RETROWURST: My finest hour? January 1994

 I’m not sure what my finest hour was in my brand and advertising career (or maybe it’s yet to come, ha, ha!). But when it comes to Market Research, which is where I started out, I think it has to be this one.

It wasn’t an hour, more like 72 of them, not to mention all the conceptualisation, preparation and follow-up. Back in January 1994, I convened the MRS course on Advertising Research. 6 speakers, and delegates from client companies, market research, advertising and media agencies. 

You can see from the biography I submitted that I wasn’t taking myself too seriously. I encouraged the other speakers to do the same:

But the subject-matter - the whys and wherefores and state of play of advertising research 32 years ago - we did take seriously. People (or their companies) were shelling out good money for this. 

I started the course with a barrage of headlines of the “Is research killing advertising?” genre. And kicked the whole thing off with the comment “We could be forgiven for thinking this is the serial killers’ convention.”

This debate, of course, is still raging (or whatever one does on LinkedIn) today, as I now suspect it was raging thirty years previous to my course, back in the 1960s. And one thing that I was careful to do in the course was to look at the various advertising research methodologies, qual and quant. When should each be used? What’s the overall objective of each? The over-riding theme of the course was that it’s not simply “advertising research” but “people’s response to advertising/ideas” research. And that creative development research, for example, is used for deeper understanding of how people respond, and why - and how it can be improved. Not evaluation.

Fast forward 32 years and the plot has been well-and-truly lost. There may well still be MRS courses, but all I see flapping around the internet are flocks of White Papers. Many of these are shrill opinion pieces, given a veneer of scientific credibility through the addition of spurious charts, graphs and data tables.

Some of them are from individuals and organisations who I’d respected up to now.

This is an extract from The Cure for Dull 

 

“Only quant can truly measure dull”. 

Well, yes, only quant can truly measure anything. The clue is in the name. 

The paper goes on to state “Quantitative emotional measurement tends to produce stronger feeling, while over-reliance on focus groups can push work toward consensus and safety.”

Where to start? Apples and pears? Chickens and eggs?

But it’s not my business to get uppity and tell today’s agency leaders what’s what. I hope instead that at least some of those course delegates still remember what they learned from us in those far-off days - and are putting it into practice or passing it on to their juniors. 

Robert, Andreas and déjà vu

 

On my way back from Canada, flying far above the endless acres of wilderness, something drew me to the film Train Dreams on the in-flight entertainment. A good choice, I think. It reminded me of the life my grandparents must have had when they emigrated to Canada in the 1930s and built up what my cousin referred to as a homestead.

But it also, strangely, reminded me somehow of home in Germany and how that all came about. Meeting my husband in an Austrian mountain hut. Gradually, it dawned on me. Train Dreams is the American cousin of A Whole Life (Ein ganzes Leben) by Robert Seethaler. 

Both are the story of one simple man’s life, with identical plot points (orphan beginnings, dangerous outdoor work, brief happiness with wife and child until disaster strikes, coming to terms - or not - with old age and the world’s progress). The overall themes of the beauty and dignity of solitude, the interaction of man and landscape are common to both. The time and feel of the settings are similar, even though the actual places are far apart.

Although Seethaler’s work came first for me (the book was published in 2015, the film followed in 2023) Denis Johnson’s novella first appeared in 2002 and was republished in a different form in 2011. So if anyone can be accused of copy-catting, it’s Seethaler and not Johnson. 

But I’m prepared to give Seethaler the benefit of the doubt. We got this frequently when I worked at the ad agency. Similar ideas would pop up all the time. Call it spirit of the age or maybe synchronicity - coincidences that seem menaingful but with no apparent causal connection. 

Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina and Effi Briest are all the same story. And, in the same way that 19th century readers had an appetite for extra-marital affairs and their consequences, perhaps 21st century readers and viewers need stories about the simple life, about our place in nature and the satisfaction of solitude. 

To me, it’s less copy-catting and more about tuning in to our collective humanity and what’s missing from our lives.

Keep your vibes to yourself!

 At the end of the 80s, I went to Acapulco. A cheap and cheerful package trip with a friend. We attended the obligatory “welcome meeting” and got talked into coughing up for a couple of excursions.

They were both a disaster. I remember a river, the banks of which were lined with rotting dead fish. I have blotted out other details.

The next week, my friend was keen to attend the welcome meeting for a second time.

Why the heck do you want to do that? Hear about the bloody picturesque white houses nestling on the clifftops again, and get roped into more rivers and dead fishes?

No, we ignore all that. We take the cocktails and listen carefully to what she told us NOT to do. 

And so it was - a fantastic second week, riding down to the Old Town in the forbidden blue (non tourist) bus, eating real Mexican food, discovering a deserted 1950s hotel possibly with the ghost of Elvis in residence, being chased down the street by Russian sailors ...

I am naturally wary of what others might think I’d enjoy on holiday. So I don’t know why I pressed the button for the AI assistant on Trip Advisor at the weekend when investigating a Greek island I haven’t visited yet. I blame a glass of wine too many.

I could hardly shut the wretched thing up. I think it had swallowed the whole of Instagram.

... nails the “holiday rhythm”, laid-back vibe, anchor pick, prime for that lively, waterfront “boats and clinkung glasses” vibe, harbor-adjacent, strong pick, that easy combo, pairs perfectly, the most “you” option ...

Almost put me off considering that island at all. It may be unspoilt in reality, but it’s definitely been a little sullied now in my perceptions by a non-sentient bot which has certainly never had a glass of Retsina, let alone one too many.

I know I should prompt these things with a bit more info, but when I said “no serious hiking”, I meant I didn’t want to walk uphill in 40°C on a goat track for 4 hours, not that more than “200m gentle level walking” is beyond me.

I think I’ll stick to my tried and trusted approach as expressed by Stefan Zweig:

All the strangeness, all the distinctiveness of a country will utterly escape you as soon as you are led and your steps are no longer guided by the real god of travellers, chance.

Or maybe ask the Trip Advisor bot where not to go and what not to do.

 

RETROWURST: In the mind of a planner (circa 2010)

 

How does a planner’s mind work?

I’ve never been a great fan of trying to map mental processes, mainly because how one person’s brain works is not necessarily helpful for the next. 

I can’t pin down when or why I would have drawn this up, but it’s definitely 21st century. 

Looking at it today, I’d say yes, it still works for me. It starts off with a sort of melting pot involving Jung’s four functions.

Then there’s that “Simplifier”. Not sure I’d call it that any more. It sounds too much like dumbing-down. And a bit patronising. Maybe “Clarifier” is better? Incidentally, I’d love to know what I meant at the time by “A4 thinking”. Obviously a buzzword that buzzed off into the great blue yonder.

Finally, there’s “Insight.” Without an “s”. Sparking Inspiration and hence Ideas and Innovation.

That’s the theory, anyway.

Quo vadis, qual?

 

“The mechanisation of qualitative research”

“The sanitisation of real human beings.”

These are a couple of pages from Wendy Gordon’s excellent Goodthinking A Guide to Qualitative Research, published in 1999. The latter section ends as follows:

We study consumer behaviour as David Attenborough studies gorilla behaviour - sometimes in hushed awe and sometimes with cruel laughter. By using the word “consumer”, we attempt to objectify human beings and persuade ourselves that we understand people as individuals, when in fact we have often drawn stereotypical and numerically based approximations.

David Attenborough is still out there studying gorilla behaviour but Wendy Gordon is sadly no longer with us. I wonder what she’d have made of qualitative research in the world of AI and synthetic respondents?

There’s certainly a lot going on in qual, which is in itself healthy. I’ve pulled out four examples of the directions various agencies and individuals are taking. What these have in common is that they’re all emphasising the uniquely human characteristics that are key to brand growth - so far, synthetic sales are not a thing, as they say.

REVOLUTION! The Billion Person Focus Group (Abi Awomosu)

From the claim upwards, outwards, downwards, everywaywards, this approach is mind-boggling however I look at it.

Abi Awomosu has worked at Meta, Uber, Apple and Co. , has written a book How not to use AI   and runs a consultancy called Data, Art and Soul. 

It’s a completely different perspective on AI, radical and dare I say it, political. Less about “extraction” (I had never thought about AI in those terms, but now I think about all that “scraping” ...) and more about listening and going where people speak unfiltered. This includes “dark data” and IRL (now there’s an idea Wendy would definitely approve of!).

This course (although it’s not really a course, more an induction into a way of thinking and working) will enable you to set up your “own OS with agents, workflows and cookbooks”. A first for me, reading through this is “digital body language” which includes "cursor hesitation" and "rage clicks”. 

DIGITAL DOPPELGANGER: Juno (Michelle Gilmore)

Juno is a little easier for me to get my head around. What Michelle Gilmore has done here is essentially created a doppelganger, encoding her craft as an experienced qualitative researcher into “Juno”, and training her to run expert interviews. So Juno doesn’t just run surveys, she carries out qualitative interviews - listens, thinks then acts. Juno “tracks emotion, detects hesitation and knows when to probe, and when to hold back. The way an expert researcher would.”

There are options for recruitment of respondents, including drawing from a global panel of 3m people. I assume none of these are synthetic ;)

Here’s an 8-minute video of how it all works.

EMPOWERING RESEARCHERS: Quallie.ai “Good work made easy"

There are undoubtably a few outfits like Quallie.ai about. This is a support system for qual researchers taking care of the “donkey work.” “Don’t let hours of qualitative research overwhelm you.”

The philosophy, is hey, let’s not pick sides, AI is here to stay. Our platform can help you speed up the process, leaving you with more time for the insight and brain work. The platform can transcribe (in 40 languages), summarise, interrogate the transcripts, organise and analyse. 

HYBRID: Source Nine

Most of the big research players have embedded AI in their products and services - and the smaller specialised qualitative agencies are doing that too. Source Nine have a product they’re calling Signal Insight - “for when you have no time or budget for full quality, and “synthetic AI” isn’t enough.”

It’s a combination of desk research, in-depths and Source Nine’s propriety tools. 

The trick here is that the AI isn’t an add-on - it’s embedded in the agency’s ethos, in this case “Building brand equity grounded in emotion.”

So there we go. There’s plenty going on. And what is cheering is that all of these, and others like them have gone beyond flogging improved efficiency. They are all looking for genuine human understanding - and I for one hope I’ll hear less disparging remarks about “focus groups” and more positive comments about the qual(ity) of market research in the future.

  

Proof of the pudding?

 

On the right side of my blog, you’ll see a couple of badges. Not unusual, as there are badges and certificates on everything these days - so many, that I expect people don’t notice them any more. 

If you press on the first of my badges, the “Contributing Thought Leader for BlogNotions” one, you’ll soon discover it’s a dead link that goes precisely nowhere. I’ve left it there as a bit of a joke. I was an official “Thought Leader” once, which I find quite preposterous. It’s kept on in the same vein as I might keep my battered British Airways gold member luggage tag on a tatty rucksack.

The second one is a bit more serious - and genuine. No “thought-leader-washing” going on here. It’s my Society of Authors members’ badge. 

And the Society of Authors have recently introduced a new scheme - and a logo/badge - to give authors support in the rising tide of AI slop.

The “Human Authored” scheme was launched in the UK this week, following the example of the US Authors Guild. Authors can register their works, and use the logo on the book itself or in publicity material. The aim is to promote all those human-author qualities - empathy, imagination, craft, care, experience and so on, giving potential readers a quality reassurance that they’re not buying AI slop.

The authors may have used AI tools to assist with writing - from spellchecks to researching and brainstorming - but not to write the book via prompts.

I’ve signed up for it, although I feel a little sad that it’s come to this. 

And, I’m not 100% convinced by the name “Human Authored”. An author is an originator and “to author” is to originate a book, poem, play, whatever it is. Can non-humans “author”? As opposed to write, or generate?

Do we need an accreditation for our humanity? Surely, to mix metaphors in an unauthorly manner, the proof of the pudding is in the reading?

How long before we hear the slightly grotesque term “human-washing”?

RETROWURST: Quaint, curious and quirky - The 101 most useful websites (from 2008)

 

Now that I’ve run out of Retrowurst articles, I’m giving a few saved pieces a last airing  before they head for their new life in the paper recycling.

Today’s gem is The 101 most useful websites from The Telegraph, compiled by David Baker in March 2008. It’s a fascinating surf (remember that?) through today’s giants in embryonic form, valiant niche oddities still battling it out and those that sank without a trace in the (ugh) “sea of sameness.”

The article is divided into sections, and here are the first three mentioned in each section.

TECHNOLOGY

Google - well, I never!

Anonymouse - here’s a distinctly retro look. Not convinced I’d try or trust it ... 

iLounge - still around but if I haven’t used it in the last 18 years, I’m not going to start now

ENTERTAINMENT

Digital Spy - keeping up with the Kardashians, I guess

BBC iPlayer - yawn

Whatsonwhen - Not On Now

ADVICE & INFO

Newsmap - shame I misssed this, but it seems to have died a death. Apparently it was some new-fangled thing called an app

The Eggcorn Database - manglings of language, and jolly fascinating, too

Arts and Letters Daily - Est. 1998 - beautifully quaint

This section has the most weird stuff - for more, see picture above.

HOUSE & HOME

Noise Mapping England - killed off by a sonic boom

Prime Location - still in its prime

Rated People - as highly rated as CheckATrade? Not sure

SOCIAL

Facebook - “The most grown-up (just) of the social-networking sites that are fast taking over the world. Excellent for staying in touch with far-flung friends, though pretty good for re-establishing contact with those you hoped you had lost.” But what about all those lovely ads? 

Wordpress - Fair enough ...

Ringsurf - Doesn’t seem to be ringing anyone’s bell today

For the rest, see the picture above. The ususal suspects conspicuous by their absence.

SHOPPING

GiftGen - can you feel sorry for a website? Gifts suggested for me were: a flower arranging experience, a Lord/Lady title, and a Goat (for 3rd world). On the other hand, it’s rather refreshing to go back to the days when cookies weren’t so smart and Gemini was just a starsign.

eBay - no surprises there

Who What Wear Daily - terminally unfashionable

TRAVEL

Sky Scanner - how long before the AI agents come calling?

The man in seat 61 - going from Station to Station, and good on him!

Walk It - limping along

In all of this, I get a wistful nostalgia for the internet of those days, before we were stalked and fed, at the mercy of algorithms. Amazon and YouTube are mentioned in the article, but only in passing, not in the hit parade.

It’s been a pleasant ramble around. A bit like finding an old high street of individual, independent shops, each with their own speciality and character.

Will I find Claude and ChatGPT quaint in ten or even five years’ time?