BIG Conference Feature: No Turning Back the Clock?

The second day of the BIG Conference opened on a beautiful May morning with a champagne breakfast. Our Features Editor Teresa Lynch reports from Wales on some papers arguing researchers can't go back to how they were; and some dancing which suggests they will keep trying.

The first session of the day was entitled 'The good, the bad and the ugly' - readers may feel free to allocate Mike Barnes (absolutely not representing Lloyds/TSB), Crispin Beale (Facts International) and Neil McPhee (Nuance) as your fancy takes you. Mike had some interesting insights on the use of DIY data collection software by clients and called his paper in memory of the 1983 Labour party manifesto 'The longest suicide note in history'. He advised his audience to be vigilant against the possibility of being seen as obsolete by clients who believe they can conduct their own research. Crispin Beale's paper was a timely reminder about the fact that not all field work is conducted as rigorously as the purchasers might hope and Neil McPhee was highly eloquent on his personal crusade to encourage us to recognise that business consumers are really just consumers.

After a (much-needed) coffee break we had a session in the 'question time' format. Our own David Dimbleby was Trevor Wilkinson (Purple MR) and the panel consisted of three representatives from the client side: Julian Dobinson (BSkyB); Caroline van den Bos (Royal Sun Alliance); and Lucy Cobby (HSBC). Fortunately for their audience this was the best behaved and most polite panel imaginable; all agreeing and deferring to each other with no need for Trevor to call for order. What they did share with the audience were their stories of how their internal departments were weathering the storm and how they didn't think that the leaner/fitter market research department which were the outcome of (in some cases) fairly drastic changes, were ever going back to the old ways.

There were some cracking questions from the floor including 'What is Insight' for which surprisingly all three companies had a proper written definition; and (just for a laugh and as a nod to the quallies) 'If your perfect agency was an animal, what animal would it be?'

As on Thursday the more traditional items on the agenda were in the morning with the more groundbreaking elements in the afternoon. The Big Time Machine gave a platform for discussion of the future to four speakers: Ruth McNeil (Ruth McNeil and Associates); Ray Poynter (The Future Place); Sarah O'Brien (Vivid Research); and Glenn Ward (GfK NOP). There was no talk of researchers travelling by jetpacks but there was discussion of the imminent death of the conventional interview and results based payment for researchers.

Phyllis Macfarlane (GfK NOP) rounded off the conference by interviewing Fiona Wood, Director of Research at the COI. Interest pretty much guaranteed on this one as the COI spent £29m on research in 2009 and are always looking for new agencies to join their framework of approximately 100 companies. An ideal closing speaker, Fiona managed to send the delegates home sharing some of her passion for research.

As for the gossip; the two most reportable items involve dancing. On Thursday night those who had not seen Ray Poynter's dance floor antics before were treated to the rare delight of seeing a researcher of a certain age doing a full cartwheel on the floor. The other dancing involved several attendees (again some of a certain age) capering through the duplex 'honeymoon suite' at The Marriot St. Pierre at 4 o'clock on Friday morning. Needless to say your reporter was not among them.
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All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.