What do you think happens when you put a bunch of young
researchers in a room together?
If you’d have said “speed dating” or “deciding to embargo
the term ‘market research’” or “designing an advert for the market research
industry featuring none other than Chris Tarrant”, you’d be on the money.
Ok, so some pretty amazing things happened in that room of
young researchers but it turns out, whether you’re a client-side or an
agency-side researcher, specialising in qual, quant or a bit of both, you
actually have a lot in common. Perhaps the most striking is young researchers’
bright-eyed eagerness to change the world. It’s one of the main reasons they
were interested in research in the first place, and it’s one of the greatest
sources of satisfaction in their work.
It’s about creating shockwaves, and jolting people in
powerful positions into listening to the people that matter. Thy
word/ethnographic video/crossbreak is thy weapon, and beware he who flies in
the face of research…
Our bunch of young researchers also relish a challenge,
which is fortunate really, as they see one of the greatest challenges to be
overcome is the sheer lack of awareness or appreciation for the work that they
do. Our young researchers don’t work all the hours God sends for the money
alone (“what money?” some asked); they do it in the hope that the man on the
street lives a happy, wholesome existence, but knows that it would not be so if
there were not researchers out there looking out for him.
Who else would be
able to tell the powers that be that he needs to go to the doctor’s quite
urgently but puts it off because he knows how much effort it will take to get
an appointment; that he worries about sending his two children to university
and doesn’t know what financial help is available; that his day would be so
much easier if his mobile phone coverage actually allowed him to make telephone
calls?
To the man on the street, these improvements would happen
as-if-by-magic.
He wouldn’t be far wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment