What’s Trending on #MRX? Jeffery Henning’s #MRX Top 10 – June 7, 2016

Of the 10,441 unique links shared on #MRX in the past two weeks, here are 10 of the most retweeted…

1. Time for a Research Renaissance? – Paul Laughlin argues that corporate market researchers, often facing pressure from internal Big Data and analytics teams, need to bring an understanding of customer emotion to their work to differentiate themselves from their number-driven colleagues. And to get their results across they need to develop multiple styles of influencing their coworkers.
2. Market Research Needs Less Insight (Fast) – Christopher Martin of FlexMR argues that if every research agency claims its unique selling point is providing insight, than it’s not a unique selling point at all. Agencies must do a better job differentiating themselves beyond simply providing insights.
3. GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Report – The latest wave of this twice-annual industry benchmark looks at the attitudes of researchers around adopting automation, the future of sample, and seeking training.
4. Young ESOMAR Society Pitch Competition – Researchers under 30 are invited to participate in a competition at the 2016 ESOMAR Congress, which will be in New Orleans in September. Winners of the round of 60-second presentations will earn a spot for a Pecha Kucha presentation (20 slides shown for 20 seconds each).
5. IIeX North America – This year’s Insight Innovation Exchange will once again be held in Atlanta: June 13-15.
6. Does Machine Learning Signal the End for MR Pros? – Sinead Hasson goes full Star Trek: “Not all insights can be gained from logic. The ‘right’ decision isn’t always made from an operational analysis, or as a result of a statistical forecast. It’s why Mr. Spock needed Captain Kirk… machine learning is Kirk delegating to Spock so he can get the broadest possible picture, upon which he can then impose his ego-centric, ever-so-human judgement.”
7. How to Understand the Next Generations and their Trends for Guaranteed Reach – Peggy Bieniek interviews Jane Buckingham of Trendera about when to take a generational approach to marketing and when to look at “mindset over the market.”
8. The OmniChannel Movement Forces Retailers to Move Faster to Keep Up with Shoppers – In another interview for The Market Research Blog, Alana Joy Feldman of Bayer HealthCare looks at the importance of linking digital and physical shopper marketing: “Access to information via technology is now the norm, which has created an omniscient shopper who has taken control of the retail experience.”
9. Affectiva Raises $14 million to Bring Apps, Robots Emotional Intelligence – Writing in TechCrunch, Lora Kolodny discusses how Affectiva is diversifying from market research to adding emotional intelligence (recognition of faces and non-verbal cues) to technology products and services.
10. segmentation-targeting-and-positioning">Should We Ditch Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning? – Nigel Hollis of Millward Brown argues against taking a one-size-fits-all approach to segmentation. For instance, a needs-based segmentation might be perfect for developing a new product portfolio – but completely useless for a mass-media marketing campaign.

Note: This list is ordered by the relative measure of each link’s influence in the first week it debuted in the weekly Top 5. A link’s influence is a tally of the influence of each Twitter user who shared the link and tagged it #MRX, ignoring retweets from closely related accounts. Only links with a research angle are considered.