why are market researchers so bad at presenting data?

John Clay

BIG Forum 7th December 2010

What is best practice when presenting market research

findings?

E.G project management,

ongoing communications,

putting research in context

E.G method of communicating,

report structure and content

ANALYSISEXPRESSION

STABILITY DRIVE

I need to look inside your mind

Prism creates a map which illustrates how a person is likely to behave in different situations

Supportive, caring, patient, understanding, sensitive, likeable, unassuming

Flexible, multi tasking, energetic, persuasive, gregarious, innovative, enthusiastic

Decisive, self starting, competitive, ambitious, results driven, excels when challenged, determined

Quality focussed, attentive to detail, thorough, guarded, well organised, analytical, careful ,slow,

ANALYSIS

EXPRESSION

STABILITY

DRIVE

Each segment has certain dominant characteristics

Our hero: market researcher

Here’s Steve

Quality

Planning and detail

Logical analysis

Accurate records

Looking for errors

Quiet isolation

Measurement tools

Proving a point

What turns him on?

Not being rushed

ANALYSIS

The client: sales director

Here’s Dick

DRIVE

Indecision

Bureaucracy

Slow pace

Excuses

Irrelevant information

Irresponsibility

Lack of initiative

Overly sensitive people

He hates:

Long explanations

The client: marketing manager

Here’s Pippa

EXPRESSION

Routine

Boredom

Narrow-mindedness

Confinement

Lots of details

Structure

Schedules

Being unpopular

She hates:

Slow pace

Tell a simple story with pictures

3 key aspects of communication design

SIMPLICITY

A STORY

IMAGERY

Simplicity

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing else to take away “ - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” -Da Vinci or Jobs?

Simplicity: why is it important?

Remember Dick?He can be

domineering, demanding, pushy,

argumentative and a poor listener

He needs information as brief and to the point as possible. Avoid any more

detail than he needs to know

Place numbers into a context so people understand what they mean

Simplify complex information

Wrong

Infographics

Lawrence Lessig

Dick Hardt Identity 2.0

You have to master the art of exclusion

Getting to the core of your communication

Structure your research findings around a central story or idea to create cohesion. Then support key ideas with detail

The Story

Don’t bury the lead

Journalists in the American Civil War learnt to get all theimportant information at the front of their messages due to the

unreliable nature of the military telegraph

Dopamine aids memory

Why is the story approach so important?

Acts as a mental post-it note

#UKSNOW

The current adverse weather in the UK is reported in the media using real-life stories to add context, not just data

Tools I use to create the key ideas and story:

A one hour presentation takes around 30 hours of prep time!

The MOST important tool I use:Iphone camera +

EVERNOTE

WHITEBOARD

Remember Pippa?

IMAGES: why they are important?

She is creative, innovative,

enthusiastic and spontaneous

She needs a visual and unstructured environment to

function. Her brain thinks laterally yet

she has little tolerance for tedious

detail

We have far better recall for visual information

Recall

10%

35%

65%

Source: Najjar, LJ (1998)

Picture superiority effect

Pictures are remembered better than words, especially when

people are casually exposed to the information for a limited time

Animation to emphasise the point

Let’s recap

1: Steve’s cognitive profile is very different to Dick and Pippa

2: Steve turns his audience off because he communicates the

research in a way that he would like to see NOT what suits them

1: We need to identify the core story or idea in our research findings then

provide contextual evidence

2: We need to tell visually engaging and simple stories to get across the

research message

More information

useful resourceshttp://beyondbulletpoints.com/

www.i-render.net/2010/05/50-examples-of-data-visualization-and-infographics/

www.edwardtufte.com

Www.heathbrothers.com

www.garrreynolds.com/

www.presentationmagazine.com

Www.mashable.com/2007/05/15/16-awesome-data-visualization-tools/

http://www.presentationzen.com/

www.prism-profiling.com

http://www.connecttoyourpotential.com/prism-behaviour-profiling.html

http://www.brainrules.net/

http://www.lessig.org/

http://identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/

http://jessedesjardins.com/

www.about.me/johnclay

Prezi

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