Will you walk a mile in their shoes?

Reflections from the Media Research Group conference

Last week, I spent three days at the Media Research Group’s 2018 conference in Bratislava, listening to over 50 speakers drawn from the ranks of leading media owners, media agencies and research companies.

The theme of the conference was “Reflections” – reflections on what we have learned from the past and reflections on what we can expect in the future.

But for me, there was also a third, more subtle aspect to the theme, that of self-reflection.

As an industry, we are great at uncovering and pointing out the inconsistencies and biases in others – witness the increasing popularity of behavioural science, 'System 1' thinking and implicit testing techniques.

But at the same time, we can be rather less rigorous in applying that thinking to ourselves in recognising and compensating for our own subconscious biases.

The conference provided plenty of evidence where we as an industry are out of step with the views and opinions of the very people we are supposed to know so well:

• Dan Flynn (The IPA) and Guy Holcroft (Ofcom) provided insight into people’s lives and how they spend their time, finding, amongst other things, that 63% of all adults' media time is spent consuming media on ‘traditional’ formats. For media professionals, that’s only 24%. As Dan said, “We’re not normal”
• Andrew Tenzer (Reach Solutions) and Iain Murray (House 51) presented findings from their study “Why we shouldn’t trust our gut instinct”, noting that agency people have a stronger preference for risk taking, are more narcissistic, are more likely to identify as left-leaning and are far more likely to have voted Remain (92%) when compared to the ‘modern mainstream’.
• Glen Gowen (ITV) and Martin Greenback (Channel Four) presented a collaborative paper, Project Firefly, exploring the role of Broadcaster video on demand (BVOD) and finding that, contrary to popular belief, consumption is not just a solo activity. Indeed, they found that 70% of BVOD is consumed on the household's main screen.
• James Smythe (Culture of Insight) ran a bespoke survey with media research industry folk, discovering the three areas we feel we are most guilty of are ‘London-centric thinking (68%) and ‘Youth-centric thinking (64%) and ‘obsession with the new’ (62%)
• Joe Wilson (OMD) presented findings from “The Future of Britain: Five years on” study, comparing attitudes today with those from 2013 and revealing some surprisingly positive insights including decreasing levels of concern about the economy and increasing levels of optimism and happiness amongst the general public.

As Andrew Tenzer so pointedly said, “Our job is to understand people, not to judge them”.

But how do we do that? How do we overcome our natural biases, our love of shiny new things, our desire to be at the leading edge of opinion, our need to be right?

The Market Research Society has recognised the issue and recently released a report called Deconstructing Bias highlighting some practical ways to help address this, but we need to ensure the debate moves beyond a report and becomes an integral part of how we operate.

I’ve written about this before - both the need to get away from our desks and immerse ourselves in the lives of our customers and also the need to to both listen to and respect views that may conflict with our own.

The key lies in the old adage that to understand someone, you need to “walk a mile in their shoes”....only then can you truly empathise with their opinions, feelings and behaviour.

Earlier this year, I did some work with online mortgage broker Habito and witnessed their culture of customer-centricity whereby they ensure all staff spend regular time interacting one-on-one with customers, listening to their questions and addressing their concerns.

Such companies, who make efforts to understand their customers as real people rather than unique identifiers and datapoints, inevitably gain a deeper level of insight and are less likely to fall victim to the dangers of assumed knowledge and subconscious biases.

As researchers, we are uniquely well placed to drive the agenda - we spend much of our time understanding people in an objective and considered manner and then translating that insight in a clear and simple way that will challenge and inform decisions in the boardroom.

On reflection, as the media industry becomes more complex, I believe that the role of the researcher is only going to grow in importance and influence... but maybe I'm biased.