New Way Forward for Market Research

'Count the beats of your heart not the fingers on your hand' is the message Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi will give to the world's market researchers in his keynote speech to the ESOMAR Congress in Barcelona this September.

His presentation, 'Stop! In the name of love' will urge participants to reinvent their discipline. 'This new millennium demands new values. We need big hearts as well as hard heads and to embrace a return to the fundamentals of human nature. The challenge for business is to touch emotions rather than give everyone more to think about'.

Roberts asserts that companies worldwide are starting to transform how they measure and evaluate their business in all areas. 'The recent accounting scandals in the United States prove that having the numbers does not necessarily mean you get the results,' says Roberts. 'Market researchers need to respond to this new era and create innovative ways of measuring real value. The first place to start is with the idea of brands. Brands need to be transformed. And this won't happen by shaving margins or number crunching.'

Roberts has developed the next step for brands that can make this leap. He calls them Lovemarks. 'Lovemarks are the future beyond branding. Only Lovemarks can inspire loyalty beyond reason,' Roberts insists. The methodology for this new idea has been developed over the last three years by Saatchi & Saatchi. 'When we saw brands were in trouble we turned to the human qualities that can make them loved again. Genuine emotional connections are the new frontier.'

Kevin Roberts will address the ESOMAR Congress on Tuesday 24 September The Congress programme, available at www.esomar.nl, has been prepared by an international Committee made up of multinational companies and market research institutions.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.