Lessons From Quirks NYC 2023
Talk Shoppe’s own quantitative researchers Andrew Burford and Lindsay Clark attended the 2023 Quirk’s Event in NYC two weeks ago, a two-day industry gathering of researchers and vendor partners, featuring speaker sessions, networking events, and exhibitions. Here are some of the main themes that they heard throughout the conference!
Three valuable themes we learned at Quirks this year
“Cultural Fluency” is redefining mainstream marketing:
According to Justin Spratley and David Evans (2023) of Collage Group, younger generations and diverse consumer segments are growing in size year over year and have become primary drivers of economic growth in the U.S.. Not only is Gen Z poised to become the largest, most racially and ethnically diverse population segment on Earth, they behave, think, consume, and perceive the world in a markedly different way from previous generations. During a Wednesday speaker session, members of Paramount Advertising’s Audience Impact & Intelligence team, Angel Bellon and Alexander Cammy, presented their latest study, LGBTQ+ In America (2023), revealing that 1-in-5 Gen Zs identify as LGBTQ+, as compared to 7% of Americans overall, and 85% of non-LGBTQ+ Gen Zs currently support LGBTQ+ rights issues as compared to 66% of non-LGBTQ+ Gen Xers.
Consumers today want to see this diversity and these blended identities reflected in the brands they support, and they seek out brands that align with their values and lived experiences. Yet, on average, two-thirds of all consumers agree that “too many brands have not done their research” and do a poor job of reaching consumers from different races, ethnicities, and sexualities when it comes to incorporating diversity in their advertising. Researchers from Collage Group found that when brands effectively engage a specific consumer segment, a “halo effect” is achieved: not only do those brands authentically connect with a select diverse segment, but they also resonate with a broader audience.
2. Artificial Intelligence can save time by automating some tasks, but there’s still a vital need to keep the “human in the loop”:
The expo floor and many speaker sessions were abuzz this year about AI and its impact on market research. In Anthony Jackel’s (2023) MRII presentation “For the Love of Learning: Career Development in a Changing Market Research Industry”, we saw that although machine learning and Generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) are some of the lesser-used tools in researchers’ toolkits today, they are expected to be among the most impactful in the future. There are concerns about the extent to which AI will replace the need for warm-blooded humans on both sides of the screen in the future (given some downright jaw-dropping practical applications of AI already in use), but it’s clear that the technology still needs human facilitation and grounding to get to the nuanced heart of good insights.
3. Our output will only be as good as our input:
The idea goes without saying in a broader sense, but from a researcher perspective, it’s important to remember the importance of continually enhancing survey-taking experiences - not just for the sake of being more engaging for the human beings taking these surveys but also because it ties directly to improved overall data quality. As attention spans continually decrease, our surveys compete against an ever more distracting myriad of tech for a few precious minutes of people’s time. We heard a few compelling ideas and suggestions for improving the survey experience:
Humans think in pictures, not text. Using visual tools (e-collages, projectives, etc.) elicits deeper, more nuanced insights by extracting those harder-to-capture elements that play a huge role in decision-making, like emotions and feelings.
Surveys should be designed for mobile, with minimal grid question formats and kept as short as possible, with best practices pointing to a maximum length of 10 minutes. This is especially important for younger audiences.
Open-ends should be used sparingly to cut down on fatigue. Incorporating conversational AI into open-ended questions has been shown to drive higher engagement and satisfaction among respondents compared to conventional open-ended question formats, as demonstrated by Kathy Cheng of Nexxt Intelligence (2023).
Evans, D & Spratley, J. (2023, July 19). Disney case study: Engaging young, diverse Americans with cultural intelligence. Presented at Quirks NYC, New York, NY.
Bellon, A. & Cammy, A. (2023, July 19). LGBTQ+ in America. Presented at Quirks NYC, New York, NY.
Jackal, A. (2023, July 19). Love of learning: Career development in a changing market research industry. Presented at Quirks NYC, New York, NY.
Cheng, K. (2023, July 20). Research on research: The impact of generative AI on market research. Presented at Quirks NYC, New York, NY.