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The inaugural Insighter Virtual Conference went off last week without a hitch. Okay, there was one hitch. More on that later. But all in all, it was a smashing success! 🎉
Read on to find out everything you missed on day one of the conference.
The morning sessions
First up, Andrew Konya, CEO at Remesh, kicked off the morning with a coffee talk titled, “Market Research for Good.” Andrew discussed Remesh’s fascinating work with the United Nations, including peacekeeping efforts. He also took a deep dive into how the research process has informed his ideas on broader applications of market research for good. With everything going on in the world, it was super refreshing to start the day on a positive note. Warning: Andrew’s session may make you want to run out and do something good for someone else.
After the coffee talk, we went straight into a full day of energizing sessions. In “Blow Up Your Brand Tracker,” Chris Plating, Chief Strategy Officer at EP+Co, gave a talk dedicated to every researcher who is tired of long reports that are devoid of insight. Chris gave us all permission to join the brave few who are trading in clunky, high-cost research projects in exchange for an ongoing practice of listening to consumers to help guide everything from product development to creative messaging.
Next, Adam Hagerman, Senior Manager, Brand Strategy & Insights, Indeed, gave us a rundown of his lessons learned from adopting DIY as an enterprise. In today’s day and age of budget cuts and an ever-growing need for speed, the option to do everything through a full-service research firm may not be available to many teams. Consequently, Indeed has moved closer to a comprehensive in-house research team through DIY strategies that enable them to move faster and do more with variable budgets. But, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. After years of using traditional market research firms, there was a learning curve. Check out Adam’s session to borrow a few of his best practices for making the shift.
In “What makes good research good?” Shannon Hogan, Founder & CEO of Hogan Market Research, gave us 30 minutes of compelling tales from the trenches, as well as her tips, tricks, and things to watch out for that she’s picked up over her 12-year CPG career.
At this point, we broke out into four networking rooms for an interactive lunch experience. Each conference partner (aytm, Cint, KnowledgeHound, and Remesh) hosted a lunch break and invited attendees to do a virtual club hop from room to room. Kristi Zuhlke, CEO & Founder of KnowledgeHound, hosted a great chat on “Building Your Ideal MR Tech Stack.”
The afternoon sessions
After lunch, it was back-to-back sessions, jam-packed with actionable advice. Steve Nadler, VP of Product and Marketing at CamelBak, led “Better Questions. Better Results.” He discussed the survey design process and how asking the right questions using the appropriate question type leads to better research outcomes.
Houston, we have a technical problem
It wouldn’t be 2020 if something didn’t go terribly wrong. And it wouldn’t be a proper virtual conference without a technical hiccup or two. In true Murphy's law fashion, On24, the platform we used to host our conference, experienced an outage. Right as a new session was about to start, the platform flatlined, and no one could access our conference rooms.
The Insighter conference literally vanished from the internet. We couldn’t access the platform, and our attendees couldn’t view our sessions. But...we had a back-up plan!
We quickly moved everyone over to Zoom, and within 15 minutes, the conference was back on. Everyone was super supportive and patient, and we’re so grateful that they stuck it out with us.
And...we’re back
Over on Zoom, our next presenter, Nick Gezzar, Associate Brand Manager at Lindt, took everything in stride, seamlessly delivering his captivating talk, “DIY Insights,” describing his team’s methods for generating consumer insights at a mid-size company in the food industry. Nick also shared with the audience how his military experience informs his research.
Next, in the session, “Leveraging technology and data to bridge interdepartmental gaps,” Taryn Prince, Senior Research Strategist & Nicole Alaniz, Marketing Analytics Specialist at VSP Global, gave us double team vibes to explain how they’re leveraging their current tech stack by combining two technologies that house all of their competitive intelligence and customer data to tear down organizational silos.
Shrutee Gondha, Innovation Manager at Behr, spoke about “How Research Best Practices have Shifted.” She outlined some of the newer research techniques being adopted at Behr, including mobile ethnography, Zoom for 1-on-1 consumer interviews, online survey tools for new concept testing, and ideation/brainstorming via collaborative online mind-mapping platforms.
And Priscilla McKinney, CEO at Little Bird Marketing, wrapped up day one of Insighter with a talk on “The Case Against Authenticity: Building Your Personal Brand.” She dived into the mindset shift necessary and helpful tips to develop your personal brand as an insights professional. If you want to begin posting to social media, but you have no idea what to say or where to start, this session is for you.
Closing out the day, we gathered together for a virtual happy hour, where we sipped “Market Research Mules” (grab the recipe here) and chatted about our favorite sessions, among other interesting topics.
While day one of Insighter had a little hiccup (okay, maybe a big giant belch), it still turned out amazing. All of our speakers did a phenomenal job, as did our team of conference partners in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
Don’t miss the next post to find out what happened on Day 2. But if you can’t wait, check out the full Insighter conference recordings on-demand.
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