IIEX Conference Flyover Day 2

Priscilla McKinney: Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing Company podcast. I'm Priscilla McKinney, mama bird and CEO with you as always, but I'm out here at IIEX in DC. God, I love the show. Greenbook puts on an amazing show and we are having a great time. But if you couldn't come, I have been around talking to people and getting you all the good tidbits so that you feel like you can come along on the ride. And I love that because it's about being together, even when we can't be together.

Priscilla McKinney: So big thank you to Scalify for sponsoring this flyover. They are absolutely leading the way in AI that is custom built for market research. They take everything from research specs to final presentations, or they let you jump in anywhere you need from survey programming, field work, data quality analysis, and bring amazing AI to bear without your team having to change their workflow. And so that means that your team can just incorporate amazing AI, but actually get the time to really do the things they do best, that deep thinking. And they have really already great feedback in the industry. It's something new, it's something interesting. You really should check it out. So scalify.com, S-C-A-L-I-F-Y.com. Go check it out. They're amazing people and give them a thank you for sponsoring this flyover and giving you the chance to hear a little bit about what happened there.

Priscilla McKinney: I got the opportunity, of course, to be out on the expo floor and talk to people, but I just gotta tell you a little something funny too. There were Saratoga waters everywhere and somehow someone had really jostled all of the sparkling waters because every time someone opened one, they got what we call the Saratoga facial. Someone else called it the Saratoga spritz. So if you saw that out on LinkedIn and people talking about how funny that was, it's like you could almost sit back and do some ethnography as people opened those bottles and got a surprising facial. Anyway, it kind of kept us laughing. And as you know, as the day goes, it's important to have a little something to entertain you.

Priscilla McKinney: But today I got to sit in on so many fantastic sessions. I think the one that really drew me in the most was about the protein being put into so many different products. And there was a presentation by Amishi at Nailbiter. She was presenting with Brody Dunn over at Pepsi and they were talking about the success they had with Doritos protein. And I'm sure you've seen them in the store, but it was so cool to hear the story behind all of it and to understand what we can expect also at the store.

Priscilla McKinney: Again, I got the privilege of getting to introduce people. And for me, that means I got a little bit of extra insight with the speakers before and after they presented and got to manage some of the questions coming in. But I hadn't seen Rob Rotho for a while, so that was pretty nice. He had a great presentation about a hybrid research stack that really helped them work with a client about the better for you beverage landscape. And boy, that is becoming a crowded landscape, don't you think? Certainly know just from my buying habits what's actually happening there.

Priscilla McKinney: Another standout presentation was Stan, one of my favorite guys from market research lore. He's over at iGenie.ai, you should check that out. But they had a really great panel and a dialogue, it was a wonderful dialogue about the value of human emotions for brands in this age of AI. And I know that seems like a bit of a blanket big picture conversation, but boy, the right people were on the stage and it really was an impactful conversation. You should connect with them, I'll put them in the show notes and the links there, but it was Dave Coban from The Spikes and Stephen Holmberg that joined him. And I'm sure if you reached out to them on LinkedIn, which is the point of this episode, to find some new people and make some additional connections. So I hope you enjoy the show.

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Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Meredith Falvo from Gazelle Global and I have to say, I did bump into you and Belinda the other day, and I know you did not have a game plan, but you guys were dressed basically the same. This is what I like about bumping into friends. But I just wanted to hear from you, Meredith. You really do have a very good view on what's going on in this industry, things that are changing. And I'm curious to hear from you and what you do at Gazelle Global. What's changing in this room and how it's affecting the services you provide?

Meredith Falvo: Sure. So when teams don't have enough bandwidth to support their research teams, we're here to support with programming and hosting and sampling and all those backend operations that your team doesn't have.

Priscilla McKinney: Your team has so much expertise, so it's kind of like outsourcing to, I think, like an MVP bench?

Meredith Falvo: We do have a very long history and a wise group of tenured project managers and staff. They've all been with us way over 15 years. So yeah, there's a lot of knowledge behind there.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, that knowledge is really important, especially I think when things change, because really understanding how things are done. Yes, AI can come in and help you, which I know you guys are not averse to that, but this project management is really key. So that's kind of the difference of someone proactively telling you maybe something's not right with your study or maybe just not fessing up to it at the end. So that's the reputation Gazelle has in the industry of being very proactive and saying, you know what, maybe you should do this study a little differently. I could see it working out better this way and just giving some ideas. So where do you fit into that puzzle?

Meredith Falvo: So I'm probably at the planning stages where a client will come to me and say, we want to do X, Y, Z. And I'll push back and say, well, maybe you shouldn't use this methodology, or perhaps we should do this at another time of year because it's not good for the people you're trying to recruit. And just having that knowledge and again, that wisdom of all the years behind us and we've done this. When you're doing a DIY platform, there's no knowledge there. It's as much as you know. So we're there to guide you along.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. Will Leach was just in a session, you and I were there, about the vending machine of market research and really how that's very little value. It might be quick and easy, but when you really need respected work, you need that tenured team. But let's do something fun here. You like coming to DC. You're a New Yorker, but you're here in DC. What's something you like in DC?

Meredith Falvo: I love DC. I grew up spending my summers here. My aunt that I spent the summers with would always take us down to the mall once a week and we would pick a different museum. And still to this day, my favorite museum is the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It's kind of like America's attic and you could see Archie Bunker's chair and Oscar the Grouch and the ruby red slippers. And the First Ladies' inaugural dresses. They're my favorite.

Priscilla McKinney: I do love that room and I remember seeing that as a kid too. That's awesome. Well, thanks so much Meredith.

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Priscilla McKinney: It's my podcast and I get to do whatever I want. So here's an oldie but goodie friend of mine, Dean Macko. We have been friends for so long and gone to so many conferences together. And I think your perspective on what's going on here at this innovation focused conference is super interesting because word on the street is you're involved with a really important innovation in this industry right now. Tell me about it.

Dean Macko: Oh, no, not another AI speech, right? I used to come to IIEX. I've been here probably six years in a row now, and 10, 11 times in total. I was running Vox Pop Me for a while there. This would be our Super Bowl, right? And even over the last couple of years, when I was working for full service research companies, I would be the one to avoid the AI speeches. We've got three or four separate tracks. We've got red rooms and blue rooms and green rooms that people can go to. And I would just go to the non-AI ones. But I tell you what, I've started consulting to a fantastic AI startup based out of Austin and people out there, whether you're agency side or whether you're client side, you need to look at the small steps you can take with AI just to make your life easier, because otherwise you're going to be left behind.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, tell me a little bit more specifically about that. Why did you choose to work with Scalify and help them grow?

Dean Macko: I hadn't seen anything like it. It's literally one of those deals where you get called on for a demo. You're at a full service agency. You get called on for a demo and you talk to them and you go, holy, I didn't know this even existed. I need to be a part of this company. So it was like the old commercial. I forget who it was. The guy was such a satisfied customer, he ended up buying the company. I think it was Remington.

Priscilla McKinney: Remington, okay. Remington Blades, I thought it was a shaving company. Now we're dating ourselves big time. Okay, that's all right. Okay, so now you're listening, but maybe for a different thing. Tell me what you're listening for at this conference.

Dean Macko: So I'm listening for how companies are helping researchers just be better and to have more fun during the day, right? Like we're all people that are enthusiastic about understanding consumers. We're all curious minded, but did we really sign up for all those hours of writing surveys or programming surveys? Like I've been client-side. I had my own Qualtrics license at Hyundai. Did I love programming surveys? Heck no, cause I'd screw it up half the time and miss people. They'd miss questions. People like spending hours or days or weeks on a PowerPoint presentation, making sure all the bar graphs are aligned with the brand colors and whatnot. Like we are literally saving people from all the monotonous and tedious work so that you guys can be real researchers, really kind of soak yourself into the insights. And then again, soak on activation.

Dean Macko: I've consulted before in the management consulting arena and what they do a lot better than market research companies do is in the activation piece. And so I think like there's a lot to learn from them that are charging probably four times or five times the amount of money we would do for the same research study. And so now you can think about, well, maybe we hire some actors and actually like put on a show to bring the insights to life. Or maybe we can do a higher end video or have an understand the customer day with real cutouts that the executives can visit as far as activation goes. So it is really allowing researchers freedom from all the monotonous stuff and all the different technologies that we use.

Dean Macko: We're using Decipher for our survey and then we bring it into, then we work with Dynata for the sample. And then when we check sample, we pull it offline into an Excel file and someone's got to check for data quality and fraudsters and repeat verbatims and repeat answers. And once you leave the highway and you're on the side street, now you're lost and you become inefficient and you start introducing errors into the ecosystem. And so with Scalify, we have a 100% AI-driven quantitative ecosystem that will drive you from survey creation through programming, 66-page word surveys are being programmed in 23 minutes to 100% accuracy. So you no longer have to farm those out to India or other low-cost providers.

Dean Macko: Then we work with APIs with all the big sample companies, 46 different quality checks, the highest quality responses in the industry by far. And it's frankly because the CEO ran Repdata for a long time.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. And you've done enough research to know really what the workflow is, like really thinking from the very beginning to the end, let's not have these hiccups. How can we get these things more seamless? And I think that's not what we were talking about with AI at the beginning. We were strapping on something here and band-aiding something here. And now what you guys are looking at is how do we make this process very organic? That is a really dynamic conversation.

Dean Macko: Yeah. The trick with AI now is to find the closed-loop AI ecosystems that you can trust. I've been in research for 30 years. So I know every step and I've worked every step as I moved up the ladder of a research study. Every company does it the same way. Unfortunately, our workflows haven't changed in decades and decades. Like I look at these big market research companies and they're managing projects exactly how I was managing them when I was in my twenties or in my thirties or even in my forties. It hasn't changed. We have more technology around us with Slack channels and team channels, and then another email channel that has the client on it and other notes and Google drives that we store documents on in Excel and PowerPoint. We are basically like tooled out. We need to grasp one tool that maybe is seamless so that again, we can really capture those efficiencies and using AI to be able to understand that unstructured data and bring it to life.

Priscilla McKinney: I really did enjoy my demo with Scalify and we'll definitely put it in the show notes for this podcast if someone wants to check it out. Dean, always wonderful to see you. Thank you so much.

Dean Macko: I love it. Thanks, Priscilla.

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Priscilla McKinney: Let's take a quick break so I can tell you about this show's sponsor. I'm Priscilla McKinney, mama bird and CEO at Little Bird Marketing. Ever wonder why some teams create extraordinary breakthroughs while others get left behind? Why some collaborative efforts create big wins while others fall flat? I think I have some important insight. In my book, Collaboration is the New Competition: Why the Future of Work Rewards a Cross-Pollinating Hive Mind, is a great read to help you break free from outdated linear thinking.

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Priscilla McKinney: I really just can't go to a conference without meeting this good friend of mine. Drum roll, please. Introduce yourself for Ponderings from the Perch.

Marc Macellaio: Oh Priscilla, you know me. Marc Macellaio here at NIT. That's gonit.com. It's always great to see you. We always have a laugh. You know, my husband asks as I'm leaving for conferences, is Marc going to be there? So I appreciate all the camaraderie. And thank you for inviting me to all the great, wonderful dinners you have with all your great clients. It's so great to meet everybody and really share different ideas about what's going on in the industry and really just get to know people in general.

Priscilla McKinney: So tell me about NIT, if people don't know what's going on over there.

Marc Macellaio: Yeah, a little bit about NIT. So AI-driven research agency platform. So what that means is we use AI and all the best capabilities of it to provide those efficiencies and speed that everybody loves, but still have a researcher in the loop to track and monitor and maintain, make sure that everything we're doing is decision ready for those executives that need those insights quickly. And so that's bringing Quant and Qual into that same study that we're running. So we're not putting Qual in one bucket and Quant in another, it's all in the same actual research.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, so you're knitting it all together. So it's like a story, you know, that's really interesting. I haven't thought about that before, but putting the Qual and Quant together in the same place. That is really important for a story that really will drive the right business decision.

Marc Macellaio: Absolutely. So that's what we're bringing is the idea to say, hey, how do they answer one question? Then what they say about that in the video, right? And we do AI video questionnaires so they can keep probing with an individual. After they answer that one question, we can dive deeper.

Priscilla McKinney: That's so great because sometimes people don't even know when they just said something fantastic and it's the researcher's job, right? To be like, tell me more.

Marc Macellaio: That's it. So the AI handles all that. We can then analyze it very quickly and put it into really fun sizzle reels. I call them fun because it's really engaging when you show it to an executive. Like I see the data. That's awesome. What did my consumers say? I want to see their face. I want to see their expression as they're talking about our product or a new idea. It's really powerful. For an executive who's behind a desk, that is powerful.

Priscilla McKinney: I really love that. Not being out and about, I can bring the consumer right to the boardroom, if you will. Love it.

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Priscilla McKinney: So I'm here with Heather McKinney at IIEX and another McKinney, it's so great. McKinney and we're not even related. That's okay. I'd be happy to be related to you. Well, very fun. I have gotten to see TalkShop around the world. So many different conferences. The last one where I talked with Tao, that was at IIEX in Latam. Super fun. So I know an idea about what you're doing, but let me ask you, for TalkShop, why IIEX? Why the Innovation Conferences? That's where I see you.

Heather McKinney: Innovation is fast moving. So it's really important to be here and just see, one, what other potential clients are talking about, who are they bringing on stage, what projects are they working on? But also you can see all the tools that are now just prevalent. And it feels like every time I'm here, I'm seeing a dozen new companies that I've never heard of before. And I kind of thought I knew them all at this point. So just really important to kind of have our finger on the pulse of what's going on out there.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, speaking of finger on the pulse, I did listen to your session today and it was very interesting about B2B segmentation. You were presenting with Charlene Griffiths over at FAIR. And it was a very interesting take, an interesting point of view about a lot of things that need to happen before the study even launches to really understand this B2B buyer in this particular case. Can you give us a little bit about that? Because I thought it was something I hadn't heard before.

Heather McKinney: Yeah, so for all of our projects, and it's not unique to this one, but broadly, it's super important to know, one, what you're trying to learn from the study, which sounds obvious, but really what do you want to know at the end of the day? And two, internally, what can be done with the data? So if this study is super interesting and everyone's really amped for these new learnings, but there is not a mechanism with which to act on the learning, then this isn't the right topic. We need to be doing something that can be acted on.

Heather McKinney: But with B2B buyers in particular, it's really interesting to talk to people about who they are as a person and who they are at work. Like we think about B2B and it's like, well, I've got my decision maker. I have my executive and I'm going to ask them all these things. But at the end of the day, they're people and they're not always making decisions that are 100% based on their role at their business. And some of us are distracted. All of we get a call from family. We are human in that way too, right?

Priscilla McKinney: And was there something in that that surprised you about what you learned?

Heather McKinney: I think what surprised me most is that when I think about an independent retailer, I kind of think about my shop in my downtown square in that store. But an independent retailer is actually a pretty, it's not a broad definition, it's a very niche person to find, but they come in all different shapes and sizes and they are not just your kind of artsy, it's your shop on the corner. And to find six super unique decision-making personas out of what is a pretty niche sample was the most interesting to me. I was worried we wouldn't find enough differentiation and we definitely did.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, I did like that actually. I even posted it on my LinkedIn because I thought that was just like a here's a shout out to all you business owners. We know you're all not one monolith and that was very refreshing. So Heather, thank you so much for joining me today.

Heather McKinney: Thank you.

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Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Max Rodriguez, new friend with Quantilope. So I'm always talking with salespeople. They're very anxious about what's going on in the market research world. They're concerned about what their end client is concerned with. So tell me, who is your most ideal client? Who are you looking to talk to here at IIEX?

Max Rodriguez: Thank you, Priscilla. I appreciate the question. For me, an ideal client is a brand that is truly obsessed with brand growth. Someone who's looking to tie their insights process to the broader marketing and brand team initiatives to really just like accelerate that go-to-market strategy. I think sometimes insights is a little bit transactional. We need a study, we need a concept test, we need a max diff, but how does it tie into the bigger picture of a brand growth system? Those are the people I enjoy talking to the most, because there's the most we can do for them, really.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, I love talking to all the growth people and I have to say, love me some salespeople, okay? I love that you're out here networking, so kind of your thought, this is your first IIEX. What's your take?

Max Rodriguez: It is. It's always great to see what's new and innovative in the market. Obviously, everybody is just obsessed with AI, synthetic data, things like that. So I'm curious to get everyone's perspective on where are we today? Where are we going? How does it all kind of fit into the fold?

Priscilla McKinney: Well, we're connected on LinkedIn. And in my show notes, you can connect with Max too. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Max Rodriguez: Thanks, Priscilla. I appreciate it.

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Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Geena Shaw and we actually just met maybe about a month or two ago. So it's so nice to see you here at IIEX. How are you?

Geena Shaw: I'm great. It's so nice to see you in person. After all that Zoom call. I know. It's so much better.

Priscilla McKinney: It's so much better. So tell me a little bit about, you know, if you've been in this industry many years and you have repeat clients, I'm curious, what is the secret sauce of Geena? Like why are clients coming back to you over and over again? What is it that you know where your sweet spot is in this industry?

Geena Shaw: Well, people have told me this, that I've been authentic and I've been true to what it is. And I tell things like it's supposed to be told, like I'm no bullshit. Sorry, I'm not supposed to say that?

Priscilla McKinney: It's my podcast. You can say that.

Geena Shaw: No bullshit. I will be as transparent and walk with you through to the end. And I'm not going to leave your hand just midway.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay. And just for people who don't know you, what services do you provide? So what is it that you're usually buying for clients?

Geena Shaw: Usually they come to me for quant, online quant services and quick and easy. And if it's like 60 countries or more, tabulations, programming, hosting, all of that.

Priscilla McKinney: That doesn't seem like quick or easy to me. It seems like complicated and you have expertise.

Geena Shaw: I think, oh, maybe. Maybe, yeah, but it is a nice, especially when you compare it to different methodologies, this seems a little bit more easier in that respect. But at the Logic Group, you can do many other services beyond a simple quant. So qual services and everything else.

Priscilla McKinney: But let me ask you a little bit about your experience here. So has there been a standout session or maybe one takeaway that you're going with from here?

Geena Shaw: I attended a lot of sessions, but the one I attended this morning about consumers and seeing consumers like they are people. They're just people and treat them like people. And the same ideas that you have for consumers, just on online panel, or you want to ask them something, start with your coworkers, see what they feel, how do they feel, or ask your family, ask your friends, and try to get like a knowledge of what that is, and then go out into the market. And I thought that was very smart.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, we should do that more often and it's quick and easy. So why not? I think that's really good advice no matter what. I mean, I know as a marketer, you're a marketer and you're thinking about demographics and you're thinking about marketing messaging and unique value proposition. And then you sit down at your desk and it's like, sometimes you're just too in that own world and you're right, go back. Now, wait a minute. When I shop, this is how I feel. When my mom shops, this is what she does. This idea of bringing people back into the heart of it is a super great takeaway. I love it. Geena, so good to see you here.

Geena Shaw: Absolutely. It's so nice to see you and talk to you. Thank you, Priscilla.

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Priscilla McKinney: I'm here with Matt Worden and he's with Finch Brands. We've been friends for a long time. It's good to see you at this conference.

Matt Worden: Great to see you as well.

Priscilla McKinney: Let me give just a quick question about where you think conversational research is going.

Matt Worden: It's a really broad question to start with. I think when you think about conversational research, you're thinking about two things, right? And that could be kind of curated conversational research from like a qual perspective, number one. And I think what's interesting is when you look at everything that's AI out there and everyone wants to say they have an AI solution. The kind of curated, whether it be a focus group, whether it be like an IDI, there's still a place for that. I will find with a lot of the AI solutions that we're not really discovering anything we don't know as far as kind of personas or AI created personas or that sort of thing.

Matt Worden: I think AI is great for monitoring online conversations, scraping social. Obviously our solution, CharliePlug, does a great job with that and kind of understanding what's out there. But I think the kind of natural online conversations that are happening are a great source. And I think they are only rising in popularity. But I also think what's interesting to me is the actual kind of in-person live customer conversations that are happening are becoming more well-informed because people have the background from an AI solution to kind of not start from go, start from like halfway down the racetrack to say, there's all this knowledge that exists already. I'm not going to waste the client's money figuring out all this. We need to start from step two or three down the line and really have those conversations be more informed so we're discovering what's new as opposed to what's already known.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. And that seems like it gets you faster to a really more comprehensive or more holistic understanding of the human experience, which is what drives really good decisions.

Matt Worden: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I feel like a lot of people here miss when they're talking about AI is they're so anxious to show you their solution and show you how it answers questions, but how does it work in the regular research flow? And one of the things we're going to talk about today with McCormick is they wanted to do tailgate research and they really wanted to understand the consumer in the parking lot and how they make their purchasing decisions and so on. But we did that on site at a Green Bay Packers game and also at an Alabama Rolling Tide game.

Matt Worden: But before we even got there, we worked with them to develop extensive discussion guides. There's so much research that was already online that already existed because professors, like where can I do research? They did it in their college campus tailgates. And so we took all that research before we even got there, maximized McCormick's money. And so those sorts of things where we're taking AI to kind of supercharge what's already happening, a process that's already happening to make it well informed. Those are the things, and we believe like our case study today is what people want to see. They want to know how to incorporate it into a flow, not create a new flow.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Matt, so good to see you. Thank you very much. Have a great show. From all the peeps here at Little Bird Marketing, have a great day and happy marketing.