Editor’s note: Finn Raben is director general of marketing research organization ESOMAR, Amsterdam.
Accessing valuable insight is the backbone to any successful brand, but the impact is reduced significantly if the line of communication between the head of insight and stakeholders is cut short. Of course, it’s storytelling that can tie loose ends and produce actionable next steps.
So then, which tools can researchers use to turn data into a quality story to increase stakeholder recall and engagement?
If you search for storytelling in research you’ll likely come across multiple techniques, but one of the most powerful methods is to weave real feedback into the final deliverable to share a meaningful story directly from the consumer.
Storytelling is great, as we all know, but why should we rely on video to work as the chief communicator? Video is honest, emotive and visual. It puts the stakeholder inside the mind of the consumer, and right in the middle of the research. Most importantly, it humanizes the data. Your consumers are real people, bursting with individual thoughts and unique opinions. But portraying consumers as an aggregation of facts, charts and statistics destroys their value. Video on the other hand shows the story of the consumer in an immersive way to visualize a much deeper understanding of their daily lives.
Unfortunately previous misconceptions of video relating to poor scalability, high costs and overall efficiency often act as detractors for brands to use this form of research. Quality has also been a concern as video capture and open-ended responses are a relatively new tool. However, as video is paramount in telling stories, the research industry needed a solution. This solution is rooted in technology. Recent technology has shifted the perception of video from a luxury, add-on method to a necessity in providing quality insight and storytelling. Automated video research platforms offer faster and more scalable solutions with the promise of quality responses, ease of implementation and delivery logistics, improved respondent experience, speedy analysis and accuracy in deliverables. But is this too good to be true?
Aware of these challenges and considerations, digital content brand AOL partnered with technology platform Voxpopme to leverage video technology for storytelling to explore its value in business impact. In advance of the upcoming 2017 Congress, I looked at the case study Dave Carruthers, CEO and founder of Voxpopme and Denise Brien, senior director, consumer analysis and research, AOL, will be presenting.
AOL set out to test this technology-enabled solution to see the extent to which video would add value to deliverables for improved stakeholder engagement among studies that are typically quantitative in nature.
In terms of efficiency, AOL saw a one-to-two-day turnaround on deliverables, compared to previous methods which required a week minimum. This is primarily due to a quick and accurate transcription in line with the video, making it easier to scan for key themes and pull video clips without spending time listening to every session. In particular, AOL has found the speed of video insights helpful in concept testing due to immediate decision-making information at the earliest stages of product development.
When it came to scale, the user-friendly video editing and creation functionality allowed AOL to collect data from a larger group, rather than limiting the scale to the usual 10-to-35 participants for interviews, or 30-to-40 participants for small video response projects.
Quality of research improves when we can open up additional opportunities for capturing direct consumer feedback and allowing more customers to share stories. Video typically delivers over five times more open-ended feedback than text responses. The video responses yielded higher word counts at 75 words per response over the traditional text response of eight. The volume and quality of videos provided additional data to understand consumers’ underlying reactions, motivations and rationales.
And finally, the tools made it easier to incorporate the video into deliverables for immediate business impact. The differences in even just the word counts alone have had real implication on analysis and results for AOL. The feedback provided more useful data to turn into more detailed insights and recommendations for stakeholders. AOL now includes stand-alone video sizzle reels in most executive summaries and immediately found that execs are far more likely to watch a two-to-three-minute video than attend a presentation or written topline. AOL’s stakeholders view video storytelling as the magic counterpart to the math. AOL noted that it can be very eye-opening for its stakeholders to hear directly from their consumers and effective when paired with the quantitative data.
What will ESOMAR Congress 2017 offer? The blueprint for integrating traditional research methods with emerging methods. This session will offer practical steps to ensure you can walk away with the know-how to drive a deeper understanding and engagement among your key stakeholders.
Join ESOMAR for its 70th birthday in Amsterdam to hear stories from PepsiCo, Diageo, Air France KLM, Nestle, Viacom, easyJet, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and more. Register at www.esomar.org/congress.