Standing Out in a Crowded Market: The Power of Effective Marketing

Check out the full episode below! Enjoy The Exchange? Don't forget to tune in live Friday at 12 pm EST on the Greenbook LinkedIn and Youtube Channel!

 

Susan Griffin and Lenny Murphy explore key developments in the market research industry, including the rise of 45 new companies and the increasing challenge of capturing attention in a crowded marketplace. It highlights the need for strong product offerings and clear value propositions to secure repeat business, especially when competing for large corporations’ attention.

The impact of AI on market research is also examined, with a focus on leveraging technology to understand consumer behavior and boost brand awareness. Vendors are reminded of the importance of clearly communicating the value of their tools to decision-makers.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

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Transcript

Lenny Murphy: And we're live.

Susan Griffin: We are that we are.

Lenny Murphy: Thank goodness. So happy Friday, everybody. So you can tell we kind of kept it secret, uh, that, you know, Karen is on a beach and like, you know, Southeast Asia somewhere.

Susan Griffin: Uh, yeah, I mean, she had a, uh, an incredible IAX eight pack in Bangkok, and so it's well little respite, but that meant she couldn't be on the exchange.

Lenny Murphy: So, so my secret co-host this week, uh, Susan Griffith. And for anybody who doesn't know Susan, I'm going to give you a little bit of context here. Susan was my sales rep at GMI back in 2006, 2007, something along those that worked with the legendary Alison Morgan. Yes, with Jade.

Susan Griffin: Yes, that whole team.

Lenny Murphy: So Susan, I've known each other a long time. She's also a board member at Green Book. And we talk all the time. And she has a very specific perspective on things. And I thought it would be wonderful to have her as a co-host. So Susan, welcome. Thank you so much, Lenny.

Susan Griffin: You're welcome.

Lenny Murphy: So why don't you give the audience a little more background, for those who don't know you. Stage for our conversation?

Susan Griffin: Well, yes, I've been in the research industry tangentially, adjacently, peripherally for much of my career, GMI sales, individual contributor, and selling panel. Then I ran marketing for a company called Brain Juicer, now System One Group, for nine years. And in 2017 started a marketing strategy consultancy, um, to help. Agencies basically articulate their narrative in order to be able to increase sales. Um, so yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. It's a good story and it works. So, and that's the segue. So we're going to do what we usually do.

Lenny Murphy: We're going to cover some stories, but we're going to put a little different lens on it, rather than just kind of throwing everything against the wall, as Karen and I always do. Because of Susan's, because of your experience, I'm talking like you're not here, you are here. Let's put these stories in the context of, you know, brand building and marketing and how all that plays out.

Susan Griffin: Grabbing attention, building awareness, but to serve the goal of increasing sales, because that's really, that's the holy grail. That's the gold ring. So yeah, I mean, we had some interesting things happen this week, and in the spirit of fame, right? Les Binet, who arguably is the godfather of fame and advertising effectiveness, stepped down 40 years at Adam and Eve GDB, it's important to sort of know the context that he and his partner in crime, Peter Field, wrote a seminal piece called the long and the short of it, balancing short and long-term marketing strategies. And that really became the idea behind a lot of measuring advertising effectiveness, you know, that you've got to build fame for a brand, right? And fame is long-term. Fame gets you sales long-term. Now, long-term has become kind of an interesting terminology now, because long-term used to be five years. Long-term these days could be an hour and a half, given the velocity of things that have been changing, which we've talked a lot about. But anyway, I found it interesting. Um, was credentialed at St. Catherine's College in Oxford in artificial intelligence back in 1985. So he's, he knew something about data, but, um, art, you know, the, the, the idea of fame and the idea of being able to build brand awareness, it's one thing if you're a market leader like Ipsos, but if you are a new emerging brand? How do you build fame? How do you grab attention? How do you build awareness? And how do you convert that awareness to sales? And we're pretty familiar with a company that's done that rather well, who had a big announcement this week.

Lenny Murphy: It did with a shout out to Ryan Berry, the president at Zappi who announced that he was leaving to try his hand at something new. And yes, wonderful case study. And for those who don't know, we've talked about this publicly, right? Zappy is really interesting from a green book standpoint, because it was literally like a napkin that Steve had written the concept of, entered the competition, the very first IAX, won. And then- And that was 15 years ago. That's 15 years ago.

Susan Griffin: 16 years ago.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Uh, so to your point, they've, they've been a really instructive example of this process of going from an, an, an innovative, disruptive startup, going through that process of building fame. And Ryan has been a very instrumental part of that. He's been front and center, uh, from a content perspective. Um, they just published a book. Um, the, You know, they've, they've done a lot of the right things that has translated into growth, uh, you know, top line revenue growth for the business to where they are no longer just a startup. They are happy as is a major player within the industry.

Susan Griffin: And what's fascinating to me is the fact that both Steve and Ryan came out of the more traditional approaches to market research. So when they built Zappi, it was called Zappi Store in the beginning, they understood what they were disintermediating. They understood what they were disrupting. And they built something that was fit for purpose. And, you know, it's, well, the whole thing speaks for itself. So, Ryan, we'll wait to hear where Ryan's going next and what happens for Zappi in the meantime. But some other companies captured our attention, which is part and parcel of building awareness this week. And what was fascinating to me was that these companies announced either relationships with a different company or spinning out a different company. And the two that came to my attention were L&E, and they announced that they're powering a company called, I think it's Condux. Condux, okay. I was pronouncing it Cond-U-X. And it is, again, a fit-for-purpose built for market research UX measurement testing company. But I found it fascinating that it's L&E powering it. And the other one was JTE, arguably one of the bigger healthcare research-oriented companies. And, you know, Dan Wasserman is a quite articulate voice around the use of AI in research. They announced a new company called SparkIntelligence.ai, and it's an AI moderation and digital twin company. And Jan is going to have a role both at KJT and at Spark. And I found it, I found that fascinating.

Lenny Murphy: Thoughts, Lenny? Yeah, well, I have insights. Ellie is a client of Gen 2. So I've been involved in that process of launching Condux. The, but to you, so I won't get into the weeds on that. It's an example of companies, of a company that has been, you know, you'd think of fairly traditional or field services recruiting.

Susan Griffin: But well-known.

Lenny Murphy: They have awareness. Yes, but building off of their core assets, and in this case, it was really their, their, their panel. Their expertise in recruiting and the panel that they have built, and repurposing that in a new way, and using that to help accelerate this concept of, of, you know, fame and, you know, they're working with some external contractors to help, you know, drive their, their marketing strategy, etc, etc. And I think that it's this very thing in our industry now that growth is a combination of one kind of rethinking how we combine our, our, our core assets, combined with smart and effective marketing. And I would say KGT is an example of that as well, right? They're utilizing AI and these tools to take some things that they already had, but to meet a new opportunity. Right.

Susan Griffin: Recognizing that moderation and digital twinning isn't just relevant to the health care industry. And so having this adjacent brand gives them the ability to be able to reach people outside of health care. But there's lots of ways that we see companies gaining attention and building awareness. We see a lot of using the tools at their disposal, announcing product launches, new leadership, new hires. And then of course, shameless plug, leveraging all the ways they can reach the audiences that they want to target through the Green Book tools. And we won't, we'll leave it at that. And hopefully people understand what I mean by that. But so- Give us your money. Leverage our resources, leverage what we have. And oftentimes, we see that advertisers, sponsors, guests on the podcast, whomever, aren't necessarily taking full advantage of what's available. But something that grabbed my attention this week, a company, who did leverage one of the assets that we've already talked about, which is the Insights Innovation Competition. This is a company called Orchard Insights. They announced this week the expansion of their board, right? I mean, so that signals, wow, they've attracted some really heavy hitters who think that their tools are, you know, something to be considered. And again, Orchard will be back at IAX North America in April.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah.

Susan Griffin: And folks, if you haven't checked it out yet, we're moving to DC this year from Austin. Already the sessions seem incredibly insightful and amazing and will capture a lot of attention for sure. But getting back to the competition, which will also be announced, the five finalists will present, the winner will be announced. I mean, going back to Zappi, but thinking about last year, we had bounced insights. We had a couple of years ago, we had Highlight. These are all companies who entered the competition and have built on that awareness and have really built their companies. So shameless plug. But we also heard from a friend of market research in general, but certainly a friend of Green Book. We have somebody who's a behavioral expert who announced a new product, literally yesterday. Drum roll. Yep. Will Leach. Yes, Will Leach.

Lenny Murphy: Who has co-hosted on The Exchange, and as you said, a long time friend, right? Will's a gift to IAX, right? We always have him on stage, because he's just so damn bright.

Susan Griffin: Well, and also, he really, he took a concept like behavioral economics, or behavioral science and made it actionable for brands, right? Marketing to Mindstates, one of his books, his first book. Amazing. And he has launched something called MindPath. It's a behavioral AI research assistant. And the research assistant dubbed Mindy has an avatar. I was a little miffed that Mindy doesn't look more like me, but that's OK. And Will will actually be showcasing MindPath at IAX North America. But imagine a research assistant that's not just AI, but it's AI trained on behavioral models. So really fascinating. Kudos to Will. Really, really thrilled. For him and people to check it out.

Lenny Murphy: Let's pause for a second though, because there's something that's occurring to me as we're having this, and this happens, right, as we're talking through things. Sure. We started the exchange because we thought there was a need to curate information because there's so much happening, right now especially.

Susan Griffin: And contextualize things, you know, there's a lot of news and out there, but what I find about the exchange that's fascinating is that I'll see an announcement and you and Karen, you know, you look across the internet, you know, manually, hand-stitched you, but you also use discovery tools, AI discovery tools. But what the exchange does is puts things in context. Why does this matter?

Lenny Murphy: It does. Build off that in this specific context around, around building, you know, fame and, and in mindshare. So in a, what we are, companies like Greenbook exist because we help bring everything together, right? Events, great example of that, right? Is, and all the other events in the industry are successful because you're bringing content effectively and the right people involved in producing that content together in one place so it's easily accessible. We could argue that any publication, any website, that's effectively what they do, brings the right information together so people can access it readily. From a buyer standpoint though, And so go back in the competition is we're both reviewing the new entrants this year. There were 42 new entrants this year? 45. 45. 45 entrants. We've never had that many before. So it's usually around, you know, 20 or 20 plus, something of that nature. So the pace of change and the pace of new entrants coming into the market is only increasing. Now that's good news for the industry as a whole, because that means, obviously, people recognize the need for data, and for understanding data to answer business questions isn't, it's only increasing in importance as well. So that's great, right? The industry, in general, that theory, the foundation of market research is good. How that's happening, and who are the constituents, that's all up for grabs, right? That is changing very rapidly, and we see that we have a unique view into those things. So here's the question for you. In an increasingly crowded, fragmented marketplace, not just from a business standpoint, but even for attention.

Susan Griffin: Oh, absolutely. I mean, attention is the scarcest commodity we have.

Lenny Murphy: Right. And it's only getting worse, we're all ADHD. So, so from your perspective, your sage wisdom, right? What do you think that means for our businesses, the businesses in our industry and how they need to adapt and just in general?

Susan Griffin: Well, you know, putting that, putting the lens of attention and awareness and fame on that question. What and I have I've had personal experience with this certainly back in the day when when I was at brainjuicer Yes, you you build awareness you get attention and you can get it in a variety of different ways some of them more gimmicky than others then you get the or the first project, the key is to get the repeat business and ultimately to become the preferred supplier. And in order to do that, you really have to have a killer app. You can't just have a glitzy website.

Lenny Murphy: You can't just spend a lot of money.

Susan Griffin: You gotta have steak with that sizzle. Potatoes unless you're on a high-protein diet. I mean, you have to have everything that actually, first of all, is better than your competition and actually delivers the goods. We have an example. I don't know if we talked about this. You shared something with it at Humane. What was the brand?

Lenny Murphy: Yes, the AI pin that was going to, you know, the wearable that was going to replace the phone started by folks from OpenAI.

Susan Griffin: Yes. Right. And this week you sent me an alert that basically they're shuttered and they sold their assets to HP because at the end of the day, it was, wow, Wow, but what? They didn't have the killer app. Now, there's probably a whole lot more to that story that we could tell, but the whole idea of gaining awareness is base camp. Everest is, I think Everest is 10,000 feet above base camp. And it's pretty treacherous to get there. But base camp doesn't get you to the summit. You've got to basically have the right tools because you're going to get one chance. And these days, it's increasingly hard to unseat incumbents at brands. I mean, Lenny, you've got experience with this. Can we name the brand that has to scrutinize their vendor lists very carefully that you are? Yeah, I'm the Gen 2 business.

Lenny Murphy: The one that I can always probably talk about is P&G, right? So yes, they're a great example. Everybody wants to work with P&G.

Susan Griffin: Absolutely.

Lenny Murphy: But it is, internally for a company of their size, and to your point, they can't work with everybody. It's a, to begin with, they're very, their lens is always what allows us to meet the business need in the most effective way, at the best price, and increasingly, fastest. That's the lens, cheaper, faster, better. Use the lens. And then there's this layer of complexity of even getting through the process to become a vendor.

Susan Griffin: Right. So if you get there, your tool better be more than just a fun story or a claim.

Lenny Murphy: And they have dedicated teams as well as support from people like me. And we do. It's public. I've been for many years to help evaluate those tools on an ongoing basis. They don't have to click a slick sale, um, pitch doesn't do the deal.

Susan Griffin: So exactly. And you know, I, and I think that the, the challenge is really that a lot of the decision makers at the buyer level at the buyers, um, that may know traditional research, that may be expert in the approaches from even as recent as five years ago that were the gold standard, but they're not necessarily experts in these new technologies. And they're looking for people who really understand whether or not these tools are fit for purpose. Companies that are applying AI to research challenges. But if they are not companies that really understand them, I mean, going back to the Zappy story. Steve had been in research since Moses was in Boy Scouts. He knew how the industry had to get better and he had the courage to take that cocktail napkin idea and turn it into a business. But he wasn't just a geek who knew how to write code. Right? And we know the ones that actually understand what better, cheaper, faster actually means. Well, yeah. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: I mean, that killer app is better.

Susan Griffin: And it's only people who understand what the standard was before who, who understand how to make things better as opposed to just cheaper and faster. Yeah. So, you know, I want to play off that for a second.

Lenny Murphy: I was yesterday, we were going back and forth on, uh, in preparing for this on, uh, all right. To go off on my AI soapbox. And we decided no, I wasn't. So I turned into a LinkedIn post. So if anybody's interested in my opinion on this a little more in depth, look at the LinkedIn post. But it's relevant to this conversation because that technology, the underlying technology that powers the innovative solutions that are in this cheaper, faster, better scenario is changing as rapidly. It's not like, you know, mobile. You know, I mean, mobiles, some things have changed, but effectively, it really hasn't, right? People have a device and you have a way to engage with them. And that hasn't changed in 15 years, not fundamentally, right? You got more bells and whistles, but the, but it's basically the same online. It's basically the same. It's just slicker and faster. And you know, those things, but the AI, what we've been paying attention to, and this was the, I want to go into the details, the pace of that innovation of that technology is fundamentally different. The step changes between ChatGPT, when it was first launched, three years ago, and the latest iterations of GPT-3 or Grok or any of these other solutions that are emerging.

Susan Griffin: My friend, Claude.

Lenny Murphy: Claude, right, Claude, the perplexity You know, I mean, any of those, they're all, it's a big change. It's a big change in capability.

Susan Griffin: And you, when we had our prep call for today, you, um, you made the penny drop for me because I hadn't really thought about the fact that there was some entrance into, you know, a, a, um, AI for market research, who, who built their tools on the first generation of these?

Lenny Murphy: Yes, and rightfully so. They were innovators.

Susan Griffin: They saw the potential and they jumped in. Right. But does that make their initial tools obsolete when these new, you know, when the step changes happen? So to your point, the good ones, the good ones who market research, understand what the unmet need was, understand what they were trying to make better, who are also paying attention, as your blog post, you know, you know, it's a cautionary tale to all of us, Lenny, we've got to be paying attention, that word again. It's those companies that stack that all together, and keep current with technology , who are ultimately going to win in what you were referring to as an arms race, which I suppose that's a way to do it. But, you know, again, if you can look yourself in the mirror as a supplier and say, yep, we have a killer app, yep, we're going to do our level to gain attention and get to that, you know, trial period, and then, you know, get repeat business because we actually did do something that's better. You know, again, there's many ways to do that, Green Book being one, but, you know, we see these press announcements, and you and Karen spend a lot of times, as I said, scouring the internet But getting the press releases directly is just another way to ensure that they're in front of you. And we're close, but I think there's an email where people can send alerts that will get to you and Karen for the exchange. I think you're gonna put that in the chat.

Lenny Murphy: Karley, yep. Karley. It's exchange.org. And actually on that note, and I'm sorry, I just remembered this, there was one press release, somebody did that, they sent it to us, and is an example of even the function of a press release helping to drive that idea of fame. And that was from our friends at Behavix. With their fundraise, that helps, that entire process, especially in an early stage company, you need every single thing you can find that is actually valid, right, to help build that momentum of brand awareness.

Susan Griffin: Yeah, and I think there's a link to the Behavix story that Karley can put in the chat.

Lenny Murphy: They're doing a behavioral panel, which by the way, just total, not total aside, but we've been talking about this for years now, that behavioral data in the era of AI was going to become more important than just purely out And this is another example of that, that I am aware of money flowing from investors, et cetera, et cetera, in that category. That era has arrived. We need to start thinking more about the uses of behavioral data rather than attitudinal data within the research process. Companies like Havix are examples of that.

Susan Griffin: I mean, to tie this all up, You know, we all know, we recognize that brand awareness for agencies is key, but I'd like to put that in context for why. And our friends at the Ehrenberg Bass Institute conducted a survey. All of you out there who are listening probably have heard this stat. Their data revealed that 95% of buyers are not in the market for your services at any given moment. So in that brief moment where what you can deliver is the killer app, the mission critical solution, you've got to have built some top of mind awareness or else you're going to lose that critical moment when they actually are in the market for your services.

Lenny Murphy: So, maybe it's- In the world, if nobody knows it, then- Exactly. It doesn't matter. There's a movie, Tucker, about the Tucker car. Sorry? Tucker. It was a type of car in the fifties. It was very advanced, right? It was very like, it was state of the art. It's great. It's a great movie but the idea of like you'd have this most advanced. It was a killer app. It was a great thing. No, but In market, you know that the competitive set was too entrenched He was trying he was trying to unseat Ford and Chevy and you know, the major players at that point They didn't matter how good that car was You know, he he didn't market effectively so therefore, he could not break through. And it became a footnote in history.

Susan Griffin: Yes, absolutely, Will, yes.

Lenny Murphy: Once you go down that path, you're stuck, and you gotta stay abreast, and that was the point I wanted to make.

Susan Griffin: Yes. Absolutely.

Lenny Murphy: Because it's not just version 1.0, where it's a slight tweak, it does one thing better, that this world, and they are, Whoa, what the hell? That is radically different in capability. It is, they're massive changes.

Susan Griffin: Yeah. So Lenny, we're on time.

Lenny Murphy: This has been so much fun.

Susan Griffin: Well, you're going to get called into service again at some point.

Lenny Murphy: Either Karen or I won. We'll be available. And you're now, you, Will, Tim Lynch, Carrie, you guys are in.

Susan Griffin: This is exactly what I wanted. I am a groupie and I have advanced my status to roadie.

Lenny Murphy: I love it. Oh, you need to carry my guitar. That's funny. All right. Be well. Anything else? Do you want to throw anything else for a wrap?

Susan Griffin: Well, I mean, just shameless plug for Green Book again. I mean, there's a lot to take advantage of at Green Book. If you're not delving deep, if you're only just saying, how much is it going to cost for me to have a kiosk in North America? I think there are only a couple left. You're missing an opportunity. If you engage with the sales team at Green book, articulate for them what your bigger goals are and let them think about different ways that Green Book can help in all of your portfolio of marketing solutions to build that brand awareness. It's one thing if you're Ipsos or GFK, it's if you're an emerging company and you're innovating and you want to grab attention. Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: And on that note, we will always support innovative startups with a, you know, like this. That's one reason we do this, you know, making people aware, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, absolutely.

Susan Griffin: Absolutely. All right. All right.

Lenny Murphy: Everybody have a wonderful weekend.

Susan Griffin: Thank you, Lenny. And we'll see you around.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, absolutely. Take care, guys.

Links from the episode:

Susan Griffin, Griffin + Skeggs Collaborative  

Ad Effectiveness Pioneer Les Binet Steps Down After 40 Years 

The Long and the Short of it: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies  

A love note to Zappi and the consumer insights industry: Ryan Barry 

L&E announces they are “powering” a company called CondUX 

KJT announces "SparqIntelligence.ai" 

Orchard expands board of directors, adding industry leaders to drive growth 

Will Leach announces Mindpath™ a Behavioral AI Research Assistant dubbed Mindy 

Behavix Secures $2.5M in Seed Funding to Disrupt Behavioral Data Market 

Customer Insights Pulse By Erik Fraser, 2024 Future List Honoree and Customer Insights & Competitive Intelligence Whiz  

Humane’s AI Pin is dead, as HP buys startup’s assets for $116M