At the 31st SAMRA (Southern African Marketing Research Association) conference held last week at Mount Grace near Magaliesburg last week, it emerged that consumers are playing an increasingly important role in marketing research worldwide. They are driving the social revolution and moving the focus from “me’ to “we’.
Some 159 delegates from corporates, parastatals and research companies countrywide attended the two-day conference. The six keynote-speakers included Esomar president Gunilla Broadbent, who gave an overview of the state of the research industry worldwide, and, among other things, highlighted challenges ahead, South Africa’s contribution to the global research industry and the negative impact of the economic downturn on the industry.
Mark Earls of HERD Consulting’s presentation centred on the power of the “crowd’ and the “social revolution’ and Ari Popper, North American President of BrainJuicer, detailed the shift from “me’ to “we’ research.
Martin Kingdon, Sheridan Global CEO in the UK, evaluated in-store display and the MARI research methodology to determine the effectiveness of in-store displays and advertisements. James Fergusson, global director: emerging markets, TNS, gave a sneak preview of the “perfect storm’ heading, digitally speaking, for South African shores as more bandwith, lower prices, low cost smartphones and advanced mobile usage become the norm.
South African keynote speaker, Prof Adre Schreuder of Consulta Research MD and Marketing Professor at the University of Pretoria, revisited customer experience measurement from his 2002 keynote address to 2010 and beyond.
The SAMRA awards for the best overall paper presented at the conference (gold, silver and bronze), as well as the best first time speaker, as judged by a panel of research stalwarts under the leadership of Neil Higgs and Leonie Vorster, were handed over at the gala event on Friday night. A new award, “Voice of the Audience’, was introduced to acknowledge the most entertaining paper, as voted for by the audience.
Kyle Findlay and Alice Louw of The Customer Equity Company SA (Pty) Ltd, scooped both the gold and silver SAMRA awards for the best overall papers. The gold was awarded for their paper titled Negative publicity: How do customers process it and how should brands manage it and the silver for Branding in the nth dimension’: Measuring brand equity in a digital world.
Along with colleagues Kirsty Alberts and Joanne Campbell, Louw stepped onto the stage for the third time, this time to receive the bronze SAMRA award for the paper titled Crowdsourcing – The end of marketing research?
The Best First Time Speaker Award went to Elisha Basson of TNS Research Surveys for her paper titled To Punt or be Blunt, while Sarah McDonald garnered the newly introduced Voice of the Audience Award for her paper titled Influentials or Accidentals? Investigating Interpersonal Influence in the Telecommunications Market.
