Q&A with the 2024 Marketing Research Supplier of the Year (2023 revenue below $10 million) award winner, Tapestry Research 

Editor’s note: Tapestry Research is the winner of the 2024 Marketing Research Supplier of the Year (2023 revenue below $10 million) award, a category in the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards. The award winners were announced during a virtual celebration on November 19, 2024. To learn more about the awards, visit https://www.quirksawards.com/. 

Tapestry Research was named the 2024 Marketing Research Supplier of the Year (2023 revenue below $10 million) on November 19, 2024. The Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards’ winners were announced during the virtual celebration.  

The Marketing Research Supplier of the Year award is given to a marketing research and insight firm making outstanding contributions to the success of brands.  

Jemma Ralton, commercial director, and Tom Morgan, analysis and development director, Tapestry Research, said the company is successful because it strives to make the complex simple. The team also believes it is important for consumer research to continue to evolve with the times.  

“As market researchers, we ignore the power of behavioral data at our own peril,” Ralton explained.  

Learn more about how Tapestry Research contributes to the success of brands, Quirk’s sat down with Ralton and Morgan.

What do you think is a key factor in your company’s success and why? 

Life is complicated. Modern life, doubly so.  

At Tapestry, our guiding principle is “making the complex beautifully simple.” To us, it’s not just a nice tagline, it permeates everything we do. From our company values and processes through to client relationships and product innovation, we strive to grasp the complexity of a situation and find beautiful simplicity. 

That's not to say we’re afraid of complexity. In fact, we embrace it, and never dumb things down. 

From understanding comes simplicity. Our focus is always to bring that simplicity to complexity, delivering research, insight and understanding designed to deliver lasting impact for our clients and their stakeholders. 

Equally important are our people. We're focused and committed to developing and nurturing market research talent.

We have a robust in-house training and mentoring program which ensures our team remains innovative, motivated and flexible. Curiosity and development thrive, and we empower our team members to carve their own paths in the industry, wherever it takes them and no matter how long they've been in the industry. From research to data science, there is always something new to learn and something new to make beautifully simple. 

This blend has been the cornerstone of our sustained growth and sterling reputation, illuminating six- and 60-year-olds and marketing managers in between.

What is the most important thing for a supplier partner to provide a client?  

The best relationships are reciprocal, not just buyer and supplier. 

Complexity demands collaboration. We build strong, lasting relationships with our clients, getting fully immersed in their businesses and challenges and we don’t put them on the clock! This allows us to focus on meaningful insights and bespoke solutions rather than time constraints. 

Today’s business challenges are extremely intricate and there's a wealth of information out there. We think it’s really important to provide clarity – we excel at cutting through the noise, distilling complexity into clear, actionable insights giving our clients the confidence they need to make key decisions.  

That said, there is value to hiring an agency: we are a wide-angle lens. We all know the pressures of work in the 2020s and how easy it can be to get bogged down in urgent requests. As external partners, we can help our clients cut through these things and see the wood for the trees. We simplify complexity for them as well, providing an alternative viewpoint and helping to process all the different information they have to prioritize the important as well as the urgent. 

What do you believe will have the biggest influence on the marketing research industry in the coming years?  

It’s impossible to ignore the impact AI and synthetic data are already having on the industry. These tools bring incredible speed, scale and predictive power, reshaping how we work. However, AI is a tool. Machines alone can’t replace the expertise, intuition, understanding, creativity and empathy that human brains provide. The real transformation will therefore come from how we use this new tool, blending technological innovations with deep research knowledge and consultancy. 

The recent advances in LLMs are astonishing and can be used in incredible ways. The key point is that they need to be used. At Tapestry we’ve been using AI to streamline repetitive tasks such as coding and quality control, freeing up our team to focus on higher-level thinking and strategic insight generation. This approach ensures that we use AI as a tool to enhance rather than replace human expertise.  

Meanwhile, we're engaging in discussions, explorations and experimentation both on our own and with industry experts to debate and understand the power of this new technology. Synthetic data has an ominous sounding name, and some are branding it as the next big nothing. Others think it's the future of the industry. What is key for us is that we remain open-minded and opinionated in equal measure.  

Ultimately, the crucial factor is expertise. We pride ourselves in selecting the right tool for the job – a sledgehammer might be impressive, but it won't help you put up a shelf. We work hard to make sure our toolbox is up-to-date, useful and robust. 

As clients demand more actionable insights amidst mounting complexity, the future of the industry will belong to those who can harness the power of AI and technology while maintaining the human touch, delivering not just data but clear, impactful narratives and guidance.