Impact trumps insight

It’s rare to find a business leader so messianic about sustainability, and fascinating to learn that, although admittedly not an expert on market research, Paul Polman knows enough to perceive that “big data is causing industries to drown rather than understand what it means and pre-empt change”.

As we filed out into the networking break, the general view was that he was inspirational and quite unexpected in terms of content. Next stop my first — and only — workshop, this one run by Raji Bonala, founder partner at Vox Populi, and her colleagues. Our task was to identify the core values of a new Indian beer brand and suggest its marketing platform in just six or seven simple steps. By the end we were flying...who needs mega budgets and a big brand? High five for nimbleness.

Ideas over insights

Having a soft spot for creativity, storytelling and technology, I wandered into Beyond insight delivery. The first presentation swung it for me: Ideas over insights. Not only did Chris Barez-Brown, Upping Your Elvis founder, and Christina Habib, Unilever CMI VP win us over by describing how to deliver impact in half the time and half the cost, they’d even brought along an enthusiastic team member who’d rediscovered her love for Unilever post-Elvis training.

After lunch, the great election debate. The three panellists, Political Betting.com’s Mike Smithson, Populus founder Andrew Cooper and Greenberg Quinland Rosner partner (not to mention Ed Milliband adviser) James Morris spoke with one voice: we can predict poll shares, but turning these into seats is much trickier. A poll does not a crystal ball make.

Next up was ‘Amplifying voices, uncovering truths’, which looked at how research can give a voice to those affected by societal and cultural issues. SPA Future Thinking’s Claire Tyrrell-Williams and Time to Change’s Jennie Abelman described a project in which champions with experience of mental illness worked as interviewers — something which one of those involved said had actually helped his recoverery.

Ali Barnes of Incite Strategic Research and Claire Pascual from Marie Stopes International then gave us an insight into the pressures and influences on young women in countries like Nigeria, Bangladesh and Pakistan with regard to contraception, unwanted sexual contact and reproductive health. Some of this talk was heart wrenching, with young married women in Pakistan wanting the best for their children, but with most decisions made by men, with mother-in-laws exerting substantial pressure.