Live from IIeX Europe: Salama's Magnetic Appeal

The BBC's weather forecasts have come on quite a bit since they stopped putting magnets on their maps 30 years ago this week, Eric Salama told IIeX Europe this afternoon. Our own industry needs to change as well, but the Kantar CEO only gives it five years. DRNO's Nick Thomas reports.

Salama (pictured), not apparently the worse for recent back-to-back visits to Mumbai and New York, jetted in to Amsterdam to deliver the pre-lunch session at the two-day 'Innovation Exchange' event, and managed the difficult task of keeping delegates' minds off their rumbling tummies. In fact, the back of the hall took on the appearance of the old North Bank as delegates emerging from other conference streams postponed their vittles and crept in to listen.

The biggest of our many challenges is learning to do 'multiple things at the same time, at speed', says the Kantar and TNS CEO. This may not be the case for a smaller company, which can choose to specialise in one end of the spectrum or another, but for the likes of Kantar it's vital to be able to offer a number of different skills, in tandem, to a needy client. The era of the 'trade-off' - 'we can either do the research this way or that way', with different pluses and minuses for each - is over, says Salama. A very wide range of skills now needs to be on offer.

For example, big clients like P&G now require immediate data to help them craft real-time responses to events and trends - but they are also demanding 'deep, deep consultancy' from talented, proactive people who really understand their business.

Salama talked about the rise of big data and the need for mobile-friendly survey design ('the vast majority of questionnaire design is not done for mobile, despite almost half our US panellists engaging with us that way'), but refreshingly steered most of his comments away from buzzwords and standard calls to embrace new technology.

The need to bring the right talent into the industry is at the centre of the challenge (when was it not?), but Salama says this is a complex field. In many ways, what clients want is not changing - the end purpose of our involvement is still to help them get a better understanding of their markets / customers and improve their business - and suppliers 'need to nurture traditional research skills and quality, as we rush into new things'. Yet at the same time we need to bring 'all sorts of new people' into the mix, skilled in new technologies and sciences. The talent we bring in must be 'broad as well as deep' - and research managers need to move from being farmers, to being chefs, according to Salama, bringing in a much wider array of different ingredients and knowing how to mix them.

Concluding with a return to the conference theme of innovation, Salama said companies need to 'separate the important from the urgent' and make sure that we don't forget the latter because the former grabs all our attention. I confess I had expected that one the other way round, and if there hadn't been so many hands up at the end I might have checked it.

Undoubtedly a good session had provoked a lot of questions, but possibly also the number of hands reflected the continuing efforts of the conference organisers to get the audience to interact - we have each been given a 'house' and when we ask a question our team gets a bonus. 'Three points to Gryffindor' as it were, except that the house names are Greek letters, in the style of American fraternities. My own is Pi, which makes me think maybe the person who chose them had photos to go on. I do look a bit like I ate them all, at the moment. And on that note, off to lunch and to chew over the wise words we've heard.

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