Conference Review: Clients, Agencies and Web 2.0

Researchers are always worrying about the client / agency relationship, an old Conference chestnut if ever there were one; but they're only just getting to grips with Web 2.0 and 'Research 2.0'. Our conference correspondent Phyllis Vangelder reports on these two key sessions from Brighton.

The Client / Agency Relationship

The session 'Clients and Agencies: from relationships in crisis to powerful partnership' arose from a client-agency project to address the problems of mutual frustration, which culminated in a joint workshop in September 2006.

Sue Stent, Head of Customer Insights and Programmes, HBOS, stressed that the views in this session, although presented from different viewpoints, were collective. She herself outlined the increasing demands on client-side teams, how these have changed and the resultant need for high-value input from their agencies. Breaking down the tasks and responsibilities of her team, she pointed out that a research project might often be only a small part of a much bigger issue. Sometimes the need was for a partnership relationship providing insight from all the companies' sources across its business. But some projects could be one-off transactional tasks involving no ongoing relationships. She felt that true partnerships required research agencies to improve significant elements of the research offer – this was not added value. These elements included quality, understanding of the business, putting recommendations in context and using other sources of information if appropriate. In return clients had to support agencies in providing detailed focused briefs and share knowledge of the business context.

Dave Philips, Client Development Director, Research International, focused on agency issues and stressed that essentially agencies wanted good relationships with their clients. Strategic partnerships are great if they work, but he recognised that they were hardly realistic for every client and agency. Dysfunction occurs if an organisational structure cannot support relationships, where there is a partnership promise but ad hoc behaviour. The best model is not the only model and he argued for a taxonomy of relationships based on need states, ranging from the transactional to partnership. Above all, agencies want clarity, about the elusive definition of 'added value', the real scope of the project and a brief that articulates needs very clearly.

Jim Shearer, Strategic Sourcing Manager, Coors Brewers Ltd, was brave enough to put the case for procurement, setting out why a procurement department exists. His own title emphasises the role of strategic sourcing – an attempt to find value: the motivation of the function is cost savings and ROI. He stressed the need to understand where a supply market sits, the complexity of switching within a market and the resultant business impact. The amount spent in a supply market determines the appropriateness of relationships; how the company is seen by its suppliers is also an important dimension to the decisions about relationships. Shearer summarised the criteria for effective relationships and assessed his own role in terms of objectivity, accountability and the ability to understand relationships.

Sally Webb, Director, Consumer Insight Solutions Ltd, concluded this session looking at what she termed 'The real and disturbing challenge to the industry'. She believed that both sides tended to reflect a short-term project-based, rather than a longer-term relationship-based, mentality. She posed a crucial question: was market research an industry or a profession? This was a structural problem. As an industry most of the money and effort go on field or process; as a profession people's intellectual skills are pivotal. Can the two flourish within the same management structure? She contended that all the current pressures are leading market research towards the route of an industry, rather than a profession. Clients, however, tend to want us to be both. She echoed Dave Philips' demand for clarity. Clients need to specify clearly what they want. There are three levels of skill: the research process, the wider marketing level and the business level or consultancy skill and clients need to be upfront about the intellectual input they require. To deliver insights agencies need broad skills, including relevant industry knowledge to set a project in context and commercial and consultancy expertise. Sally Web argued for a separation of data collection contracts from those for insight. Clear specs were needed for relationships and projects so that 'added value' was commercially viable and sustainable. A not unexpected question from the floor asked how one prices insight. Some kind of output-based model was required to isolate a very elusive variable.

In all, a session of honest debate with some different perspectives on this challenge. No doubt we'll be talking about it, and dissatisfied with it, for a long time to come.


Social Networks and Web 2.0

The organisers of the Conference had misjudged the high interest in Web 2.0 and its associate areas. There was standing room only in this session, kicked off with the fascinating paper from Mike Cooke and Nick Buckley, GfK NOP, 'Right brain, weak signals, Web 2.0, social networks and the future of market research'.

They highlighted the changing digital landscape with its separation of form and content at the level of the user and the reversal of the polarisation between brand and consumer. The open source movement is making research methodologies transparent. There is a new architecture of participation – the difference between a cathedral and a bazaar. Web 2.0 software is an adaptive system, which supports social networking enabling clients, respondents and researchers to be in the same research community panel. Marketers are now more likely to succeed if they allow respondents to be in control.

Johnnie Moore and James Cherkoff, Collaborate Marketing, argued for co-creation, the respondent collaborating with the client and researcher. They run a Workshop called Open Sauce Live and have produced a manifesto, 'Co-creation rules'. Their informal, engaging presentation, involving the audience in creative drawing, underlined the message in this session for alternative, less formal techniques to reach the consumer.

Caroline Vogt, Head of International Research EMEA & Americas, Global Sales Research Microsoft and Stuart Knapman, Essential Research, in their paper 'Spaces – the final frontier' focused on the concept of personal space within the social networking environment. The size of the personal space phenomena is increasing, with a third of Internet users participating. Caroline and Stuart saw future growth coming from more closed networks where paradoxically people will open up. As Mike and Nick stressed, people want to have control and engage in good conversations.

The third and final part of our Jubilee Conference review is published today – the first part appeared yesterday..

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