Marketing Report: Market research - An improved vision

behaviour in a way that delivers genuine insights.

Pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is using video on several
projects to better understand its target audience. For its sleeping aid
brand Nytol, subjects were shown how to operate a special infra-red
'night vision' digital video camera and asked to set up in their
bedrooms so it could be used to create a 'nocturnal video diary'.
Subjects recorded how they felt when going to bed, their thoughts during
the night when unable to nod off, and their feelings the following
morning, including how a lack of sleep could have an impact on their day
ahead.

'If we used a viewing facility or group discussion, it wouldn't have
given us the same emotional grasp of the issue,' says Joanna Stone,
consumer healthcare senior insight manager at GSK. 'In this market, a
lot of conditions are personal and private. You don't always get the
full story from traditional focus groups, and video is a way of getting
some really fresh insights.'

Guardian News and Media (GNM) has used video research for both The
Guardian and Sunday title The Observer. Work for The Guardian, which
took place before its switch from broadsheet to Berliner format,
involved filming volunteers trying to read different kinds of newspaper
on a crowded Tube carriage.

GNM research manager Jim Mann is enthusiastic about the tool because he
believes that much of the research that takes place in traditional
facilities is divorced from real life. 'A lot of qualitative research
can be quite subjective,' he adds. 'But when behaviour is captured on
film, marketers who are often too busy to attend focus groups are able
to see for themselves and draw their own conclusions.'

Having a concise filmed record of a project often gives research greater
cut-through. 'A short, snappy distillation of the whole research project
is great for people who don't have time to sit through the full
debrief,' argues Mann.

Research agency Firefish, which has a specialist unit called Firefilms,
was behind both the Nytol and GNM assignments. 'We see video as a
research tool, but it is also a presentation medium,' says Firefish
research director Bob Cook. 'We have recently started to dramatise
research. When writing the debrief we film the people conducting the
research to bring it to life for the client, who can often be a long way
removed.'

Using videos, or presentations peppered with clips, to communicate
research results can help connect the marketer more closely with the
customer. Tom Simpson, managing director of Simpson Carpenter, feels it
is valuable to illustrate the emotional attachment to a brand,
demonstrate how a product is used in real life and show how customers
behave at home.

However, that footage must be used intelligently. 'If you're going to do
it, do it properly and professionally. Just editing a few clips from a
focus group into a presentation doesn't work,' he cautions, adding that
it is vital that the medium does not become the message. 'There is a
danger that the video production becomes more important than the grunt
work of analysis and you end up with exciting presentations of vacuous
findings.'

The visual element can also help garner more from subjects in terms of
opinion. Agency TNS is launching TNSinsighttvlive this month. This
real-time online research platform uses video to combine qualitative and
quantitative survey capabilities. The use of video allows the moderator
to show a range of visual material such as product concepts or trial ads
to up to 300 respondents. It can then investigate responses instantly
and ideally uncover the reasons for these responses.

Video research has long been used in retail, but the digital revolution
has expanded possibilities. As well as traditional fixed-aisle cameras,
ID Magasin has a small EyeMark camera that is mounted on a pair of
glasses worn by recruited shoppers. The camera records where the shopper
is looking. 'It helps us to understand what the conscious and
subconscious triggers are and what shoppers really look at,' explains ID
Magasin research director Claire Arnold. 'We can play video back to them
and find out what they remember doing.'

If brands can understand the reasons behind the data captured, they will
be ideally placed to reach their customers. Video may offer not only a
more polished vision of their audience, but also better insights, too.