IIEX Amsterdam Conference FLYOVER

Priscilla McKinney: Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing Company podcast. I'm Priscilla McKinney with you as always and oh, I love Amsterdam. Gotta get me some Amsterdam. I am such a big fan of IIEX Europe. It always happens in Amsterdam. It's the most beautiful venue, the Versban Burlage. If you can ever make it here for...

Priscilla McKinney: and what is happening in market research, what is innovative and amazing conversations, you gotta make it. But in case you didn't make it, I went around and talked with some people. I made it easy for you. Also, you can connect with these people as you're listening and actually use this podcast to network better. And so maybe next time you're at a conference, you will have two, three, four more friends. And that's what it's about because we need to end up in amazing conversations.

Priscilla McKinney: being able to be face-to-face and think about things differently, be challenged, and just be inspired. So I hope that these interviews that I took the time to do will do that for you and make your next conference experience even better. If you've not had a good conference experience or you feel like it might be a waste of your marketing dollars,

Priscilla McKinney: I really encourage you to look at our show notes and find the link to our webinar we did about how to fix your conference strategy. It was a dynamic webinar and I talked with a client of mine that has gone through the process of fixing it and making sure that we are revenue minded and we're building the business as we're out there spending those marketing dollars. That is what is so important. So check that out in the show notes. It's a free webinar. You can watch on demand. I hope it helps you take the next best step forward for marketing. Here we go.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Esther Marchetti from BoltChat AI. So there are a lot of platforms going on out there with AI added on, but tell me specifically about the platform. What is unique about BoltChat? What exactly is that unique piece of technology?

Esther Marchetti: Absolutely. Lovely to meet you, Cristina. I fell Italian, seems. Yes. Lovely. Yeah. So we were actually the first to launch such a product when people were like AI in Qual. What is that? And what was at the core of it was that we really understood the need behind it. Myself and my co-founders were ex-clients working at a consumer goods corporation. We wanted a tool that will give us agility. So speed, cost effectiveness and quality of insights together with the expertise. Because as a former inside professional, I wish I had somebody, some agency talking to me that will understand where I come from. If I brainstorm with them my business question, they will understand and then help me with actionable insight. And so we created BullChat AI with a strong focus on technology, R &D and innovation, and at same time that expertise that allow us to talk as equal with our clients. The technology is very advanced. So we have created an AI moderator that has been trained on real human conversations. So it's not just a custom GPT wrapper.

Esther Marchetti: a proper moderator that has learned how to talk to respondents and how to summarize insights based on real conversations. So very smart. At the same time, it leverages agenting moderation. So the AI moderator interacts collaboratively with an AI referee that is in the background checking all of the conversation and instructs the moderator when to probe, when to dig deeper.

Esther Marchetti: when to go through even three, four level dips if a strong emotion is detected. And of course we have human in the loop. have a team of expert researcher. It always helps with keeping training the model, but also helping our clients to translate the tech into insights that they can use.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, tell me a little bit about why you come to IIEX EU. So this is a beautiful venue, first of all. I don't know if you've had a chance to get away from the booth a little bit and hear some things, but why are you all coming to this event particularly?

Esther Marchetti: Yeah, IIEX is fantastic. I love how Green Book is always at the forefront of innovative thinking in research. I follow their podcast as well. So this is the place to be really in Europe. In Amsterdam or Netherlands in general, there are so many amazing clients, headquarters, and both also, you know, the London inside scene and the European tech scene really meet in this event. Yeah. So it's unmissable. We've been here for probably four years now and definitely will come back again.

Priscilla McKinney: Awesome. Great to meet you, Esther.

Esther Marchetti: Lovely to meet you too, thanks!

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Andrew Reid with Rival Group. Full disclosure, we love seeing each other all over the world at these conferences. But two things I want to ask you specifically. Tell me a little bit about what you're sharing here at IIEX and why you think it's so important to share it.

Andrew Reid: Sure. We did a great talk with Carnival Cruise Lines, largest cruise operator in the world. They have an insight community with us, with people that gamble on casinos. the community was so successful, they ended up building a community of people that work on the casinos that are the casino hosts and the dealers and all those people. And so we were able to show that that really engaging older people, people that we thought would be hard to research. If you do it in the right way, that's mobile first, and that doesn't feel like taking a test, you can get really great insights. also then obviously talked a little bit about how they are using AI and how we're using AI specifically with video to help all their internal audiences lean in a lot more.

Andrew Reid: One last thing that I shared that was pretty interesting is when they have their annual conference and get together and share all these PowerPoints that are going on in their business, they decided to use our technology to share. So just showed up a QR code and basically created a choose your own adventure in a survey to show the composition of the people in their community, the key insights, the videos they captured, a bunch of information about their segments and got really great feedback from that. So an interesting idea of

Andrew Reid: If you're going to ask your customers to participate and give you feedback, use that same mechanism if it's good enough to then share those insights back.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, one thing that you kind of blew past pretty fast, but I would really like to highlight and underscore, and that is that in a world really of survey fatigue, you all have technology that is making it so much easier for respondents to participate in a way that is engaging. It's natural to them. So tell me a little bit more about that.

Andrew Reid: Yeah. Back in 2018, we launched our first conversational research platform. By coincidence or luck, GBT came out with a conversational interface later on. That was really about re-imagining quant research. Quant research feels too much like taking a test. And we've been able to prove, we've done a lot of white papers to demonstrate that if we can get people out of test taking mode, if you can mirror human conversations and still ask questions that you can analyze, still get the same kind of data file you'd want to, that you can really get a lot of buy-in from the clients on the research side. And more importantly, create something that participants want to be involved in. And the last thing I'll say is,

Andrew Reid: A lot of it's about choice. Do you want to get emailed your invite? Do you want to get an SMS to you? Do you want to get it through WhatsApp? Do you want to get it through X? What is the channel you want? And then making sure we are leveraging that chat culture idea of leave, return. You don't need to bear hug people. They will come back.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay. I love that. Prefer real bear hug that nobody wants.

Andrew Reid: Yeah. Yeah. It's like an awkward hug you get from like a family member where you just want out of it. Serious.

Priscilla McKinney: Too often, the minute you get in it, you kind of want out. Okay, I love that. That is really dealing with a lot of difficult issues that the industry is facing, but really bringing it back to a care for the respondent. But let me ask you this. So we come to a lot of these conferences, IIEX, or more importantly, what have you heard here over the last two days that has been interesting to you or has made you have an aha moment about our industry? Anything like that?

Andrew Reid: Yeah, I mean, I thought there's some great sessions about change management. think the biggest, there's this shiny object of AI that's changing so fast. We all need to talk about it. Everyone seems very impressed with their new capability and it's becoming so easy to build these capabilities that really how uniquely approach that. And I think how we help clients bridge this gap from the way a brand's been digesting insights for the last 50 years. I honestly don't think just switching that to

Andrew Reid: AI moderated interviews is going to be, besides early adopters, the late stage majority is going to take a while to get there. So think there ways that we can bridge that gap. What I'm really looking forward to seeing is it all comes down to, I think, the art, the creativity, how you uniquely leverage this to deliver and add value to customers. And so this has been really cool. Everyone's been very friendly. It's a bit of a different vibe than you get in the US. I find I'm not seeing brands.

Andrew Reid: constantly turning over their name tags and to don't talk to me. People seem very interested in having the conversation. This space is absolutely beautiful. We'll be back next year, probably sponsoring and speaking again. But they did a really good job with this and I love this industry. I'm 48 and I was 23, I started Vision Critical. I've been in this thing for a long time and it's so cool to watch it evolve, to watch the different characters appear.

Andrew Reid: And I think the next few years are going to be that much more interesting as software really starts to get attacked by AI and these generative models that are out there. The good news for us is that like human data is maybe never going to be a bigger currency than it is now. And the ability that everyone in this room every day is creating this proprietary data set of people that they talk to, their customers, the sample that they're acquiring. And so how we leverage that I think is this and how that plays along with

Andrew Reid: AI's ability to sort of scrape anything that's happened in the past is where the opportunity lies. So that's cool.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. And I want to come back to what you said about change management. You and I actually enjoyed listening to Molina Palmer yesterday.

Priscilla McKinney: about how to tap into our knowledge of behavioral science in order to do better at change management. So it was kind of an interesting researcher on the idea of change management. And I think that's an interesting topic, but I think that just really shows great thought leadership in this industry. Things are changing. Are we prepared to really lead teams through it? And to your point.

Priscilla McKinney: lead the clients through it because they are hurting, they are needing to change some things at their own organizations to meet some of these new challenges. And I think that's important leadership.

Andrew Reid: Yeah, there's a big disconnect, I think, between again, like ADHD side of our industry, which I have and is great if you embrace it, is that there's so much we can do, trying to get everyone bought in is going to take patience. And so how we guide people, what we can do. I mean, for example, we have the conference coming up.

Andrew Reid: in New York in July that I'm sure you and I will I'll see you there. I'm hosting an AI workshop and it's mostly about just tips and tricks that you can do in your everyday to 2, 3x your output. And even that's something that surprisingly not a lot of people are even at that stage, let alone wanting to leapfrog their methodologies into something different, but they will get there. It's just changes harder than we think. And I think folks like you and I that are in the river of change.

Andrew Reid: We like it and embrace it. Other people, you kind of need to spoon feed it to them a little bit and be willing to go on that journey with them.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah. Well, that's a great segue. And since it is my podcast, I will give a shout out to Insights Marketing Day in September. We'll be doing that on September 11th. And to your point, it will be about really how do we two, three, and even more X our output, but in marketing using AI. And I think this is such a great tie-in. So I'll be looking forward to that session in New York, and then I'll see you in Chicago too. Thanks, Andrew. That was amazing.

Andrew Reid: Thanks so much.

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Priscilla McKinney: Oh, who wants some behind the scenes stuff from Ponderings from the Purge because I've got Bridget Small here from Green Book. And as I go around the exhibit hall, Bridget, I just got to say lots of kudos to your team. Everybody loves this menu, loves this event. So good job. And maybe a couple of days you'll be able to breathe, but thanks for coming on the show.

Bridget Small: Of course, thank you. It's truly our pleasure. There's nothing better than being able to bring everyone together.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah. Well, everybody does love this menu, but I have to say, it got a lot of comments also about the amazing content. But one of the things I noticed when I walked in is, yes, I love this menu, but you guys have made some significant changes. And for those of you who have been at this show many times, the green room, the green stage, tell me about what you changed in that room because it is fantastic.

Bridget Small: Yeah, I mean, for starters, to your point, this venue is so fantastic. As this event has continued to grow, we are just having to come up with new creative ways to better utilize the space. This year we are reaching record numbers and hopefully will continue to every year. So this year in the green stage, we implemented headphones on the stage so people can still tune in without being distracted by the conversations that are going around them. We also have an exhibit hall in there now with catering and food.

Bridget Small: and a charging lounge. So yeah, it's just a better way to utilize this space and allow us to continue to grow this event.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, and I love that people do like that ability to put those headphones on in that very large space so they can really focus on it. But I do know that people like being able to set those headphones down and then go into the exhibit hall fully mingling with people. And I know the exhibitors love that as well.

Priscilla McKinney: So you mentioned you had record numbers here. I have to say, no matter how many people are here, the energy is really great. The vibe is awesome. But about how many people are here?

Bridget Small: This year we have just a little under 900 attendees, which is a big jump from 2024 where we saw about 750.

Priscilla McKinney: Wow. You know, that's interesting, but you have changed the space around a little bit. So what I love about this space is that it's not too crowded, but yet we're close enough to each other. So you just keep knocking into everybody. But okay, next we're headed off to IIEX LATAM. I'll be in the FAA in Mexico City. So that's super exciting. And then upright after that is IIEX Asia Pacific. I've had the pleasure of seeing you in Bangkok several times. Very fun. I love that event also. That's a little smaller event, but kind of to that point.

Priscilla McKinney: Again, the energy is there and the connectivity. have to say, here's my compliment to Green Book and for all of your event planning, is that I love the little interactive things you do. I even remember in Bangkok one year, you guys had hired a local artist to do portraiture. And my son was with me that year at the event and we still have those little drawings, very fun. You've had interactive poets doing things or creating your own sense. And today we have the arcade, we have some games.

Priscilla McKinney: Why are you doing these kind of interactive things? What kind of feedback do you hear about that?

Bridget Small: I think often at these events, there's so much networking, so much knowledge to be consumed and having these fun activities is a nice way to break up your day. Take five minutes to do a fun activity. It also oftentimes gives you a fun keepsake that you can take home with you. To your point in Bangkok, that is like one of my personal favorite events because the energy there is just always buzzing and I love the how intimate it is.

Bridget Small: the pop-ups that we do at that event. We are working with a wonderful woman. Her name is Nola. We've worked with her for three years now. She owns a small business. She's local to the area. And I look forward every single year to going and seeing her and seeing what fun activities she'll bring to the event.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, well, I can't wait. I'll report on it when I get back. But in the meantime, I probably need to go check my Miss Pac-Man score and see how I'm doing.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Charlotte Kittle and I'm just gonna tell you right now you had the most fantastic skirt on yesterday. Highly recommend the whole wardrobe choice. But it's like very fun how we're really close in but little things like that get you to cross the room and actually have great conversations with people just makes it just that much easier I guess to really make a connection with people but

Priscilla McKinney: Tell me a little bit about what you're doing at your job, your day-to-day and why IIEX makes sense for you.

Charlotte Kittle: Sure. So I work at Virtual Store Trials, VST, and what we care about is planogram data. So whether that's the reality of planograms in store, we have a big data part of our business, which aligns with the insight industry, but we also do a lot of A-B testing in terms of merchandising testing. what we care about a lot is actually more category teams. So we work with a lot of category insight and shopper insight.

Charlotte Kittle: So it's been really interesting to come to IIEX this year and see a lot more shopper stuff being put on the stage. Like my background is much more in consumer work, but having moved into shopper, it feels like it's always a space that isn't catered for as much conferences. So that's been really engaging and interesting to come and see all of that here.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, there were some really great presentations on that the other day. In fact, Cody actually displayed their final, like that was a really great video of, hey, this is how the research actually played out. So take a look at this. That was a great presentation from Nailbiter. But tell me about sessions. So you've been in several of them. Was there anything surprising or any kind of a tidbit or inspiration you got?

Charlotte Kittle: I think there's been the inevitable focus on AI, obviously. So that has been a really nice change again, like to see how it's all being used cases now and the fear has gone. It's much more about how we're using it. I've really enjoyed all of that. It's also been nice to kind of go back to some old school things. I enjoyed the negotiation session talking about like the realities of our day-to-day lives as well. So that's been good. I've just heard it went in the bounce session, which was also really interesting to hear them talk about the death of DIY research. So that was a sort of quite a provocative talk as well. So I enjoyed that.

Priscilla McKinney: really is because I remember just, I would say maybe six years ago in this industry, it was just a mad dash for DIY. And it really has run its course in that sense. I'm not saying it's not still out there, but there are use cases that are very specific for it. And I think where people thought it was the panacea and everybody's going to do it this way. No, they're really not. So that's interesting. I think that they've got something that they're doing that is an interesting kind of move forward away from it.

Priscilla McKinney: can't sell them. don't know them. No, but it did. That's what's interesting to be in hearing from someone and really what they're realizing, how they're responding to their clients there. So tell me something fun. Have you done anything in Amsterdam while you've been visiting?

Charlotte Kittle: I've had a really nice connection back up with, I used to work at Brainjuicer, now System One, who aren't here, but we have a lot of alum here. So we had a nice dinner. So that was really good to reconnect with some people. Shout out to Susan Griffin. I've known her probably. She's actually, I met her at a Green Book event, the first Green Book event I ever was at in 2016, I met her and she was speaking at that conference. So really fun to see you with her the other day.

Charlotte Kittle: Yeah, exactly. And one of the Nestle clients that's here, recruited her as a grad. So it was really lovely to see her now and you know, like in an amazing job, like living her best life. So it's been really good to see people I think as you go through the industry, those that have helped you along the way, like Susan, like Alex, and then those that maybe you've helped along the way, like coming up as well. So that's been actually a really, for me, a really nice part of being here.

Charlotte Kittle: I went running this morning with the research running club and had a nice little slow jog around Amsterdam.

Priscilla McKinney: call it walking. That's what I do. It works because it's walking and jogging, but then also if you are carrying wine, it works also walking. I love that. You know you can do wine marathons?

Charlotte Kittle: No.

Priscilla McKinney: In France, yeah. Every mile you chest a little wine. Okay, I'm in. Never mind that hole. We're done. go.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, from across the room I see Dan Foreman. I'm thinking I've got to get over there because I always like to shoot the shit about the industry with you. You are a great person to ask what's going on in Insights. So here we are in Amsterdam, IIEX. You're over here quite a bit, but what are you thinking as you walk into this room, IIEX, EU? What's on top of your mind?

Dan Foreman: What I love about coming to this kind of event is you see people who 10 years ago when this started out, We just had these tiny booths, these little kiosks, and now you see them and they've expanded and they're on stage and they're talking with a client and they're no longer saying, here's this great idea I've got for a business, but here's what I've been doing. Here's how I'm thinking about the next big thing. Here's some of our products. And it's just awesome to see that transformation of these little gems of ideas and those who make it. And then interestingly, those who don't make it or who have remained at the same sort of size or got to a point and then plateaued.

Dan Foreman: And as you know, there's a bunch of these firms in here that, I mean, they've been part of my deal flow over the years. So it's been great to see people doing the competition, getting up on stage and then having a chance to help shape and collaborate and direct where they're heading. It's exciting. So I come into one of these, there's a little bit like Christmas Eve in the buildup to it. What am I going to find and what presents am I going to unwrap? And also what's Santa going to bring? I mean, it's brilliant.

Priscilla McKinney: So have you gotten to catch many of the sessions?

Dan Foreman: I have caught a few, but I spend way more time, not just at this event, in most events, in the exhibit hall. Somebody like really early in my career said the real conversations, they're not necessarily happening on the stage, they're happening over a coffee, over a breakfast, in the swimming pool. And so I've kind of really bought into that and I spend a lot of time on my feet. It's exhausting when you finish, but yeah, I get so much buzz from these more authentic conversations than necessarily the ones that you're getting up on the stage.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. No, I agree with you completely. So...

Priscilla McKinney: For people coming to Europe and coming to Amsterdam in particular, since you do know this area quite well, what do you suggest they do and get out and what has been your plan as you've gone around the world and been at so many different conferences? How have you made the most of your time?

Dan Foreman: What I love as well as what you're actually doing in the events is just get that little time to walk around a grocery shop, a supermarket or something like that. I just find that amazing. Different fresh produce, you see some brands you're familiar with, but maybe with different pricing or promotions. And then you also see some brands and some products and categories that you're just not familiar with. And I love how it's set up. You go into all these different places around Europe, or you go to the different retailers in the US or Latam, and your whole store experience is different. And it just gives you a sense of how the culture will vary from place to place. So if you've only got 20, 30 minutes, then I mean, that's just a great thing to get a glimpse of somewhere. And then you can decide, do I want to come back? And do I want to bring my family? Is this a vacation destination? And I love doing that.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that advice about going to a grocery store. And I have to say, it's been a long time that it has been my souvenirs are always from the grocery store because my kids don't need anything else. But it is fun to try new products and it's okay. I'm home. Here's the dump from the bag of other treats that we all want to try. What on earth is this? It's so fun to see all the flavors, different things that are interesting in different cultures.

Priscilla McKinney: we would never have where we live. So I love that, Lenny. That's really great advice. Okay, Dan, great to see you. Maybe I'll see you in some sessions, but more likely I'll see you out here with a lot of cappuccinos.

Dan Foreman: Be careful. That'll be it. Yeah. I will be very caffeinated. I'll be one of those people who's bouncing around and yeah, you'll see me. You'll hear the floor vibrate.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Thanks.

Priscilla McKinney: So I'm here with David Bailey and we are just t-minus maybe 15 minutes from your presentation. So do you want to give us just a little bit of an overview for those who are not able to come to IIEX this time?

David Bailey: Yeah, thank you. I'd love to. So yeah, we've got a presentation coming up where you're going to be joined or discuss is going to be joined. I had a marketing Jill is going to be joined by MasterCard on stage and we're to be talking about the importance of consumer connection and staying close to your consumers and always being on in terms of the voice of the customer. So we're going to hear about really cool examples and use cases around how Mastercard are implementing that today. We'll discuss his support and really being able to engage with their customers and their stakeholders.

David Bailey: It's about that, making that gap smaller and smaller between us and the customers, right?

Priscilla McKinney: So tell me why for Discuss is this really important to be at IIEX and these types of venues, hear what's going on in the industry, et cetera?

David Bailey: Yeah, well, you said it really, I mean, these are vital for us because firstly, our customers are here, so it's great to be able to connect with them in a different type of atmosphere. But also we're in significant growth mode and we're growing our portfolio of customers. As evidenced by GRIT report.

Priscilla McKinney: As evidenced by GRIT report, yeah. Thanks for the pun.

David Bailey: So this is a real good opportunity for us to meet a lot of our perspective clients and clients who we'd really want to engage with, might not have been able to come across this in other forums, but also keep up to date with what's going on in the industry. Many of our competitors, our partners, people that we're working with, and really everybody that makes up the ecosystem that is market research.

Priscilla McKinney: So you are a global company working with some very large brands, but I imagine you also work with some small brands. You just need to get closer to that consumer. But tell me about just the global appeal here being in Europe. Are you hearing anything different here in Europe from your customers or is it the same challenges people are facing globally?

David Bailey: There is a lot of unification globally. I think the big challenge that we always see is yes, hearing the consumer. But also where we come in is we have a true global approach, right? Where we have a great presence in over 130 companies that allows people to connect worldwide. So whether we're at an event here in central Europe or we're over in America, we do typically find that there's the same challenges and it's important, particularly for our global brand customers and prospects, but as well as our smaller, maybe brand customers or agency driven customers to connect with their consumers in local markets. And we're in a

David Bailey: great position that we're able to fulfill all elements of that.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I'm excited as a fellow marketer, I was excited to see that Jill's on stage and it's going to be a great presentation. So I'll take it in myself.

David Bailey: Looking forward to it.

Priscilla McKinney: Old friends are the best friends. Good to see Edward Staples here. You have some big news for me. You have relocated. Tell me, what are you doing with Protege right now?

Ed Staples: Yeah, yeah, you see that excited look on my face. So in January, I relocated permanently to London to run our EMEA Insight sales team.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, I'm not crying for you.

Ed Staples: Yeah, I know. Sounds lovely. I know. Well, it was funny because they talked about it and I was like, oh, I don't know. My kids are just in college. And my wife was like, Don't be an idiot. We've always wanted to live in that area. But so, but what convinced me was that, you know, I spent a couple months getting to know the team there. I adjusted my hours while I was still in the U S.

Priscilla McKinney: wow.

Ed Staples: Yeah. That was weird. And met the team that was already on the ground. And I was like, yeah, I'll take that gamble. And so, you know, my wife has to quit her job to come over here too. And, and it's been great. Like it's very rewarding. What's interesting is that in the U S. I'd say, oh, I'm from protege. And people would be like, oh yeah, protege. Yeah, you've got the big panel, you do the programming. And here they're like, they don't know how to pronounce it. And in a way that's kind of cool.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. Right. It's not an opportunity.

Ed Staples: Yeah, exactly. It's like being a frontiersman a little bit. Yeah. The only downside is they hear my American accent and I can see the look on their face where. They want to have a political talk?

Priscilla McKinney: no, no, no,

Ed Staples: Yeah, yeah. I just can't. Yeah.

Priscilla McKinney: OK, well, what is exciting that's going on at Protege? So specifically, what are you going to head up at the London office?

Ed Staples: Yeah, great question. I think the London office hasn't expanded into the EMEA region as much as they could. And it made sense. A lot of UK-oriented companies, which is great, easier to visit. But we've got the world is our oyster, right? So I'm here in Amsterdam and I'm talking to companies from Italy and Germany and Portugal and then my colleague Elena who started here three months ago. She's got a lot of experience in the Middle East and Central Europe. So I just feel like a lot of blue sky here.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Now tell me about like, what would you say is your unique value offering? Like what is it that you're going in and leading? What is it that you feel like you all are solving most uniquely?

Ed Staples: I like that question. So when somebody says good question, it means it's the question they wanted you to ask.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. I have done this for a while.

Ed Staples: Not your first rodeo. No, not really. I would say the conversation has turned back to quality and I'm glad for that. There's the time I've been in the industry. There's been times when it was all a price question and people wanted sample cheaper and cheaper. And you didn't feel good about that. As a researcher, you didn't want to feel like my client is going to balance a million dollar. decision on people who may or may not actually be people may or may not actually be who they are. So I like that people are now saying, I want to know that these people are from where they say they are, that they're real human beings, that they're focused on the interview rather than just trying to grind through it so they can get to the next one. So I'd say that's it. I mean, we continue to be a proprietary panel. We're the largest proprietary.

Ed Staples: panel in the industry, about 270 million people around the world are members of Protege.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, that is very significant because not everybody owns their panel, number one, and that might be something that people don't actually know, but then also when it comes to panel size, that is very large.

Ed Staples: Yeah, and I always try to quantify it because everyone in the panel space has the biggest panel in the industry. So I don't have 270 million people taking a survey, but last month we had three million unique active survey takers. So it's pretty impressive.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. It's been interesting here because people will be like, oh, you're the American company and they think we only have panel in America. And I'm like, no, we're like an 80 markets. But I mean, these are good problems to have.

Ed Staples: Yeah, I love it. And also the problem of what we're going to do next time I'm in London and we're going to go see the sights.

Priscilla McKinney: Exactly. If you can't find a beautiful thing in London every single day, you're just not trying.

Ed Staples: No, you are not trying. And I got to tell you my favorite thing about London, I just love that town, but so many parks.

Priscilla McKinney: So many parks. You will find this out. it is green, green, green, green, green, way greener than Paris, than New York, then I'm telling you. Just start exploring some neighborhoods. You're going to see what I mean.

Ed Staples: I'll have to do that. I pick a new neighborhood every weekend to go and explore.

Priscilla McKinney: that is awesome. Okay. All right. It's been wild. Okay. I'll see you over there.

Ed Staples: Yeah. Sounds like a plan.

Priscilla McKinney: Let's take a short break. I'm Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Mama Bird here at Little Bird Marketing. And in case you didn't know, I'm also a LinkedIn influencer. I also have a passion for teaching other B2B professionals how to become influential on LinkedIn. The reality is that very few people are using LinkedIn efficiently or effectively. Efficiency is important because ain't nobody got time for that. And if you're not careful, social media can be a black hole.

Priscilla McKinney: When you emerge, you find you wound up in a place you never intended to go and you're wondering where all the time went. Being effective is important because the moment you try to be everything to everybody, you begin the journey of being nothing to nobody. Instead, I teach a mindset shift and the skills to get clarity about what you need to accomplish on LinkedIn and how to build a strategic network

Priscilla McKinney: and stellar content that resonates with the audience and gets heard above the noise. Tips and tricks are a dime a dozen out there. Getting it done right requires an investment. There's time and money. I teach a course over 12 weeks. You can still get your job done just fine, but over that time, you change behaviors, and that's key. The money is 3,000 per student. If you're wondering whether it's worth it or not,

Priscilla McKinney: you should read a few of my recommendations on my LinkedIn profile. They're words, not mine. As the Flashdance title song goes, let's take your passion and make it happen. Who's with me? Learn more at littlebirdmarketing.com slash social hyphen influence.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Joseph Wiley with Reach Collective. We've been able to catch up in between some sessions here, but tell people who don't know your company a little bit about what you do and what your solutions are.

Joseph Wylie: Yeah, hey, I'm Joseph Wiley. I am at Reach Collective. I'm the director of global supply. We were formerly a precision sample, but now we're under the ACWEST umbrella. Our sibling company, Testset, is also here. So it's been awesome to see them. We're a sample supplier. We pride ourselves on being unbiased, uncorrupted, and human verified. So yeah, that's us.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay. So tell me about some of the sessions I've seen you and I passed a couple of times going in. So what was there something that you went to that you thought was really interesting or did you come with something in mind that you really needed to hear about?

Joseph Wylie: So yeah, I mean, I think it's been a trend for the past couple of years that there's been a lot of sessions at conferences on AI kind of generally, but it's been really awesome to see, especially at this conference, how many specific AI sessions there have been. Specifically, there's been a lot on synthetic personas and just there's really specific use cases for each of the AI presentations that I've seen. So I've been very impressed. And I think just as an industry, we've got to move forward. We can't fear AI. We've got to see it as an opportunity and learn to adapt to it.

Priscilla McKinney: love that. And I think we have come a long way in just two years. But here at IIEX is where I think a lot of these important conversations happen, right?

Joseph Wylie: Absolutely. It's so awesome to be just integrated with this community where we all have that shared goal and all these presentations on AI have had this air of just optimism and excitement in how we're using it. So just a really exciting time.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Okay. I'll see you at other venues, but it's so nice to catch up, Joseph.

Joseph Wylie: So great to catch up. Thank you.

Priscilla McKinney: Oldie Goldie's old friends are the best friends. Love talking to Martha and Julia from Q2Q Global. And also, I love seeing you guys in Europe. I I prefer to be seeing you in Barcelona, your home. But Amsterdam is a nice second. So tell me a little bit about how you found the conference, Martha.

Martha Llobet: Well, I found it really, really interesting. I think that this year, apart of Only AI, is a lot of other things, a lot of cases studies. I think that we learn quite a lot of examples of how people is integrating everything and like new movements. think it's going to be talking in the next few years.

Priscilla McKinney: Julia, you might get voted as the best hat because Pure Spectrum had an activation for making these custom hats. And so we all made one, but you made a very nice butterfly one with a big J. We'll get a picture and post it with this.

Julia Polakova: Oh, they had either dogs or butterfly. So I prefer butterfly. It's like more feminine and I really can relate with that kind of design. So yeah, I always try to make the most out of it when we were... So when I was at IIEX North America in DC, there was a tattoo station. So I just tattooed a cupcake.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I always find something nice.

Julia Polakova: Okay.

Priscilla McKinney: So tell me a little bit, a Q2Q global... What are you hearing right now? Maybe one of the top challenges or pressing issues that your clients are facing. Can you think about like, has anything been changing lately or is it still some of the same typical challenges?

Martha Llobet: We are growing a lot in web product like services. So we are doing a lot of product testing. And one of the things we are facing a lot and more and more is with the customs area, we are like trying to work it out with the clients and we are finding finally a way to make it happen in a more easy way. But this is one of the things we have had so much challenge.

Priscilla McKinney: then, Do you mean like actually getting the products for testing to people because of customs?

Martha Llobet: Yeah, to get it into the country because normally, so if they're sending it, especially from the UK lately to get it in Europe, it's been a nightmare for us. but also in other countries, it's difficult to know all the customs criteria and all these things. sometimes, so we've been working a lot and very closely with the brands of how to make it happen. And it's been very crazy months, but very successful now, finally, that we've been able to click the trick of it. And qualitative, I will say that in terms of the global research and stuff like that, seeing that it's coming back for a face-to-face.

Martha Llobet: We are getting more and more requests of like, hey, we want to be there, we want to see it, the researchers are going back. it's like finding the facilities after so many days closed. It's been like challenging for us when we look for something outside the box, like not the typical facility, but we are getting

Julia Polakova: in some you're absolutely right about that. then when it comes to AI, of course, we've been seeing so many tools, so many solutions, but it's true that not every AI tool is a gem. And I think people Especially researchers from InsideSteam, are starting to realize that this is happening and they still prefer to run traditional form of research and use real moderators instead of like AI voice moderators. I just attended a really good session by Mastercard and she mentioned like very sensitive topics when it comes to, know, creating that trusted environment with the moderator so they can put...

Julia Polakova: themselves into the respondent's shoes and really understand what's behind and ask relevant questions. This is something what AI still can feel in their bones, if it has any.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, that was Jill from Discuss with MasterCard. That was a very good session. I love that.

Priscilla McKinney: Ladies, I'll see you at SMR in Prague and I'm just kind of curious, are you going to be presenting or okay, tell me about what you're presenting on.

Martha Llobet: So we are with Jaime, which is my Mexican head of insights. We are presenting a new study that we done ourselves about GenAlpha and how they're using their technology and the way to look their everything, the brands and everything. So we've been doing this research in six, seven countries and then we are double checking this data with one data that we did in a study two years ago and we are like presenting it there. So we are quite excited about it.

Julia Polakova: are just right finalizing fieldwork.

Martha Llobet: and we're starting in the analysis process. So very interesting. And we are using AI as well in certain stages of the project. Again, a blend of the AI and the traditional.

Priscilla McKinney: okay. yes, and also. Oh, the color? What?

Julia Polakova: Oh my gosh, I had no idea.

Priscilla McKinney: Stay tuned. Okay, stay tuned. Maybe you'll hear it here on Ponerins from the Perch, but we will ask Martha to try and give us the inside information from the council, what the theme color is for the gala.

Julia Polakova: I mean, I get you, Julia.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Kit from Listen, and they are the AI First research platform, but I got to listen to you yesterday presenting, and I'd love to get a little bit of a recap from my podcast about what you did, but before I let you do that, You really should get an award for the fastest demo ever on stage. I thought it was fantastic because you have a room full of researchers and they want to see the goods they want to see under the hood, but we don't need it in slow mo. And so you were just like, boom, boom, boom. This is what it looks like this way. And it was just like, it was very awe inspiring. So good job on that. And I think from now on we want very fast demos.

Kit Wiggin: rule. 30 seconds max.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. Okay, so tell us what you talked about and who you were on stage with.

Kit Wiggin: Absolutely. So we talked about our platform. Listen, as you said, AI First Research Platform, the design of which is focused on alleviating as much of the time consuming components from a researcher's plate and really leveraging what an individual can do themselves as efficiently as possible, but at the level that they hold themselves to where they run those interviews themselves. So I was fortunate enough to get on stage alongside one of our customers, Lucas, who leads insights and behavioral research at Peking Kloppenberg. their German department store. He talked about a recent study that he did with us where the marketing team needed some insights and concept testing about an ad they were filming on, I want to say the Thursday or Friday, but could only get him the concepts to test the day before. And so in that time, he was able to set up, and run that study, speak to 50 people in German, analyze all of their response, get it to the marketing team and really use those insights and those stories that people were telling.

Kit Wiggin: to drive the directorial attitude towards that advertisement.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, well, so many people in his position are feeling that time crunch, that compression. So you guys have really compressed then the time period from, okay, what is it that I really need to know to what is the advice I'm getting and be able to really activate on it quickly. Is that what you're hearing across the board from prospects and your existing clients?

Kit Wiggin: Yes, it's all about, I think, generally just lowering the barriers to doing some research project, answering some question and... Speed is a big component of that, but it is also just the amount of time that it takes you to set it up and run it. It's about how easy it is to access the insights and what you really care about. And of course, cost, just being able to speak to people in depth without having to spend days and days of your own time, but also of individuals' time speaking to them. So it all piles into that idea of having that question and answering that question in the same day without having to worry about...

Kit Wiggin: the labor that goes into a normal research project.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. So tell me a little bit about you have been mobbed at your booth, but have you gotten out? Have you gotten to hear anything else or what have you enjoyed about the conference so far?

Kit Wiggin: I love coming to these conferences. I was recently in DC for the recent IIEX. I was starting to make friends with some of the other vendors that I'm seeing around. Unfortunately, I've been quite booth bound, so I haven't got a chance to catch too many other talks. There's only a couple of us here today.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. But it's good when you have a lineup at the booth.

Kit Wiggin: Okay. Can't complain. Can't complain.

Kit Wiggin: We've come a long way, so it's only been a few of us this time from San Francisco. But now this is such a beautiful venue as well. it's we're at the Reagan Center in D.C. and now I don't want to say the word and butcher it, but it begins with a B. I think it's Vers Van Berlijn, so I'm going to go for it. Beegel, something like that. Yeah, but it is a beautiful venue.

Priscilla McKinney: does make it nice.

Kit Wiggin: Also, we get some natural light during the day. So you and I are always in these basements of conferences where you will rise a couple of days later and you're just like miserable. But yeah, getting the natural light is huge.

Priscilla McKinney: Now you're conveniently located near the coffee machine. So I'm a little jealous of your booth.

Kit Wiggin: Tripp is doing a good job. He's drinking about nine glasses of water an hour at this rate. Just back and forth trying to start those conversations. He's doing a great job.

Priscilla McKinney: actually already received some feedback too. Very friendly chat.

Kit Wiggin: maybe a little bit less American for some of the German people here, but I've told them, don't listen to them, you're doing a great job.

Priscilla McKinney: You're good job. That's why we're here.

Kit Wiggin: love it. love it. Thanks for talking with

Priscilla McKinney: No worries at all. No worries at all. Thanks so much for having me.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Michael Vincent, the executive client partner at MarketLogic Software. And I know all of your coworkers in the US side. So I don't know you. So but we're going to get a little bit of a chance to talk about it. But if anybody doesn't know, what your company does, can you give us just a brief introduction?

Michael Vincent: Yes, absolutely. Lovely to meet you. And we're here today presenting MarketLogic and particularly Deep Sites. And the product that we have is aimed at helping our customers to anticipate consumer needs in the speed of light as is needed today.

Priscilla McKinney: It's that. It's just easy. It's also called magic, but go on.

Michael Vincent: Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about your presentation here.

Michael Vincent: Yeah. So we were here today with UCB, very kindly. One of my clients, Tudor from UCB, spoke about their journey with MarketLogic so far. in the beginning of the process, they had some very scattered data around UCB, which was important that It was part of their, it's called GXP process for pharma, very regulated environment. They kept on being pulled up by the regulators because certain things were maybe not ideal in the process. So they came to MarketLogic to build out initially a research workflow that would do two things. Number one, it would centralize all research so that they could have a view of what was being carried out across the globe.

Michael Vincent: Number two was to make sure that every piece of research they carried out was compliant. And then what's led on from that is the use of deep sites now, the AI tool, which can go and interrogate all of that data and all the research that they have using external data sources as well that they collect and then give them an entire overview of the information they've got and then start to generate insight from that.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, very powerful. And something you didn't say directly, but I'm going to kind of pick up from this, is that market researchers are really pressed on all sides at this point, lots of challenges. Consumers are changing fast. are seats being switched in companies, some legacy information being lost. And one of the things that researchers don't need is their own workflows to be thwarted and to be forced to be changed. And so what I heard you say in that...

Priscilla McKinney: is that you were in some ways sensitive to their workflow and created something around them so they could do their work. Is that right? Did I hear it?

Michael Vincent: You did indeed. Absolutely. Yeah. So we customized our research market. It's called research management tools to their SOP. So it fits their ways of working. And the benefit of that is speed.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, I love it. Well, what else is better than Snead it this way, right? Okay, that's great. Well, how about you personally? Have you gotten to catch any other sessions or how have you found IIEX?

Michael Vincent: I have, thank you. Yeah, I did see a couple of interesting sessions. One, I think, was particularly interesting from StreetBees and Bayer. That was a great case study. They're actually a client as well, which is nice to know. But from that, think with our new advent of always on agents that are now part of deep sites as well, I think we can actually make use of the StreetBees data to continuously update, whether it's competitive intelligence teams or insight teams or researchers on changes.

Priscilla McKinney: See right there again, that's collaboration. And so it seems to me that you're putting your customers challenge in the before even what your particular product or solution is. And I love hearing that.

Michael Vincent: I mean, absolutely. Right. That's the way that we've all got to develop now. If you're still developing in the headstrong way of we know best, think that's going to lead to problems in the future.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, well thank you so much for joining us and I hope it was a great conference for you all in all.

Michael Vincent: Pleasure, thank you for talking to us.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Mike Steinberg with Panoply and I have to say I'm good friends with Neil and with Adam and I was so nice to see that Mike you had made it over here. So this IIEX and kind of busting into Europe has got to be definitely an interesting move for what you guys are doing at Panoply. And I am going to go ahead and pay you all a compliment. I do think you have an incredibly unique piece of tech that is different.

Priscilla McKinney: than everything else that is being talked about in terms of AI. Can you give people a little snippet of Panoply? And if you know them before as Glimpse, then now get used to the new name. So tell them a little bit about that unique value proposition you offer here in Insights.

Mike Steinberg: Sure. I think what we do that's a little different than everyone else is we are huge believers in the foundation of real first-party data to drive to synthetic or digital twins or use AI. A lot of the companies out here today don't seem to have the belief that you need to combine real research with what might be considered AI research. So we're big believers in using what exists out there to help drive to what the future of insights would be. And we do that by either allowing people to bring all of their data into one holistic

Mike Steinberg: repository where they can then interrogate that data and get deeper insights, ask questions of the data that they would never would have been easily able to get answers to. And then when it integrates within those large language models, it really gets even more and more depth of information. So we've had a lot of good success with a lot of large clients and coming here to Amsterdam has been interesting for sure. It's interesting to see a lot of the brands that

Mike Steinberg: we've worked with or spoken to in the US, I'll kind of talk to them here and they have no connection. It's very disparate, which is has been a bit eye opening for me for sure.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, especially for a platform that really seeks to unite insights and break down silos within companies. Now, Adam on your team has kind of been playfully dubbed the digital twin guy. So tell people a little bit about digital twins, because I think it's one of those buzzwords right now, but people don't maybe really understand what it is.

Mike Steinberg: Yeah, I guess the digital twin is Adam. So for us, it's about taking first party data, either individuals or segments of people using that. to then derive inferences and probabilistic results of what those same people would say if you were actually able to ask them and talk to them in person. But as we all know, it's impossible to go get 5,000 people who you may have surveyed to all of a sudden ask follow-up questions. So instead, we use everything we know about them and we go and ask those digital twins, avatars, you will, enriched personas to really get at those further insights.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. And I know that at conferences, you all have been like really pulling the hood up and showing us how the whole system works underneath it. So, but on a personal level, Mike, what have you enjoyed about IIEX? Has you've been to some of the sessions or what would you share about that?

Mike Steinberg: I think what's interesting is as we sit here in a room surrounded by booths, every booth has the word AI on it. And what I'm seeing and realizing is that AI really has different applications to different companies. You think of more traditional terms like focus group, like a focus group is a focus group. A survey is a survey. AI is not AI. There's all different ways that people are using it. They're using it as interrogators of like IDI type research. They're using it as summarizers of data. It's fascinating to see how different this new technology, this new way of being is going to evolve over time.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah. Well, I'm going to be really excited to see what's next with Panda Play. You guys have been on the road hitting it hard. You're probably tired, but it's been a very fun journey to watch you. And I've done some really fun partnerships with you guys and I look forward to more. And of course, you know, I just have to stand with Adam, fellow cultural anthropologist that he is. We get to talk shop and we always agree that we think that we're the most interesting people at the cocktail party.

Mike Steinberg: He's smartest guy I know.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Mike Ostrowski from Nail Biter and I have to say what a wonderful way to kick off the conference. Amishi yesterday was on stage with Mark from Kodi and that was, in my personal opinion, the exact reason why people come to IIEX to say

Priscilla McKinney: This is not theoretical. We're not going to hide what we do. We're going to really showcase our methodologies and we're going to bring a client on stage and show how they really used our stuff. So Mike, you're with NailBiter. For people who don't know what NailBiter is, can you give us a short introduction?

Mike Ostrowski: Yes. So we are providing quantitative insights, consumers and shoppers insights to our clients to understand how their consumers and shoppers are behaving. And all of this is based on videos collected in the moment, either in the point of purchase, or at home as the products are being used. So we are doing this at quantitative scale, which is differentiating us from other like qualitative type of providers. And this is providing very, very useful insights to both our clients as brand manufacturers, but also in their conversation with retailers.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, well, one thing that you said to me earlier just is I think really fascinating. We're hearing a lot about AI, but one thing that I think is very important about NailBiter, your technology and the methodology is you mentioned that all of these videos that are happening in real time get restored and they get sent to, wait for it, a human to review. So tell me a little bit about that.

Mike Ostrowski: Go figure, human beings doing market research, groundbreaking, right? Yes. So we are a market researcher company made by market researchers for market researchers. So we see AI as a great tool in the industry, but we're not basing everything around AI. So far, so we've been leveraging AI and continue to do so as a more like qualitative check and then as an answer to our work and to the wonderful team that we have, human coders.

Mike Ostrowski: that are watching the videos, making sure that what we hear from consumers and shoppers and what we see in the video actually do not contradict each other. And when they do, well, that's where the human magic happens, let's say, because only a human can interpret what's going on in the video and how to interpret how maybe the disconnect between what the consumers and shoppers are saying and what they're actually doing.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, that's really interesting because Cody showed actually one of the videos of a shopper and it about pain me every marketer in the room was like, oh, because the actual shopper was saying, oh, well, what I'd really like to see is a picture of before and after with this mascara at this particular beauty bar. And lo and behold, it was right in front of her, but she didn't see it. And so that is such an interesting

Priscilla McKinney: piece of information for a marketer to say, yes, I did the right thing, but I must have not done it effectively because the consumer is shopping at my beauty bar and is not even seeing the thing they think that they're looking for. It was one of those moments that was really crazy. But I will tell you another really great moment was at the end.

Priscilla McKinney: Mark was willing to share the actual launch video of their new beauty bar as it was revamped based on the information he got from working with your team. So it was impressive. So tell me a little bit about what excited you when you saw that end product.

Mike Ostrowski: I think it's always great when a client is satisfied and when we bring value to the clients. And that's exactly what Mark shared yesterday. And that's also why this presentation was so powerful on our eyes. So thanks for recognizing that because I'm not very objective on that front. But we got a lot of great feedback after the fact. It's great how you can introduce your methodology, but it's even better when you see the results, how this has been implemented by our clients and how this brings value to the consumers and to the shoppers themselves. Here, the way that Mark has presented that, again, he's been able to do so because this is already in store.

Mike Ostrowski: All the learnings have been integrated by the team, implemented by the team. The planetgram, the beauty bar has been reworked. And he was eluded that yesterday as well, that the first results are very encouraging in terms of impact on the business. So we're really happy to have this kind of testimony from our clients and that are willing to share that in front of a lot of their peers in such an event as IIEX.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you mentioned impact on business. Let's talk about a couple of things that clients ask you about all the time. I would imagine seasonality kind of comes in. Also, we just talked about the idea of the effectiveness on advertising, what campaigns are going on. But I want to ask you about a third thing that I think is at the forefront of a lot of people's minds, managing brands, managing categories, managing products. And that is

Priscilla McKinney: the effect of inflation and what is going on in the economy. So what are you hearing from brands and what they need to know about how the consumer is maybe even changing their behavior at point of purchase right now?

Mike Ostrowski: Yep. So what we're hearing from brands right now is the focus is a lot on activation in store. In the recent years, let's say it was easy to just increase price and get their value sales up, right? Because it was like prices were increasing in many, categories. Now, I think we've reached a certain level where price increase will not cut it anymore. in order to increase their sales, increase their not only volume, but also value sales, they need to execute and improve and optimize their execution. So that's a lot of the questions we are having so far is I'm spending that amount of money in a display in a secondary location in having this wonderful communication elements on shelf or in my beauty bar.

Mike Ostrowski: How can I optimize that? So I make sure that every dollar I spend is actually having a return on investment and the biggest return on investment that I can have here.

Priscilla McKinney: That's so huge for brands. So thanks for sharing that about brand impact. And it's awesome to see you. Thank you for being the title sponsor of IIEX. We can't really have these amazing networking events unless we have people step up and sponsor. So thank you to Nailbiter for that.

Mike Ostrowski: Thank you for having me.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Nancy Hernan with G3 Translate. We've known each other for so long. We've been involved in Women in Research exec and it's just so nice to see you here across the pond. I will say we did have a lovely boat ride last night thanks to MMR. So it's nice to sit out in the beautiful weather with you. But tell me a little bit about what's going on at G3 Translate.

Priscilla McKinney: And you kind of changed your role a little bit there. You're a little bit more hands on these days, but tell me what's going on at G3 Translate.

Nancy N. Hernon: Well, the battle of AI has really hit us hard this year in the research industry. And so my role has become very educational. So we've spent the last several months trying to go to our clients and educate them, kind of talk about AI in our business, AI in market research. AI is not new in my world at all. It started like with neural networks back in the late 90s, early 2000s. So we've been working with these tools and building these tools for a really long time, but it's not always appropriate. So my year has been very challenging, trying to spread the word and bring some understanding out there. And yeah, I'm enjoying it. I'm loving it. Last night on the boat was awesome. I got this lovely bit of butter, the Dutch little croquette thing.

Nancy N. Hernon: Amazing and always a pleasure to see you Priscilla and to watch you grow and see you just become who you are from when we met. even want to say how long ago because then we'll sound old.

Priscilla McKinney: No, never mind. We're not old. I think it was nine years ago.

Nancy N. Hernon: Yeah, it's been fun to see how both of our companies have changed. mean, we've constantly moved with the times here. But let me come back to this what's appropriate or what's not because being a bilingual person and also as a cultural anthropologist, I truly understand.

Priscilla McKinney: what it is you're trying to educate people on. So many restrictions in so many different countries as surveys go global, what you can and can't say in certain cultures, what you can and can't say to people of certain ages or of certain genders. And so it is, there's so much behind language that people really don't appreciate until you start talking to some of them about it. I imagine here at IIEX, there are a lot of people who are on that verge of going global who need this kind of expertise. Do you find that to be true?

Nancy N. Hernon: Absolutely. It seems like everyone's trying to expand where they can as best they can and thinking, oh, AI is going to make it easy. I can cheaply turn my website into German or Portuguese or Korean. And it's really not that straightforward. Like you said, there are rules, there are laws, there are questions you just cannot ask. And a machine doesn't have that sentiment to know when is it appropriate to cut this question? When is it appropriate to ask or what should we change it to? Right. And that's kind of where the human touch comes in.

Nancy N. Hernon: And we really take it to a really deep level with our cultural consulting around the design and the strategy behind the survey. Because like football to you and me, Priscilla, does not mean the same thing as football to all of the Dutch colleagues here. So, right.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you and I ended up in an interesting conversation with Salma, who presented from Henkel, and she's working in Dubai and talking about even hand washing products and that in that world that is largely, I wouldn't say largely, 100 % women who are doing the laundry still. It is a very different culture, first of all, that they're trying to do this research in. And then secondly, if you want to do a focus group or an IDI with a female, that's a whole different ball of wax in different cultures as well. So I love this education piece to it.

Priscilla McKinney: where something as simple as laundry detergent, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble pretty quickly.

Nancy N. Hernon: Absolutely. And not just laundry detergent, asking about some of our clients recently wanted us to consult with something in the Middle East and then wanted to put in some LGBTQIA plus questions.

Priscilla McKinney: Oh boy.

Nancy N. Hernon: Yeah, exactly. And we're like, well, maybe let's not. Well, why not? Well, because they don't want to get arrested for answering a survey.

Priscilla McKinney: Right.

Nancy N. Hernon: And these are the little things that not everybody thinks about because we kind of see the world through our lens and our culture. And when we're translating it for others to really sell our products abroad, we really need to shift that lens and change the focus. And that's kind of my job. So it's not translating the words, people, it's translating the meaning and all of the cultural baggage that goes with that.

Priscilla McKinney: So, Nancy, so great to see you here in Amsterdam.

Nancy N. Hernon: Thank you so much, Priscilla. Always a pleasure.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Riga Rizai-Strasburg. So we'll be able to put a link to her LinkedIn in our show notes, just like we do with all of our guests. But tell me a little bit about Verbalogic.

Riga Rezay-Strassburg: So yeah, Verbalogic is an international data collection company. We're doing international research in quantum quant, B2B, B2C, all the kinds of things. And what is unique for us, we do the analyzers and how. So we have a big coding department for manual coding in language coding with 20 languages. We use the AI of course of the client wishes, but we do the hybrid model. So we can just recommend to do the hybrid model with the AI. The engines is not ready enough to do the full analyzers on the open end to get a deep analyzer. So we get the feedback back from the client is if they are messed up.

Riga Rezay-Strassburg: with the data in the coding part, so the whole analyzers failed. So that's why, yeah, this is co-main business what we do.

Priscilla McKinney: So here at IIEX, what have you heard or what has been new or was there anything that surprised you or inspired you?

Riga Rezay-Strassburg: No, not really. It wasn't expected. 98 % people are offering tech and AI engines, but the sessions was very good yesterday. So they were talking about to the senior level, please take the junior levels and show them how to use the engines, which engines for what kind of how to prompting because the union level just think about it. The engines are doing everything and it's fast, quick and cheap. And this goes through the brains of all the clients and clients and whatever. But it's not true because the young people doesn't know where the roots are. So it's our mission and really task to show them how to do that. And that was very impressive to say, hey, AI,

Riga Rezay-Strassburg: is a tool, is not replacing the human. It was something that relieves myself to say, huh, okay, maybe the industry turned back a little bit to see AI is very fancy and is good and everybody can use it as a benefit, but you have to know how to use it. So that was the only thing that I had here to say, okay, we're not just tech AI and everybody else can go home, but we can use it and combine it and learn from each other and work with each other and not against each other.

Priscilla McKinney: you

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I had the good fortune of actually getting to meet the keynote speaker that kicked it all off right before we got going here at IIEX. So Salma, welcome to the show.

Salma Nosseir: Very nice to see you, Priscilla.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, we also had a little bit of fun on a boat ride through a canal last night, so that's always good. But let's kind of go back a little bit to your keynote in the morning, kicking us off about Henkel. So what are you doing over in Dubai?

Salma Nosseir: So in Dubai, we have our Consumer Co-Creation Center. It's actually part of the research and development team. We get the product developers to meet with the consumers and make sure that the consumers are involved in the innovation process very early on and throughout the process as well. So in simple terms, like the product developers have their lab coats on, they would go talk to the consumers, see them trying their prototypes and prototypes and go upstairs back to the lab and then rework accordingly.

Priscilla McKinney: That was so interesting, this idea of bringing those teams much closer together in order to create quicker resolve to some of the challenges or frustrations that people are feeling with the products. you gave a really good example during the speech. So tell us about one of those pieces of something to deal with the actual detergent, hand soap.

Salma Nosseir: Yes. So one of the things that we work on is for sure, like laundry detergent. It's one of our biggest brands are like We have many brands for laundry detergent all over the region and globally as well. We try to develop those to meet the consumer needs. So hand wash is still dominant in some of the countries we work on. And then like it's very important to try and this means like consumers really like spend hours and hours doing their laundry.

Priscilla McKinney: hand washing, hand washing their laundry.

Salma Nosseir: Exactly, hand washing their laundry. So they have a very special relationship with the detergent. So it's very important to meet their needs when we talk about also sensorial needs, right? So one of the things that we've been working on relates to making sure that they feel that the detergent is not harsh on their hand. And we've been developing this product for some time now, and we actually tested with consumers. We tried it out and then we found out, okay, when we added this new active matter, they started feeling, okay, it's too slimy. The product developers took that and they reworked the formula. And then after that, we got some of the best.

Salma Nosseir: quantitative results because we reworked the formula and we have the product launched now in Algeria, actually.

Priscilla McKinney: That's so great because we were able to see right in a very small snippet, really the process that you're using at Hankel in order to get closer to that voice of the consumer and really understand what they need. And then it was just such a quick activation. So that's interesting. Do you know why a lot of other companies are not really bringing that R &D and the insights function close together?

Salma Nosseir: Actually, I know that a lot of the major players are starting to talk about this. Some of them already started doing that. We have, of course, the typical classical part where the product research is done by marketing or CMI, but then we risk that the insights get to the product developers very late after they had already started developing the product. So it is starting to evolve. I can't say that not all people are starting to adopt this.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Well, thanks for joining us.

Salma Nosseir: Thank you. Thank you Priscilla. It was great.

Priscilla McKinney: I have Shafik Shahjahan with me from Street Vs. It is so good to be you in person. So I love being a LinkedIn buddies with people, but you got to see people face to face. I think you are specifically a little bit interesting because your digital profile and your footprint is quite captivating, shall I say. So it's nice to have this connection electrifying in real life. Okay. Well, the presentation was amazing.

Priscilla McKinney: For the people who were not here at IIEX, why don't you give a little bit of some of the takeaways that you provided in your presentation?

Shafeeq Shajahan: So, Priscilla, the world, like most things, is non-binary. Happy Pride, everyone. I get really frustrated because I go to all these MRS market research LGBT events and the first thing people ask me is, are you qualitative or quantitative? you quali-con? And I go, girl, I'm non-binary, I'm both.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, you heard that here on this podcast. Okay, so as it relates to street bees, so talk a little bit about what does that mean then? If we stop looking at the world binary like this, what could happen?

Shafeeq Shajahan: So what we're seeing, we've been in the business for 10 years and we've been focusing on conversational research for the past eight. And what we're seeing is that AI is erasing these stubborn boundaries between quote unquote analysis. So firstly, the survey is dead. You don't like RIP.

Priscilla McKinney: You're no longer going to be answering a one to five likert scale about whether you trust a brand or not. The future is conversational.

Shafeeq Shajahan: Right, also, what is the difference between a two and a three anyway? I don't know. A two is someone who lets actually not talk about my dating life. Two is reciprocal.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, got it, got it.

Shafeeq Shajahan: Yeah, and the second thing is because of photos and videos, now we can capture hundreds, thousands of them. I can get a front row seat to consumers lives. And so I can capture quantitative scale. I can understand like contextual cues of the background of a consumption moment or little ingredients in a makeup bag. I can reveal truths about the consumer that even the customer doesn't know. And then the third point is, I believe now we're seeing the quantification of the human experience. So with these AI models, I have the ability to organize and structure unstructured data in taxonomies that are bespoke to you in a matter of seconds. It used to take weeks, months to classify data and now I can do it in seconds. And fourth and finally,

Shafeeq Shajahan: What happens is when I have all of these data points, now AI has the ability to synthesize them into compelling stories on a silver platter just for you. And so we built a platform that does all of these four things, uses AI as an end-to-end tool. But the only caveat I would say is if you try to automate the whole thing with AI, you're going to fail and you're going to fail for us. Have humans in the loop. Trust your humans, trust your strategists because they will be the ones guard railing the output of the data.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, but then the other thing is that yes, people can use AI for the things you mentioned. However, you have spent years and years building an amazing, powerful army of what you call street bees. So tell us about how you've been able to really get a strong following and get people to participate in this beautiful research.

Shafeeq Shajahan: I think it's like three factors, right? Firstly, we've been cultivating a beautiful community of global bees for the past eight years. That takes time. By the way, I remember hearing about this many years ago in Bangkok. It was at an IIEX Asia Pacific Conference and I was like, what? Street bees? What? Tell me more. Like, and I just loved the whole concept that they were all out there buzzing, doing this thing and bringing it all back into the hive. Super amazing. I really recommend that you download our application and try a survey for ourselves. It's generally quite a fun experience. Kind of WhatsApp style surveys. I think the two things from a recruitment perspective, we remunerate, we pay our bees quite well and quite handsomely.

Shafeeq Shajahan: But the two things that we've had to do to ensure high quality is we incentivize them to deliver high quality answers. So we have a really great approval engine that qualifies them based on complete answers. It checks the inconsistency and checks for fraud. And if your answer at a high level of quality, we pay you more. And that's been the secret juice behind why our community is not only large and dynamic and elastic, but also why we deliver the best insights. Also,

Shafeeq Shajahan: global. Can you talk to me a little bit about what your clients are asking for, what new markets they're trying to get into, etc?

Shafeeq Shajahan: So we built segmentation as a really big part of our core proposition. And so many times I've talked to chief marketing officers, and they build these massive segmentation frameworks with companies like Canter, BCG, Bain. And what will happen is they'll deliver these massive like 60 page segmentation frameworks that are global, that they can't activate locally, or they can't serve with underrepresented categories.

Shafeeq Shajahan: Where we come in is we take your demand space framework. So we take your audience frameworks and then we activate them locally in under research or under tapped markets. And then we really flesh out the local nuances. And because of the way our AI codes, what happens is we can like really capture the local nuance around how people talk about, how I talk about rejection might be a very different way from how a Malaysian might talk about rejection. So local views.

Priscilla McKinney: Super powerful, super powerful. Thanks for coming on the podcast and telling us a little bit about it. And you need to go check it out at StreetBees.

Shafeeq Shajahan: Lovely to meet you. Take care.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Steve Pindrell with Quest Mindshare. So let's get right to about how long you all have been in the industry. There are so many sample providers to choose from, but tell me about the global nature of Quest Mindshare.

Steve Pendrell: Quest is a Canadian company, but the growth has always been led from our clients. And Quest in many ways is slightly at odds with everything you see here today, where there's accelerated growth within AI, because we've been in this for 21 years, and it's been really slow and steady when you compare that to the accelerated growth and disruption that you're seeing with all of these new and emerging tools. We've become global because we've been trusted to do what we say we'll do within the domestic markets. And really, the growth has come from our clients to say, we really trust you with what you've done.

Steve Pendrell: in the US, in Canada, can you do something in the more emerging markets like Latam? And that's what we've always been really good at doing. And you can say the same thing for the European expansion side of the business, that it's really just been a natural progression from just doing an honest job in the markets that we know the best.

Priscilla McKinney: well, I love that. I did have a good time with the Quest Mindshare group over at IIEX Latam. So they're good fun, just FYI. And then here we are in Europe. So tell me about that client who's saying, I really need to go global. I don't want to go to this and this and the like source just from so many different panels and be having this question mark over quality because you guys really have a very significant commitment to data quality. So can you tell me about that? Like why that matters going global and making sure that quality level is maintained?

Steve Pendrell: Without quality, then we don't stand a chance of succeeding as a business and the industry is in a bit of a loggerhead situation as well. We don't profess to being the highest quality data out there. What we profess to doing is working harder than any other partner that you will find to screen on the front end, to look at different fraud detection methods on the back end. But we also have an enormous team of project managers that will meticulously look through the data. And we work in partnerships with clients so that we know that they have their own

Steve Pendrell: for detection measures as well. So between us, we partner out to get the best possible outcome. We know it's not perfect. We take ownership over what we provide our clients. Now, boiling that back down to our global reach and why this works in Europe is that clients like working with us. And through osmosis, we get a good reputation and you can only really get a reputation like that over a long period of time. in that respect, my job is relatively easy. We might not have a household name here in Europe.

Steve Pendrell: but we have so many positive stories that we can draw upon, which gives our clients and prospects confidence.

Priscilla McKinney: love it. And I just want to back this up also by saying that the presentation yesterday was about really survey research on survey research. And so it just tells me that reputation of Quest Mindshare is also to check to make sure the experience is good for the respondents. And that to me, you know, smacks of quality caring. And it does, but quality is not just about, we talk about

Steve Pendrell: data quality a lot in this industry in terms of fraud. There is an issue there, we know that, but so much of the data quality issues that we see just from poor survey engagement, which comes from the back of poor survey design, but survey geeks here at Quest Mindshare. So we have so many people within the team that are enthusiastic about making the survey experience as good as it can be.

Priscilla McKinney: okay. I think that's an incredibly key point. Tell me something that you love about Amsterdam. Why you like this IIEX Europe event?

Steve Pendrell: What I love the most about Amsterdam is that it's a 45 minute flight from my house and I live in London. Amsterdam is just an incredible melting pot. And it's a place where I think that doesn't matter how old you think you are, you're very normal in Amsterdam. I love that. And it's a great place. You know, we went on a lovely boat trip last night. It's a lovely place to see the city and it's a great place to just see people from all over Europe and we can come together.

Priscilla McKinney: So that's great. For all of you who thought, no, I won't go to IIEX EU this year, too bad because we had the very, very best weather we've ever had in the history of this conference. It was amazing. What a beautiful night.

Steve Pendrell: It was such a lovely night and it was really relaxing as well. I found myself far more relaxed than I thought I was going to be. Sometimes the idea of a networking boat trip, I think, oh, right. Okay, well I've really got to be on form here, but everyone was just really easy. We were drinking a little bit of wine, chatting, getting to know each other. Loved it.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, loved it.

Priscilla McKinney: If you don't know her, you really should. I'm here with Tasneem Dalal and she is a delight. She is on LinkedIn like crazy, an amazing social influence student of mine. I'm very proud. But also it was so interesting. I was just about ready to interview you about your presentation and then someone walked by and said, oh my goodness, that presentation was so amazing. So we got immediate kudos. So good job, Tas. But why don't you tell people who missed IIEX what you talked about today, what some of those key takeaways were.

Tasneem Dalal: Yeah, so I presented a session with Emmanuel from Mars about how we really believe that the power of discovery and innovation is all through finding great partners, doing frequent renovations on your products, and really looking at your full product development cycle. And that's what we focus a lot on at MMR and Product Hub.

Priscilla McKinney: So what was one of the takeaways? What'd you give out in this presentation?

Tasneem Dalal: Yeah, so we actually did a big study with over 2,500 consumers and we found seven key drivers of what really makes people want to try products. So we focused on three of them and I'll give you a little teaser about one of them, which was thrill seeking and consumers really like to try new products and it gives them thrill and that way they're more inclined to try a new product, especially if it like ignites some excitement.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, so brands need to do that. Now I got to tell you, thank you so much for putting a cruise on last night. You don't need to ask me twice to go on a cruise through an Amsterdam canal. I'm in. So thank you for doing that. But it was an awesome celebration of two years of Product Tub. So tell us a little bit about how that launch has been.

Tasneem Dalal: Yeah, so we actually launched at IIEX, which was incredible. And it's been a wild ride to see the platform even from there to now. It's just like changed tremendously. There's so many new solutions. We're working with really cool brands. And if you haven't heard about Product Hub, reach out to me.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay. So if you have a product and she's saying you need to revamp them and revise them often and really tap into these key drivers that can really help you stand out. this is a platform for you. Taz, what's next for you? Will I see you in New York?

Tasneem Dalal: Yes, you will see me at Quirks in New York and I can't wait.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay.

Priscilla McKinney: From this particular peep at Little Bird Marketing here in Amsterdam, I'm saying have a great day and happy marketing.