What’s emotion if you subtracted human needs for closeness and belonging? We initiated a ‘Covid anthropology program’ to understand the courageous odyssey of the people. The endeavour was to document their hope, helplessness, and resolutions. The challenge was reaching to these people as they were coping with the direct effects of the pandemic. Uncertain times called for disrupted approach, and we introduced a start-stop-start process. Kantar’s ‘Covid anthology program’…. just the dawn. As Leonardo da Vinci said, ‘the water you touch in a river is the last of that has passed and the first of which is coming’...
Director Qualitative, India Insights Division
Principle Thinker, The Alternate Room
Post covid Out Of Home (OOH) consumption had been disrupted and hence once the economy started opening up, there was a need to understand the current needs and emerging needs in the OOH space. In the process it was also important to understand the unmet needs which cannot be determined through a conventional U&A study. Hence, we conducted an innovative quantitative study to identify opportunities in OOH space – based on “Job to be done” framework...
Manager CMI
Founder & MD
Research Director
STM or Simulated Test Marketing has been around for 45 plus years now and helps overcome the uncertainties associated with the launch of a new product, playing a big role in optimizing the launch. However, with the advent of Omni channel shopping, marketers have begun to look at E-comm or D2C as key components of their distribution strategy. With this, advertising budgets are getting skewed in favour of digital in addition to or instead of television. Therefore, new product awareness and availability, the two key levers of volume forecasting take on a completely different nature. STMs therefore need to be designed and handled differently in the case of E-Comm. This paper looks at how volume forecasting was handled in the case of an exclusive E-Comm launch...
South Asia Lead
Global Brand Marketing Director
Senior Manager, Client Consulting
This paper, while briefly highlighting the transformation in Market Research in the last 100 years, primarily argues for "contemporization" to be driven by the discipline's "intent" rather than execution, or design aspects. It advocates a methodology that bridges almost a century-old divide between qualitative and quantitative sciences, hindered largely by the process and execution till now. This proposed methodology, while revolutionizing the process, also enhances the quality of insights and delivers effective decision-making inputs for businesses by ensuring seamless integration with organizational KPIs...
Senior Consultant
Senior Vice President – CX/UX/B2B Head
This paper showcases the need to revitalize face-to-face research. It outlines the steps to revitalize the Face-to-Face (F2F) data collection that will benefit the wider research community at large. It builds on the premise that F2F data collection potential is key to generate rich and nuanced insights that helps clients with decision making to improve products, polices, and programmes. The paper discusses the challenges of face-to-face data collection in the current and changing landscape of data collection (enhanced adoption of alternate methodologies), extensive use of technology for data gathering and quality, low cost, less time for data collection, and limited pool of qualified/ skilled pool of data collectors. Taking cognizance of these challenges that are impacting the design and implementation of F2F data collection, our paper takes a holistic approach to identifying recommendations. We gathered insights through consultations with three key stakeholders → users of research, designers of research, and collectors of data to identify requisite measures to reenergize the most reliable and traditional data collection approach of face to face...
Executive Director
Chief Operations Officer
With the increasing play of technology both in data collection approaches and in analytical techniques, the separation between the two streams of research – Qualitative and Quantitative - seems to be dissolving even further, making the case for the “integrated researcher” who is as comfortable with answering questions related to the “what’, “how”, and “why” as she is with “how many”. This paper discusses how hitherto methods of dealing with unstructured data and visual and non-verbal information which traditionally called for the strengths and expertise of a Qualitative researcher are now being handled in Quantitative research as well. The unstructured data, in this instance, was in the form of videos, which were analyzed to understand rituals around the category and reactions to the product, a laundry additive, relying on both visual and verbal cues, both the said and the unsaid captured via videos. We saw how consumer videos when juxtaposed with quantitative responses obtained in a Concept Product test, added so much richness to the data and the quality of interpretation. The researcher in this case while having the safety of numbers from the survey data, also managed to understand & evaluate sentiments, body language, rituals and so on, which were captured really well in the videos. The presentation to the client involved the sharing of a “story reel” that communicated far more than what the usual PowerPoint presentation would. Truly a significant metamorphosis in how the boundaries and capabilities of Quantitative research had been defined so far!..
NielsenIQ BASES
Manager
Global Brand Marketing Director- Laundry & Fabric Care
India is witnessing the transition of primary research from offline to online, triggered by the pandemic. While there is a significant increase in the volume of online research, the best practices for online surveys are not fully adopted. This is one of the reasons for data quality issues, leading to discontentment among key stakeholders. This paper demonstrates the impact of 4 interventions to improve data quality: Usage of Multiplechoice format instead of a Direct-Yes, No question (to reduce bias) Real time alerts (to alert/guide respondents), Knowledge-based questions (to validate response) and Reversing the order of statements (to reduce order bias)..
Business Development Director
Research Services for APAC region Leader
This paper makes a brave attempt to suggest an alternative to psychoanalytical way of profiling humans (consumers) – LOGOTHERAPHY(derived from “logos,” a Greek word that translates as “meaning,”). In a life post covid, new future is getting created and I believe more than a retrospective (looking at the past and understanding anxiety and needs), a futuristic perspective (meaning to be fulfilled) will be more useful...
Associate Partner
A brand in our portfolio had been trying to position itself on a certain plank for the last 2 years. However, it was not able to own it – despite communicating around it Hence, we embarked on research to help understand the reasons for low-attribution and arrive at a communication charter to help brand own the space sharply. Instead of doing new consumer research, we took help of all learnings from multiple sources (brand track, existing qualitative work, social listening, communication decodes, etc.) and we conducted meta-analysis to arrive at a framework to help own the attribute, providing a playbook for sharpening brand’s communication. All of this culminated into a revised communication which resulted in significantly higher spontaneous awareness, higher linkage with the desired attribute as well huge jump in sales figures for the brand..
Manager - Consumer & Market Insights
Are strategies often made in the cool confines of the board room and expected to be executed in the tropical heat of India by the Sales teams? With a clear aim to become a more data driven organization and using Analytics to transform the shape of our business, we decided to mine our Internal Sales data for 3500 towns. We further took on the mammoth task of mapping it to Census data and identify Micro Opportunities for growth by different portfolios and arriving at certain recommendations even by SKUs. This project helped identify the strategic bets given the hard-core analysis that the recommendations were based on. Further, it gave the power in the hands of the Sales teams in each of these 3500 towns to identify which parts of the Kellogg’s portfolio were under-leveraged. While this project has already won awards within Kellogg’s world, the beauty of this award worthy piece of work is that its easily transportable and replicable for any FMCG, Durables or Services company by following the step by step approach and unlocking immense opportunities for growth. The results have been outstanding with unprecedented increase in penetration across town classes. This kind of broad-based growth across town classes is no small feat! It’s a clear shout out for treating India, a country of 1.3 billion people not just by different states but going far deeper. Micro Growth Opportunities can lead to a metamorphosis within the organizations by leveraging the Power of data...
Senior Associate Director
Senior Brand Manager
For decades, forecasting for new offers have followed variations of the same conventional patterns – display concept, ask intention to purchase, compare with normative database, calibrate accordingly and prepare the final report of findings. It is time that we asked to what extent is this process able to: • Represent real-life decision making of any individual • Benchmark with relevant normative databases which are created eons ago and, in most cases, using concepts which may not have even seen light of the day. If the answer is ‘no’ to above questions, then this paper proposes a solution that still needs answering: What is the in-market potential of new offers?..
Account Director
Senior Manager
UN Population prospectus 2022 for India predicts 64 markets with more than 1 million population. Each one of these markets have 1000’s of Outdoor Media sites – read as – billboards and hoardings. Let’s start with a question. How many of the outdoor media sites in India have audience data for their site? The answer is: None. Collecting data about audience for an outdoor media site involves counting of traffic for a location 24 x 7. This is not only expensive to sustain for a longer period but also difficult to scale up for 100’s of markets and 1000’s of sites. This paper addresses this problem by establishing how rigorous and diligent cleaning of data that is completely unrelated to the purpose, can be metamorphosed to a usable and reliable data for outdoor media audience measurement...
CEO
In this hyper-connected world, there are multiple content platforms, creating multiple possibilities for brands to connect. On the flipside, this leads to consumers constantly bombarded with multiple messages across multiple brands. Technology has led people to be ‘always on’ but not always receiving. Making it difficult for brands to break through this clutter and ensure their stories reach potential consumers. In a saturated yet expanding space, it is easy to overlook some enduring truths or think that they no longer apply. But human truths are timeless as they relate to innate characteristics and universal emotions which do not change overnight. This paper will focus on methodologies aimed to drive engagement by broadening the frame of creative evaluation - beyond conventional and primary, and non-direct, project questioning...
Qualitative Director, India Insights Division Head
Qualitative Executive Vice – President, India Insights Division
Qualitative Vice President, India Insights Division
Qualitative Associate Vice – President, India Insights Division
We live in a world where consumer beliefs and behaviour are changing at a lightening pace. This is reflected in their lifestyle, product, and brand choices. Brands need to leverage deep consumer insights more than ever to be on top of trends. But the process of identifying global and local trends, understanding market landscape, actioning the trends and in market launch cannot take as long as before. This paper explores how an MNC that traditionally would take minimum 2 years to launch an innovation in market is now driving innovations in just 100 days with Agile Innovation Hub, an enterprise approach that blends the technological expertise with consumer insights. It is an innovation accelerator, a collaborative space with unique amalgamation of “Tech & Touch” with digital tools as well as physical infrastructure & capabilities that can help innovators unlock ideas, sharpen the design thinking, make better informed design choices, and speed up the overall mix development. Cross functional teams came together to address the roadblocks we face as a company in our endeavour to become trend setter vs. trend followers...
Sr. CMI Manager, PDC South Asia
Global CMI Director, Personal Care
Millions of dollars are spent in the retail stores for monitoring aisles, racks, and SKUs manually to check for availability, product facings, stock-out situations, etc. This process is expensive, time-consuming, manually taxing, skill indispensable and comes with a lag too which limits the customer experience and revenue potential. This solution uses artificial eyes (cameras and images), and artificial intelligence which are deployed to mine data collected and enhance customer touch-point activities by automatically regulating planogram compliance, inventory management, assortment, and generate business insights for proactive measures which otherwise would take countless human hours. The solution is developed keeping in mind the scalability across multiple industries, customer demographics, and geographies...
Data Science Head and SME
Lead ML Engineer
Lead Data Scientist
AI Solution Architect
Customers eagerly await delivery of orders placed on e-commerce platforms. Credibility and the speed of delivery are paramount – be it a birthday Gift, Festive Sweets, Anniversary celebrations, Marriage shopping, etc. Even a slight delay would put the customer off or induce a shift to alternate platforms despite better offers. As a result, Delivery efficiency and accuracy have become key hooks to driving stickiness of the online shopping medium. By passively scraping platform shared shipment and delivery details from shoppers' e-mail inboxes, we can design and report key KPIs related to delivery effectiveness among platforms...
E-commerce leader, India
Manager, EAnalytics, India
Retailer Vertical and eAnalytics Customer Success Lead, India DE&I ADEPT LEAD-APAC
What is common between a driverless car, a drone delivering a package at the top of a skyscraper, a robotic instrument performing surgery, and a robot amusing the elderly? Artificial Intelligence! As a unique combination of science and cutting-edge technology, AI is revolutionizing the practice of product testing / optimization in foods & beverages. The AI produces results via machine-learning & continuous training off millions of sensory interactions from across the world, taking the researcher onward and beyond traditional testing. Drawing learning from an empirical dataset, the AI predicts liking on behalf of consumers and provides guidance for optimizing products...
Regional Director, Product Optimization Practice Lead – APMEA
Global Innovation Manager
Founder and CEO
With the changing landscape, there is an increasing expectation from Manufacturers to expedite the process to sharing insights without compromising on accuracy and quality. Today, researchers spend hours in operational tasks like extracting and organizing data, charting and formatting slides before getting into analyzing and insighting. To reduce TAT agencies, assign more resources which means information loss in translation, lack of end-to-end ownership, over-production, etc. Imagine the possibilities at hand, if a tool can take care of all operational tasks and enables the researcher to focus on reading the data, insighting and collaborating with clients in real time right from the word Go...
Associate Director, Customer Success
Senior Research Executive, Customer Success
Managing human capital is no longer solely reliant on gut instincts or domain expertise. This is now driven by advanced data analytics, made possible by the availability of a large variety and huge quantum of HR data. This paper introduced an integrated approach to resolve three key components; hiring, attrition, and engagement; that leveraged not only all pertinent historical records but also captured additional information through surveys to plug in the data gaps. Resolution of all three in conjunction helps create an ecosystem that impacts the HR KPIs such as hiring and training costs, profitability per employee,..
Global Head – Advanced Analytics and Data Science
Sr. Data Scientist Advanced Analytics and Data Science
Hugh Edmondson Prather III , American writer well known for his best-seller “Notes to Myself” famously said “Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes “ The Pandemic can be a perfect fit for this sentiment – an unexpected game-changer, in fact an unexpected life changer that changed the way we live, changed our perspectives and personal choices – and changed the way we do business and we have driven this change based on 4 pillars: - Attract Me - In Sync with My Life - My Voice Matters - Social Conscience..
Senior HRBP
Senior Director- Insights and Country HR Services
As consumer insight professionals, we delve deep into consumers’ lives to influence their purchase decisions about our brands. How many times have we considered that some of these category or brand focussed insights stem from larger ‘human insights’ which could also impact other aspects of their lives? With the changes we were seeing around us, it became imperative to have a ‘People-first’ conversation. In this project, “Understanding Employees of the Future”, we tapped into these core human tensions that emerged as a combined result of the pandemic and the growing generational divide to understand the expectations and aspirations of the current and future workforce. A one-of-a-kind ‘human force insights’ initiative that was led by the Consumer Insights team, which is meant to shape the way we recruit and retain talent of the future and get them to deliver their best. This study has paved the way for future HR strategies, and we have already started seeing tangible changes to our employee policies...
General Manager – Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care, South Asia
CMI PDC Executive
CMI Manager – HIVE, Global Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care
Assistant Manager – CMI PDC, South Asia