking of whole new angles and encouraging clients to see things from them.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.