It is said that the Market Research and Planning industry is worth £3 billion per year in the UK alone. We are clearly all very busy gathering information for our clients across a whole range of topics and sectors. But how much of this information is being delivered to maximum effect? How often do we give time before a debrief or presentation to consider how we are going to deliver the key messages for maximum impact and action?
More time should be spent thinking about how we impact audiences
At VPI we conduct a bi-annual survey into the use of video within the industry. Within this survey, we have found that 57% of people think that one-third of all research and insight could be better presented, and perhaps even more alarming, is 25% think it’s nearer 50% or more.
I am not advocating that the balance of spend should significantly shift to spending more on how Insight and Research is presented. But I do think more consideration is needed for how key messages are to cut through and be remembered.
One of our key clients, Unilever, is putting real emphasis and internal training behind the Impact their CMI team should have on how insights are conveyed throughout the business.
At the start of projects, they are being pushed to think about how they are going to INSPIRE and PROVOKE people to take action from the research findings…as they believe this is currently the single biggest consumer-led drawback for market success.
From ideas to impact
In the nineties, our industry was focused on moving Market Research into Insight, and challenging ourselves to think about the Why? behind the data.
In the early noughties, we moved beyond Insight into Ideas with Planning teams being challenged by Marketing to think about brand or communications ideas inspired by insight.
Today we are being challenged to look beyond both the Insight and Ideas and consider what Impact the whole study can have on the business.
How video is being used to make an impact
At VPI we use video to help clients present their information with Impact. But clients are also investing time and money into improving their own presentation skills.
Nancy Duarte’s Resonate book is widely circulated throughout the CMI team in Unilever.
The guidance within this book focuses on how to connect with the audience and craft ideas and story structures that get recalled and repeated.
The types of video to illustrate insight
At VPI we have different types of video to illustrate insight,
Adding Graphics: clients of ours that are seasoned users of video are starting to combine it with graphics (Camelot, RSA). This approach works great if you’ve got wider quant data to give the videos a more rounded context.
In our survey 71% of people found this very/quite appealing for the future.
Animations: when clients have done a study that will be useful for a wide internal audience they often ask us to create animations that condense and communicate the key findings. (BBC and Virgin)
Consumer Films: a more authentic and real portrayal of consumer lives. In our survey we found 78% think this type of video quite/very appealing to use in the future.
We know from clients that Illustrative Video needs a certain quality standard. Film that consumers or moderators take on their own phones has limited use. The poor quality often negates the ability to share it widely whereas good quality video ends up with a longer shelf life.
Making Video Content easy to manage and share
There has been a lot of recent new funding in the world of video management. The ability to search/cut/export the exact quote you’re after means using video to illustrate findings is getting easier.
At VPI we also offer insight portals with the ability to cut and crop the exact clip you need for a presentation, alongside additional functionality such as ‘search by keyword’, filter by theme or category and more.
In summary, there is an increasing array of ways video can be used to showcase and illustrate insight across a business. It certainly won’t be the solution every time but thinking how your insight is going to Impact has got to get stronger consideration.
