Learning Archives - GRBN.ORG

CMRS 2019 Junior high and high school summer camp of AI

GRBN_News — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 05:39:06 +0000

Taiwan Institute of Artificial Intelligence (TIAI) and ChungHwa Market Research Society (CMRS) are nonprofit organizations located at Taiwan, which provide education, training programs and seminars to their members. TIAI & CMRS take on a social responsibility initiative to offer two Artificial intelligence (AI) summer camps to junior high and high school student this year. It was a big successful event that attracted huge attention from the local news media. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new trend of future technological development, and the young generation are the future of a country. For the high school and college students a summer camp was held by the Taipei Medical University Training & Promotion Office and the School of Management. The “2019 AI Smart Medical Summer Camp” main purpose was to educate young generation to understand how AI, big data, blockchain, can be applied into the health industry. The students had a great experience visiting the smart hospital at Taipei medical university hospital. For the junior high students, in order to let them get in contact with robots, TIAI & CMRS cooperated with the Taipei Medical University and the Taipei Anhe Rotary Club to jointly organize the “2019 Midsummer AI robot summer camp”. This course is a training program to develop logical problem-solving ability, team spirit and creativity potential. The course helped students to understand AI, robot assembly and application. After three days of brainstorming and teamwork activities, a contest was held, and the winning students were personally awarded by Professor Shia, the Chairman of the Taiwan Artificial Intelligence (TIAI) and the Dean of the School of Management of Taipei Medical University. The director of Taipei Anhe and Rotary Club also provide an extra reward to encourage the winners. This program of mBot allow students to fully experience the future of AI technology. Both the “AI Smart Medical Summer Camp” & “Midsummer AI robot summer camp” helped the young generation to get in touch with an artificial intelligence future. TIAI & CMRS will continue to contribute their effort to these meaningful activities at the following years. By Chung Ling Huh/ TIAI & CMRS

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AI to Big Data – Welcome to the 10th APRC Conference in Taipei

GRBN_News — Mon, 21 May 2018 14:12:11 +0000

Welcome Message from Organizer Committee of Asia Pacific Research Committee (APRC) 2018 Conference On behalf of the organizer committee from the Taiwan ChungHwa Market Research Society (CMRS) and the APRC, I would like to welcome all of you to participate in the 10th APRC Conference at Taipei, Taiwan. 2018 APRC conference main theme is “Market Research in AI Transformation “. We offer three sub-themes for all the attendee who participates in this exciting event, which are “Artificial Intelligence (AI) implication”, “big data computing” and “market research in transformation”. AI has regarded to be one of the most essential technologies to develop machine intelligence. The technology has advanced significantly over the years to empower applications. The program of 2018 conference includes Forums, Exhibitions, Company visits, and Cultural program. A special issue for APRC 2018 conference from Journal of Data Science will be published, to contribute the academic technology and knowledge. Taiwan advanced technology environment ensures us to leap forward to the future, with creativity thinking, we are ambitious for greater artificial intelligent vision and looking forward to reveals a new chapter of market research sectors. Watch the Welcome Video Now is time to learn the wisdom of AI implication knowledge, seeking for expansion of your market research business, network with researcher all around the world. The APRC 2018 conference line-up with expertise and academic giant from global market research sectors to provide interesting AI implication perspectives. Welcome all the members to participate in the annual events of 2018 APRC conference. I hope that you will enjoy this year conference and have a great experience with warm Taiwanese hospitality. See you all in Taipei! Sincerely yours, Ben-Chang Shia President of CMRS Taipei Medical University

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Rising To The Challenge Of Industry Reform In South Africa

GRBN_News — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 06:56:51 +0000

Building on the first two articles in this series, the present article summarises three specific challenges which call for reform within the Market Research industry in South Africa. These are: a significant lack of appropriate insights skills, the absence of suitable frameworks for continued professional development and a subsequent lack of scientific rigour in insight outputs. The present article concludes the discussion by presenting suggestions in terms of enabling and supporting the reform necessary to keep the Market Research Industry in South Africa sustainable, future-proof and relevant.

challenge 1: a significant lack of appropriate insights skills

The diversity of academic backgrounds of market research professionals in South Africa, and a lack of relevant formal qualifications available to specifically practice as a market research professional, point toward the necessity of establishing firm academic foundations for applied training in market research. Great progress can be made by formal discussions between industry stakeholders, the South African Market Research Association (SAMRA) and tertiary institutions, which should aim at formulating a comprehensive, yet focused curriculum for qualification as a market research professional. Formal tertiary qualifications in Market Research should be supported by a targeted marketing and awareness campaign which will assist in positioning this career-choice as a well-established and respected profession.

Challenge 2: the absence of suitable frameworks for continued professional development

The next suggestion relates to the important roles that the market research industry (suppliers), users of market research (clients) and SAMRA can play in shaping, regulating and upholding market research as a an appealing career choice and profession in South Africa. A great need exists for greater collaboration and sharing between these three key stakeholders. At present, a suitable platform or forum that enables critical conversations to take place between these stakeholders does not exist. The aims of this forum are manifold but should cover the following aspects:

Find solutions to issues such as establishing best practice charters and auditing market research outputs to ensure adherence to pre-determined standards
Put forth frameworks for continued professional development and accreditation, whilst ensuring that adequate opportunities are created for aspiring market researchers to undertake intensive market research internships
Drive the advancement of agile methodologies that provide insights grounded in rigour
Establish shared knowledge and databases that provide competitive advantages to members
Develop the necessary strategies to ensure the sustainability of the market research industry

challenge 3: a subsequent lack of scientific rigour in insight outputs

The pressure on the South African Market Research industry is rising with respect to the delivery of cost effective, agile methodologies which yield measurable impact on businesses. While many large corporate organisations are building internal research and insights capabilities to reduce costs, others are approaching a variety of different consulting firms to provide research. As an industry, our competitive edge should be highly skilled, professional researchers that heed the principles of research that produce scientific rigour, yet be agile and flexible enough to support the increasing demand for rapid insights. Indeed, reform of the South African Market Research industry cannot be successful without the involvement of the various stakeholders previously mentioned. So, the question now becomes: who is in the best position to further set the course for this urgent need for change? Monique Schehle, Consumer and Market Insights Manager at MMI Holdings

Monique thrives in helping brands fulfil their strategic mandate, through insights which support and enable appropriate strategic planning. Monique has held various key research positions in the market research industry. Monique joined MMI in 2013 and has since been a key influence in multi-brand, customer, product and strategic research that is underpinned by a deep understanding of the consumer.

Pieter J. Rossouw, Market Research and Consumer Insights Manager at MMI Holdings

Pieter started his career in the human capital management and psychometric test development industries after which he spent 6 years working at different market research agencies. Having developed a significant interest in motivation and the psychological foundations of financial behaviour, he has changed his focus to the financial services industry in 2014 and is currently studying toward his PhD. His research focuses on the motivational underpinnings of financial capability in adolescents.

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Neuroscience MRS Mini-Webinar Series – Neuroscience: Going Deeper For Deeper Insights

GRBN_News — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 06:46:27 +0000

GRBN has teamed up with MRS and some great contributors to create a series of 3 mini-webinars focused on neuroscience. We are excited to have John Bishop from System 1, Cristina de Balanzó from Walnut Unlimited and Thomas Ramsøy from Neurons Inc share their expertise. Find out more about each webinar and sign up via the links below:

Unlocking Profitable Brand Growth with Behavioural Science

Tuesday, 14 November 2017, 15:00 GMT – 15:30 GMT Trainer: John Bishop, System 1 Learning outcomes: Understand how Behavioural Science can be applied to market research and a real-world application of brand and communications tracking within a rapidly changing category (television and digital content services). Read more and sign up

Enhancing traditional techniques: when neuroscience becomes the new normal for brands

Wednesday, 15 November 2017, 15:00 GMT – 15:30 GMT Trainer: Cristina de Balanzó, Walnut Unlimited Learning outcomes:

To bring new ideas of how tools such as neuroscience and implicit methods can be combined with traditional techniques
How the cases can be presented to clients
How the data has been utilised and its versatility

Read more and sign up

The unconscious drivers of decision making in innovation and NPD

Thursday, 16 November 2017, 15:00 GMT – 15:30 GMT Trainer: Thomas Ramsøy, CEO of Neurons Inc Learning outcomes:

Understand the unconscious drivers of the innovation process.
Gain insights about the cognitive and attentional limits that new products face.
Understanding how innovation and brand influence each other.
Strategies to optimize the communication of new ideas and prototypes according to different target groups.
Strategies to measure and analyze the optimal way to present new ideas and prototypes to maximize interest and consumer adoption.

Read more and sign up

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Can Chairs talk: Image Mining & Text Analytics for strategic planning

GRBN_News — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 06:42:38 +0000

In today’s connected world, much of how we communicate is visual. From emojis to selfies, images are everywhere and have become part of the modern lexicon – especially on social media. Yet to date, most social media analysis has been purely based on the written word – not on images.

Imagine the power of being able to analyse brand and product imagery on social media

For furniture designer Arper, we did just that – and by doing so we made chairs (and tables and sofas) talk. Arper is a fast-growing Italian company that manufactures and distributes designer chairs, sofas and tables for contract, home and work sectors worldwide. Arper wanted to understand the amount of interest in its brand through digital mediums in English speaking countries – such as the USA – and extend the analysis to German and Sweden as relevant markets. In addition, Arper wanted to decipher relative strength of its brand vis-à-vis competitor brands.

The power of AI

The power of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is dependent on the input being fed into it by humans. Hence, we started the project with extensive desk research and a few depth interviews within Arper and with architects. Based on those, we started extracting data from social networks (Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.), media portals, designer websites and forums. In this sense, we used a data collection method that extracted people’s opinions in the format and style of their preference, not through surveys and not through focus groups, but rather through their own spontaneous conversations. We quickly realised that this sector was heavily image led with less usage of text, i.e., people were sharing images or talking via images with minimal usage of text. This posed a serious problem as most of the data extraction methods available today are text based. Hence, apart from relying solely on textual keywords to extract data, we started using images (9000+) as seeds to feed into our image crawlers which subsequently extracted 1.1M+ images. These crawlers are similar to Google crawlers but instead of text they work on images; they not only covered all major design websites and forums but also all image dominant social networks like Pinterest and Instagram These images were also tagged to better understand the content inside the image. And, we found ways to submerge themes from images to themes from our text mining, giving the client a complete picture of the markets across text and image.

The Importance of Image analysis

Because of this image analysis, which aimed to extract insights from free flowing conversations, we unearthed some very important insights around the strength of certain brands which was not getting reflected via our text-mined data. Images changed the entire understanding of the sector and brand strength. Combined with our text mined insights, we were able to deep dive into the strengths and weaknesses of brands, their products, the impact of influencers, sector trends and much more. The analysis was well received by the mid-management and C-level management which has started acting on the recommendations, moving to an image led expansive strategy and relevant investments while seeing improving results with every passing day. Paper: Can Chairs Talk was co-authored with Chiara Davanzo Zamarian (Brand Manager, Arper) and awarded Best Paper (Overall) at ESOMAR World Congress 2017. The full paper can be obtained from WARC (http://bit.ly/2xarnMm) and is also available to all ESOMAR members. Presentation slides can be found online: http://bit.ly/2fDAYpc Preriit Souda Director: Data Science, Kantar TNS UK Twitter: @preriit2131 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preritsouda

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Beyond Intelligence Augmentation: The Next Phase of AI & Market Research

GRBN_News — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 06:20:33 +0000

Advances in artificial intelligence are set to dramatically impact market research in the short term. Specifically, narrow AI will enable the automation of individual research tasks. During this phase of Intelligence Augmentation AI will act to augment the capabilities of researches; enabling one person to achieve what previously would have taken an entire team. The next phase of AI’s impact will happen as AI becomes increasingly generalized; extending automation out to functions which typically are not in the scope of a market researcher – such as content creation. The application of reinforcement learning based approaches to simultaneously solve market research & design challenges will signal the transition into this phase— and potentially the end of market research as we know it.

What is reinforcement learning? And how might it impact market research?

Reinforcement learning (RL) involves an intelligent agent which takes actions and learns from the outcome of those actions in order to become increasingly better at achieving a goal. Formulating a problem into one which can be tackled by an RL Agent (RLA) requires defining three things:

What is the RL’s goal?
What actions can the RL take?
What does it observe in order to learn how its actions impact its goal?

Already, AI researchers have developed RLAs capable of playing video games which require complex strategy and planning at a superhuman level. In this case the RLA’s goal is to achieve the highest score possible, the actions it can take are virtually ‘pushing’ the game controller’s buttons and it observes the video game screen in order to learn how its actions impact the state of the game and ultimately the score. To see how this approach can map to something at the intersection of market research and design, lets consider how an ad is created, tested, & then launched. Specifically, lets consider a simple ad like the ones you see in Google search results, and define the purpose of the ad to drive a person to click it and then sign up for some service. In this case, we can define the RLA’s goal as maximizing the number of people who click the ad and sign up (given a set of constraints, like a budget). The actions it can take are to generate the content of the ad and make ad buys against various demographics. During this process it observes the click through rates & sign up rates of the various ads & targeting profiles. At first, one can imagine it learning to generate ads that get a high rate of click through because it has learned that a certain set of words get people to click & that a person clicking is correlated with them signing up (which is the goal). With more time it may learn that while a certain set of ads generate strong click through rates, the rate of signups after clicking through varies greatly. As it then hones in on the ads that achieve both high click through & sign up rates, it may lean how those rates vary across demographics and optimize its targeting accordingly. With this example we can see how an RLA could learn to produce ads that not only drive click throughs, but specifically those which are likely convert to a sign up, and then learn who to best target those ads at. From a financial perspective, the RLA would learn to continuously reduce the cost per sign up — a clearly quantifiable ROI .

ROI and Morality

While this seems ideal from an economic perspective, morally it does leave many open questions about how such an ROI optimizing RLA might impact society (more on that here). Andrew Konya CEO at Remesh.ai Andrew Konya is the founder and CEO of Remesh. A computational physicist by training, he has spent the past 8 years developing and applying artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to problems in material science, bio-sensing, traffic, image analysis and language. His most recent focus is on developing artificial intelligence to engage and understand large crowds of people with Remesh. Find out more at Remesh at remesh.ai

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South African Market Research: Need for reform – Part 2

GRBN_News — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 07:19:15 +0000

In the first article of this series, we have highlighted three specific challenges faced by the market research industry in South Africa. The first challenge related to the skills profile of the general “consumer and market researcher”, with the view that shortcomings in the value of research and insights output from Market Research agencies can be tied back to specific shortcomings in researchers’ skillsets. The second challenge was described as limited frameworks for continued professional development, but especially some reluctance on the part of market research agencies in pursuing professional accreditation. As a result of the aforementioned two challenges, a third challenge concerned a lack of scientific rigour in insight outputs. Building on the identification of these challenges, a brief survey of the academic qualifications of (n=95) LinkedIn members currently employed as researchers in consumer and /or market research contexts was executed. Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, the academic qualifications of researchers employed in consumer and/or market research contexts were extraordinarily diverse. For example, the list contained relevant types of academic qualifications such as in the fields of psychology, sociology, marketing & communication management and advertising. Likewise, the list also market researchers whose academic qualifications were in the fields of geography, law, information science, visual arts and theology. Taken together, individuals with masters degrees in Research Psychology and those with a qualification in marketing, communications and advertising only accounted for only 32% of the profiles surveyed. The diversity in the academic backgrounds of market researchers is also comprehensible considering that only one South African tertiary academic institution offers an applied Marketing Research degree at a masters and doctoral level. Two more offered training in marketing research, but only as short courses or a module in a different academic subject. As such, compared to international training institutions, South Africa falls short in providing focused academic training and qualification for individuals who pursue a career in consumer and marketing research. Highlighted by an interview with the Marketing Director of an international market research firm and an owner of an independent market research practice, a third dimension to the challenge in South Africa as described above, takes shape in the finding that a career in marketing research is seldom attractive. As a profession, it seems to lack the esteem associated with related careers in marketing and advertising for reasons we’ve briefly described before. Furthermore, at junior and middle management levels, remuneration, in relation to the demand of the role, is notoriously low. Lastly, the limited career interests in this field, coupled with an even greater absence of finding and retaining millennial research talent, leave market research companies in a difficult position to fill positions and meet client demands for insights. The result seems to be the employment of smart, curious and talented individuals, yet individuals whose academic background may not necessarily support a deeper understanding of the development of insights related to human behaviour. In the next and final installment of this series, we’ll expand on our discussion of the need for reform in the market research industry in South Africa by considering the issue of accreditation and making recommendations in terms of supporting the development of market research as a truly professional, well-regarded career choice in South Africa.

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MRS Webinar – Commissioning Qual for Client Insight Team

GRBN_News — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 06:52:19 +0000

Objective To give a concise overview of best practice for commissioning qualitative research – from taking the brief to embedding the recommendations. Watch a clip from the webinar here:

BUY THE WEBINAR HERE

Context

Can we afford 8 groups or 6? Does it sometimes feel that commissioning qual comes down to discussions like this? A ‘soft’ research technique can get a lot less attention that a more prescriptive quant method does, and yet we spend significant proportions of our budgets on qual and use it to make key strategic decisions. Commissioning qual is an art, and one for which we can all learn better techniques. Do you ever find your qual being asked to do more than it was set up to do? Do you distinguish between business and research objectives? And is the focus group dying or thriving? Getting the commissioning and running of qual research right will mean that you get rich strategic learning for your business – and you can strengthen your own role and have fun along the way! This webinar will give you practical signposts on ways to do this, and pitfalls to avoid.

Who should attend?

Anyone on the client-side with less than 3–5 years experience of commissioning qual and anyone with more experience who would like to stimulate their thinking on how they work and find some tools for a fresh approach.

Content

Getting to the best brief
Choosing the right agency and right method
Handling logistics
Managing and embedding the output
Seven top tips

Format

Delivered in a 1 hour webinar, there will be 45 minutes of presentation from an expert who has worked on both sides of the client/agency fence.

Trainer

Laura Parker

Laura Parker has more than 25 years’ experience in market research, both on the agency side (qual and quant) and as a global director for Unilever Foods, where she was responsible for many complex qual programmes, ranging from multi-country studies to advertising pitch work. In her current role at SABMiller she is responsible for innovation capability, including qual for innovation.

BUY THE WEBINAR HERE

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MRS Recorded Webinar – International Research – Part 1

GRBN_News — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 07:02:03 +0000

The Rocky Road – Unravelling the complexities of International Research through an understanding of the cultural context

Buy the webinar here

Objective Unravelling the complexities of International Research from cultural divergences to more practical considerations providing a ‘travel bag’ full of tips and tricks for successful cross-country collaboration and optimizing the value of international research to clients. You can watch a clip of the webinar here: Who should attend? This webinar is designed for all those who conduct all kinds of international research, be it desk research, qualitative or quantitative. Ideally, they may have some experience of working internationally but it’s designed to benefit those new to this area of research too. We’d also love those with more experience to contribute to the debate and share their knowledge. Content The Rocky Road – Unravelling the complexities of International Research through an understanding of the cultural context

Identifying the key challenges and potential stumbling blocks along an international project ‘journey’
Exploring how differences between cultures can impact all stages of a project, from choice of methodology, to timings and location, to language and style of questioning, moderating techniques or analysis approach etc.
Using case histories and example briefs to challenge assumptions and showcase best practice approaches and solutions

Format This is a recording of a webinar broadcast by MRS on the 15^th June and runs for just over 30 minutes. This webinar was run a highly experienced researcher, Vatsala Rathore, who has packed her bags many times to both work and live in numerous countries around the globe. Vatsala Rathore After working for almost a decade in TNS, Vatsala is moving on to a dynamic brand consultancy named Butterfly Research. She has worked in India, Middle East and North Africa. Her work has spanned brand and product life-cycle. She is passionate about people and cultures and leverages her cross-continent experience to get under the skin of the consumer. Vatsala has worked on a range of categories and across key Blue chip clients such as Unilever, Nestle, Kraft, Britvic, Kellogg’s, to name a few. This varied client list has allowed her to work on projects ranging from segmentation and positioning work to communication development and evaluation.

Buy the webinar here

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South African Market Research: Need for reform

GRBN_News — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 17:02:40 +0000

Over the last two years, the number of research projects commissioned to external market research suppliers by MMI Holdings’^[1] (MMI), has seen a strong decline. There is a perception that market research suppliers are servicing the needs of corporates in the same way, without offering outcomes that are unique to the business or differentiated from that of its competitors. Over time, market research suppliers continue to gather knowledge about the different corporates and this gives suppliers some competitive advantage (and not necessarily the client). As such, the knowledge gathered seems to benefit the supplier more than the buyer of the insights. MMI Holdings’ (MMI) purpose is to enhance the lifetime financial wellness of people, their communities and their businesses. As such, MMI strongly relies on its internal Consumer and Market Research capability, which in partnership with specific external market research partners; assists the business in unlocking real insight into the client and consumer behaviours associated with financial wellness. In this article, the first in a three-part series, a brief outline is provided of MMI’s experience of the key challenges faced by the South African market research industry in remaining relevant to the insights needs of its business.

Skills profile

The first issue concerns the skills profile of the general “consumer and market researcher”. In South Africa, a career in market research is seldom the objective of students at the start of their tertiary education. Instead, the development of a career in market research is often happenstance, and the field is populated by individuals from diverse academic backgrounds. In view of this, there is often some lack of understanding the basic tenets of human behaviour and the core fundamentals of basic research design, both which which inhibit the quality and value of insights delivered.

Continued Professional Developement

The second issue deals with the matter of continued professional development and accreditation. As with most recognised professions, a formal accreditation that emphasises the importance of keeping abreast of the latest research and technological advances in the field cannot be underestimated. Locally, there is a gnawing reluctance on the part of many individual market researchers to become a member of the Southern African Market Research Association (SAMRA). In MMI’s experience, this lack of accreditation and continued professional development undermines the maintenance of a golden standard for research execution, and therefore a lack in quality and consistency of insights.

Scientific Rigour

Closely related to both the first and second issues, is that of scientific rigour. In MMI’s experience, there are often suggestions of epistemological problems inherent in agencies’ conceptualisations of research questions and the justification for the use of particular methodologies. The result is a lack in scientific rigour. In closing, the lack of critical skills and appropriate qualifications, absence of accreditation and CPD and the subsequent lack of scientific rigour support our view that the market research industry in South Africa requires reform. The question is, how can this reform be best enabled and supported? In the next article, we’ll discuss some suggestions. Monique Schehle, Consumer and Market Insights Manager at MMI Holdings

Pieter J. Rossouw, Market Research and Consumer Insights Manager at MMI Holdings

[1] MMI Holdings Limited (MMI) is a South African based financial services group listed on the South African stock exchange, the JSE.

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