The Insight Show used to be the flagship MR event in Europe, in fact the only trade fair show to visit if you wanted to get a grip of the entire industry in a few hours. Fierce competition, mainly from Germany and France as well as the credit crunch has reduced the London event to one in the crowd. The good news for the visitors is that the arrangers now try harder and offer more for free.
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John Whitehead from UK-based charity organisation WaterAid, was one of many speakers making it worthwhile climbing the stairs for the Conferece Programme. His presentation left me with a bit of a scary feeling though. It was almost impossible to tell this apart from any super-commercial brand-building seminar. Where did all the good, idealistic guys go?
Climbing to the second floor was worth the effort not only for the conference sessions, but also for this magnificent view.
Most notably is that the conference sessions, who used to cost a fortune although they were sales pitches in disguise, are now free and often filled with very interesting topics. The introduction of the Presentation Arena, for the sales pitches, directly at the heart of the exhibition stands, is also a good idea. If you are interested in what a company has to offer, chances are great they will explain their offering better at a formal presentation for a crowd of listeners, than if you just stumble in to their stand (surprisingly many of the stand staff fail to capture my interest and explain the uniqueness in the company's product or service). MRS, UK:s ESOMAR, had its own presentation arena, providing samples from the MRS Training Academy. Judging from the turnout, all these three features were highly appreciated by the visitors.
Kevin Ford from Harris Interactive gathered an impressive crowd for his presentation on Pathways to Purchase. Nothing really new was presented, but the message was neatly packaged and filled its purpose of placing Harris in peoples minds.
Nick Gadsby of semiotics firm Lawes Consulting, held a presentation on Magical Brands, a positive form of Voodoo. Or, if you prefer, a smart way to package semiotics findings and making them understandable.
The number of exhibitiors has declined from around 140 some years ago, to just over 100 this year. This must be a matter of concern for the organisers, but is probably not for most visitors. We miss a few of our favourites, such as Mest Planning, BrainJuicer and Elephants can't jump, but in general the selection is varied and interesting. Perhaps a bit too many panel providers and online research companies and certainly too many companies claiming they are the world leaders in their category, but there are also respresentatives for neuroscience, mobile phone research, advanced qualitative methods etc. And too be honest, online quantitative research is the mainstream today, so many visitors are probably on the lookout for providers in this area. Categories previously represented which have now more or less disappeared include local focus group venues and the big global research companies. Anyone missing them?
OnePoll, a good example of all companies following the hottest trends, was launching an iPhone research application at the Insight Show. Just one caution from us: in the frantic search for ways to reach the hard-to-reach, isn't there a risk that the people with more hot new machines and applications will be surveyed more frequently than people in general?
Almost same name, almost same business, but an important difference in approach: any mobile phone works with OnePoints research platform.
All in all the changes are good news for the visitors and they continue to come in great numbers. It doesn't take forever to get a grip of what is interesting or not at the fair and it is definitely worth spending two days at Olympia if you need to keep updated on what is happening in the industry. A couple of conference and presentation sessions here and there to rest your legs between the interesting-booth-hunting-missions, make the days varied and your brain alert. Should you need a break from the Insight Show, there are three other fairs in the large Olympia hall, covering adjacent topics. They are mostly not interesting for a methods-nerd like myself (how on earth could anyone ever offer advice and solutions not based on solid research?), but if you have an open mind, it is often invaluable to see things from other peoples perspective.
Quantemo seems to have bridged the gap between eye-scanning and neuroscience, tapping the best from both worlds. The man in the picture showed me surprisingly little excitement over this major breakthrough though. He didn't even give me his card. Could he have spotted right out I was not a potential buyer?
It is fascinating how you can stumble on a company, completely unknown to you, who has been around for 35 years and worked in 30 countries. Ohal is an econometrics media agency, engaged in measuring and improving ROI for media investments.
It is another story of course, that all the information on display at the Show nowadays is widely available - and often in a better way - over the internet. Even the fair organisers themselves offer plenty of online information, meaning you could have stayed at home covering everything with your computer. That leaves us with virtually only one reason to make it to London - the Research Club on the first evening of the fair. To our knowledge, no one has yet found a way to provide free wine and beer through the internet.
The Research Club on Tuesday evening. A great way to meet old and new friends before heading out in the pub and club jungle.
Arranging a wine tasting for everyone helps if you want to get a picture of your stand in SMRN. Thanks, Research Now. Apart from this and a few other exceptions, the offerings of candy, snacks and food in the stands was at an all-time low level this year.
Henrik Hall
SMRN