MARKETING PEOPLE
LUKE REAPER
Managing director, Behaviour and Attitudes In business for over 30 years, the Dublinbased company Behaviour & Attitudes (B&A), is one of the leading market research firms in the country. But, as Luke Reaper explains to John McGee, the research industry has witnessed seismic changes in recent years.
Describe your role with B&A
As MD, I’m involved in the day-to-day management of the operation. However, like my fellow directors, I’m also actively involved in client projects and you are as likely to see me conducting a focus group in Mullingar as presenting at a conference. I am also involved in developing strategic partnerships to deliver innovative solutions – spanning both technology and human capital – to our clients.
What challenges do you face?
Thus far, market research in Ireland has managed the challenge of technology innovation extremely well. Things like advanced modelling, real-time reporting and visual data presentation are now the norm. Being independent makes B&A fleet of foot and a few years ago we set up the B&A Incubator, representing our commitment to trying new methods and putting investment behind our hunches. We integrate ideas and technologies that have emerged internationally, enabling us to roll-out new approaches like shopper pathways in-store, facial profiling for ad testing, AI machine-learning, verbatim analysis tools and online qual-ethnography.
The second challenge is one of credibility. The industry needs to cement its credibility and trustworthiness. Its intrinsic value to clients must be based on a platform of full integrity.
What are the underlying trends in the marketplace?
There are newish trends in the market, and these are now shaping the industry and its future trajectory.
The task of researchers has become more sharply honed on two dimensions: forensic analysis of issues, which is then used as illumination. Clients are asking for more, but also asking for something different, and, at its zenith, this is distilled into a request for wisdom.
Which leads to the question about the balance between tactical and strategic research in Ireland. Our view on this is unambiguous: if the strategic map and landscape is not thought out clearly by all, then the tactical stuff is dust in a storm.
This is not to knock research on tactical matters. Setting aside strategic research on the basis that it is too big, expensive or conceptual can be a costly error.
More advanced thinking on analysis is also a clear trend. For us, increasingly the effective measurement of initiative impact and prediction of behaviour depends on understanding the interconnectedness between the business-home-cultural and social components of consumers lives.
In conjunction with this, we need to focus more on the importance of understanding behavioural ‘lock-in’ where the success of initiatives are impacted when consumers are not conscious of their habit-based activities, thereby creating a value-action gap, where their aspiration and value associated with energy use and associated behaviour change is compromised because they are unaware that they have acted in a different way than intended.