Schedule and agenda

Brand tracking should be one of the most important tools in a marketers’ toolbox, but often it’s dismissed as slow, backward looking and incapable of influencing decisions at speed.

Kantar will show how innovation is putting brand tracking back at the heart of marketers’ toolkits: a breakthrough in data reporting finally delivers short-term true signals and underlying trends, and the application of machine learning and AI provides future foresight and predictions delivered in real time. Hear how this new approach is being implemented by clients like TUI and Vodafone.

Think brand tracking is boring? Then you don’t know brand tracking!

Vanguard has shaken-up the personal investor category, changing the way the competition approaches marketing and drawing new investors into the market.

This case study will explore how Vanguard built its brand in a new market – from leveraging distinctive brand assets to challenging prevailing market codes and opening to new lucrative customers. It will spotlight the value of macro thinking – research does not exist in a vacuum and is more visionary and dynamic when combined with real world data, media planning and wider cultural norms. The session will also uncover the value of a strong partnership between client, communications, media, research and analytics partners.

Vue aimed to break into gaming by leveraging big screens for events. This session will reveal how a 360° consultative approach turned Vue’s aspirations into real-world success.

This isn’t just a case study; it's a powerful guide for revolutionising research. Hear how to engage the C-suite from the start, ensuring they champion your insights. Discover creative methods that inspire stakeholders to see the world through their audience’s eyes, challenging their expectations while building empathy. Explore the untapped potential of frontline colleagues and co-creation opportunities with your audience. And realise the impact of using dynamic debriefs and implanted support and ongoing collaboration to embed insight.

Product experience isn’t just an objective entity; it’s a dynamic interplay between a product and a person, evoking feelings, behaviours, and thoughts in the moment. By leveraging AI-powered conversational approaches, we can now capture consumers’ descriptions of their product experiences, in their own words, in the moment and at scale.

Find out how the innovative and targeted application of conversational AI bridged the gap between global product development and local market success, empowering Haleon to navigate the complexities of cross-cultural consumer behaviour with precision and insight.

Assess the true efficacy of synthetic respondent data in qualitative research through an exploration of AI-generated 'twins' and their ability to deliver consumer insights. Based on the latest findings from AI twin pilots in Japan and the UK, delve into the complex world of affective matching, evaluating AI's capacity to mirror human insight in category exploration, innovative product ideation, and critically assessing new product ideas. We’ll also share findings from a pilot with Motability Operations where Twins has potential benefit for ideation with customers with disabilities.

Chaired by:

What makes Morrisons the first choice for customers, why do they choose us, and why do customers prefer us over other supermarkets?  These were the integral questions Morrisons wanted to answer when it partnered with STRAT7 Researchbods on a project that played a pivotal role in shaping Morrisons’ customer closeness agenda.  

This case study will showcase the impact targeted market research had on transforming Morrison’s strategy and decision-making and how it has led the leadership team to embrace customer-centric goals which have driven rapid and impactful changes in the organisation. 

Panel:

With the emergence of spatial computing devices, a new era is dawning for market research.

This session introduces Rexee, an innovative tool for immersive interviews which leverages AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) technology.

Hear results from a recent case study which demonstrates how this novel phyigital approach is revolutionising product testing; driving strong participant engagement and delivering high quality outputs at speed.

In an era where consumers demand more than just statements from brands, the role of researchers in shaping meaningful allyship is more critical than ever. This session goes beyond surface-level gestures to explore how true allyship requires deep cultural competency, sustained engagement, and systemic change. Expect to uncover the hidden biases in research, explore innovative methodologies that foster inclusivity, and walk away with actionable strategies to ensure your work doesn’t just inform, but transforms. 

This presentation will walk delegates through the highlights of a ground-breaking, multi-stage project, combining a literature review, qualitative research, quantitative survey and live experiments. The Behavioural Architects & Google will demonstrate how experimental methods, that replicate real-world purchase scenarios and post-purchase interactions, have provided valuable insights that traditional surveys cannot capture and a deeper understanding of customer experiences. Examine how leveraging behavioural science within customer experiences can create positive brand impact, build brand loyalty and surpass consumer expectations.

Social media shapes culture and consumer mindset, but its complex and rapidly changing idioms of practice are a challenging arena for brands. Despite having some of the best metrics available, the Vodafone UK social media team had limited understanding of what made their content successful or irrelevant. And researching social media performance beyond metrics is challenging.

This presentation will reveal how Vodafone UK went beyond the likes, follows and shares using a 360 multi-pronged approach. Hear how this holistic approach has led to a new framework to guide all future content creation across platforms.

The media landscape has never been more fragmented. While almost every brand is a multi-channel advertiser, very few are omnichannel advertisers able to connect the dots across channels.

The Trade Desk and PA Consulting’s will share their research journey and key findings from an ambitious program of research which comprised a neurological experiment, a quantitative demand space segmentation and an ethnographic media study, to understand the true value of a connected omnichannel strategy.

Examine key findings with implications for researchers discussed. Hear best practice guidance for conducting experimental, mixed-methodology advertising research and gain expert insights into the future of digital media planning, with strategic takeaways for key media channels.

The 'Manosphere'—an online space where masculinity influencers and bad actors help shape male identity. In a world where gender norms are in flux, particularly for gen Z, traditional concepts of masculinity are being both challenged and reinforced. What does this mean for brands trying to engage young men and brands seeking to understand and respond to vulnerable groups?

Ipsos and Nationwide will explore how aggressive forms of masculinity can be damaging for everyone, and how brands can better engage men in more nuanced and meaningful ways. Hear how ethnography plays a crucial role in understanding and responding to these cultural shifts.

Discover how, in a sea of data, tactical storytelling has helped PepsiCo to become both human-centric and business-oriented. And, how developing curiosity, critical thinking and saliency within a tactical storytelling framework has ensured the insight team are as influential as ever.

This session is a blue print for how insights teams can become more influential in global organisations. It will outline the storytelling approach that external partners need to develop if they are to work closely with in-house teams. It will reveal the important of developing those innate human skills that work in harmony with AI.

“Annual planning is next week; tell us everything consumers want next year” The words that strike fear into any client-side researcher.

Discover how Strive Insight helped Virgin Media O2’s insight team tackle the insight-mountain and identify gaps in research programs. Their solution digested masses of research and insight, cross referencing this against the business’ major commercial and consumer objectives, all against a backdrop of the nation’s cultural, behavioural and attitudinal calendar.

Examine how the output: a generative-AI enabled synthesis of the company’s key initiatives - married to core needs in the market, prioritised and illustrated over time – has revolutionsised inputs into planning.

Like the aid sector as a whole, Save the Children is grappling with how historic power and privilege have shaped current culture and practice, working towards a solidarity-based system. Since stories create culture, communications are central to this: alongside structural change, the charity needed to tackle ‘decolonising storytelling’.

This session explores how a semiotic approach offered fresh perspective, challenging unconscious biases in storytelling and delivering clear guidelines on what evolved comms could look like. Examine the cross-team participation approach used to explore, stress-test, and activate the insights to catalyse collaborative organisational change.

Researchers wear many hats—moderator, analyst, consultant, and more. Historically, clients have paid for all these roles, but AI changes the game. This session will explore how AI is reshaping the researcher-client dynamic, breaking free from process constraints and positioning researchers as trusted advisors. Firefish will demonstrate how, with AI, researchers can get paid for the value of insights delivered, not for the process they manage. Through their work with Bumble, they’ll show how AI can help companies with limited resources deliver high-quality qualitative research and build strategic partnerships.

Hear findings from a major new study exploring the reality of how people really discover what to watch in today’s complex viewing landscape.

Join MTM and Sony as they unpack their multi-method methodology and reveal some surprising truths about audiences' real-world behaviours. Explore the high stakes and lengthy searches of shared viewing occasions; the speed viewers make assumptions and decisions; how brands can influence audiences in 'hot' (quick, emotion-led decisions) and 'cold' (more time to consider) mindsets across their browsing and viewing journeys; and how to influence household ‘viewing shepherds.’

It’s rare to work on a landmark legal case – especially one that leads to a $175 million settlement. This remarkable case study demonstrates the power, robustness and compelling nature of expert semiotic analysis and shows how more specialist analytic techniques in market research can play a major role outside marketing.

Join Chris to hear about his experience of being an expert witness in brand semiotics for the Attorney General’s Office of Massachusetts legal case against Uber & Lyft Technologies. Hear how his analysis of brands and marketing materials was pivotal in helping the AGO to make their case that Uber & Lyft Technologies were misclassifying workers.