Re-learning the audience in an age of distrust with Martin Eichholz and Katie Buckley

Listen

Watch on YouTube · Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Summary

Martin Eichholz and Katie Buckley, managing partners of the US consumer practice at Basis Research, on why strategic brain trusts outlast automated platforms, how to earn consumer trust in a skeptical market, the value of getting executives in front of real people, why the purchase journey is now a swirl of touchpoints rather than a linear funnel, and the importance of mentoring for future strategists.

Guests

Martin Eichholz — Managing Partner, US Consumer Practice, Basis Research · Supplier-side
Katie Buckley — Managing Partner, US Consumer Practice, Basis Research · Supplier-side

From this episode — top claims

• The consumer purchase journey is one big swirl of touchpoints, not a linear funnel — people can now discover, evaluate, and purchase simultaneously (buying on TikTok, for instance) — and while the industry has known this for decades, it still operationalizes journey research as if the linear model were true. — Ep. 70, Martin Eichholz
• We are living in an age of distrust: AI-generated content and deepfakes have made it impossible for even experts to distinguish real from fake, eroding consumers' trust in what they see and hear, and brands are losing control of how their narrative shows up across AI-mediated touchpoints. — Ep. 70, Martin Eichholz
• The enduring value of a custom research agency lies in closeness to the client's business, knowledge of stakeholder dynamics and organizational history, and the personal relationships that make a researcher an extended brain trust — none of which is replicated by an AI platform or subscription tool. — Ep. 70, Martin Eichholz
• Real life cannot be automated — people are constantly changing how they learn, evaluate, discover, and make choices, so researchers must stay close to real humans to keep AI outputs accurate and reflective of actual behavior. — Ep. 70, Katie Buckley
• Executives making decisions are dangerously far from the people they make those decisions for — and bigger brands are at greater risk than startups because success breeds complacency — so getting leadership physically in front of real consumers through carefully orchestrated, immersive sessions is essential, not optional. — Ep. 70, Katie Buckley
• Research and insights — now including AI — should inform and inspire decisions, not make them; organizations that rely too heavily on automated or research-driven answers instead of exercising human judgment and intuition will become stagnant. — Ep. 70, Katie Buckley

Full transcript

Auto-generated captions — speaker labels aren't always available and wording may be approximate.

0:00 You can't automate real life. You can't automate how the way people are also changing and learning and evaluating and discovering and making choices. So, you have to stay I just think you have to keep staying close to the humans to help the AI be accurate and be reflective and be helpful in that way. But you can't go away from the fact that you probably need to check in with people all the time on what's actually happening, what actually matters, how they're making decisions.

0:31 Hello, fellow insight seekers. I'm your host, Molly, and welcome to the Curiosity Current. We're so glad to have you here. And I'm your host, Stephanie. We're here to dive into the fast-moving waters of market research, where curiosity isn't just encouraged, it's essential. Each episode will explore what's shaping the world of consumer behavior, from fresh trends and new tech to the stories behind the data. From bold innovations to the human quirks that move markets, we'll explore how curiosity fuels smarter research and sharper insights.

1:05 So, whether you're deep into the data or just here for the fun of discovery, grab your life vest and join us as we ride the Curiosity Current. Today on the Curiosity Current, we are joined by Martin Ikhuoria and Katie Buckley, managing partners of the US consumer practice at Basis Research. Martin and Katie bring two very different but incredibly complementary perspectives to the world of insights. Martin comes from a deeply quantitative and segmentation-driven background, whereas Katie's expertise is rooted in qualitative strategy, cultural understanding, and brand meeting.

1:39 Together, they describe themselves as a bit of a yin and yang partnership. Their work sits at the center of one of the big tensions in research right now. As AI and automation disrupt and disrupt and upend workflows in research, they believe the more important issue may actually be what all of this is changing about consumers themselves. So today we're going to be exploring what still has to stay custom, how brands can rebuild real closeness with consumers, and what happens to the next generation of strategists if AI starts absorbing the work juniors used to learn from.

2:16 Martin, Katie, welcome to the show. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks. Well, we're excited to have you today. Molly started by saying this and I really want to get us kicked off by asking a little more about it. You guys come from opposite ends, complementary sides of the research world, quant and qual. Walk us through how you two ended up as partners and how that sort of combinatory force changed the way that you approach strategic insight.

2:42 Yeah, I feel like a little bit of credit has to be given to our CEO who paired us together. So it's not necessarily something that came from Martin or I specifically, but I think it's turned into something fun and beautiful and mutually respectful and beneficial. But the way Basis is set up is that Rune Mortensen, our CEO, believes in kind of bringing together different people from different backgrounds and kind of pushing that together to see where opportunity and kind of wonderful insights can can come from. So I was running the Basis in the US alone and I have a very strong qualitative background. So imagine building a business and getting a lot of quant work and kind of be like, "Hey, maybe we need a little bit of a different perspective there." Also, Martin's background in building a business and business development was a huge add-on. So I think the one thing that I would say in term and and then I'll hand it over to Martin that we are, as you will find in the next 55 minutes, we are very

3:40 different people, but I think we have a genuine respect for each other and we have a genuine curiosity about how each other thinks, which ultimately pushes the work and I I the people that we work with harder, better in a way that you can't really do on your own. I think that's how we we ultimately kind of come together. I agree. When I joined, I didn't know what to expect. I mean, you have a quick conversation with the person, and then you kind of hope for the best. And just I lucked into something magical somehow.

4:09 And I would say yes, with there's definitely a yin and yang aspect here with the qual and the quant. But there's also things that where we are alike. I think we're both high-energy people, extroverts. We always, you know, bring energy into the room, into a conversation, you know, whether that is a client conversation or partying late at night with the team. We're we're high-energy people. And that is something that brings us together really closely. But it's just been wonderful to have her pushing back on me, me doing the same with her when need be, her Katie opening my eyes towards sometimes being a bit less structured, being a bit more creative. That sounds very stereotypical, I realize. But it really it works out well. And we're leading a small business. Our team is is about 15 people. And we need to take good care of them, especially in in today's world and all this evolution and change in our industry. So, to cover all angles and to have different personalities and can take care of different people in

5:05 different ways has been a huge plus. And I always tell people, I mean, when they ask me, "Oh, who do you work with?" I'm like, "Oh, it's Katie. I love her." There's like there's not this much between us. Like I can't remember an important decision where we didn't agree. That's awesome. And that human connection is not just essential between colleagues, but you guys are also finding, too, that some of your biggest clients are coming back to you more of this sort of traditional style of research in a world where a lot of human interaction, including a lot of research, is sort of being overtaken by these AI tools that are that are being pitched constantly. And clients are being really challenged to figure out where they fit into those workflows. So, what's the their answers around why clients are returning to this sort of traditional research reveal about what businesses still cannot automate even given all these tools?

5:56 I can take a first first stab at that. And yes, we have and again for context, we're a custom research agency. We're really smart people who have done this for a long time. We're not for most part standardized and templatized. And a lot of the world with AI is moving towards that. There's more platforms and standardization, automation. It's a different if you remember many years ago when DIY became big and these platforms came out.

6:23 So, now we got AI which is even more of that, but it is it reminds me of that sometimes. And we don't and we can't turn into a standardized AI platform, right? That's not in our DNA. We don't want that. Of course, we use AI, right? Of course. In in a lot of workflows. And we're trying to be um judicious about it. We're not anti-AI in any way, but where does that leave an agency like ours in terms of positioning yourself?

6:50 And we don't have $5 million to invest in creating a new AI tool. So, as part of that, we did reach out to our best clients and said, "Hey, what do you love about us? Why do you come back to us?" And then also in this world where you are bombarded with AI tools and platforms and you're pushed internally. I know everyone of our clients now has it as part of their personal goals, you need to use AI in your work. What should we do in that world? How can we better serve you? And as we listen to these answers, I mean a lot of them were were very confirming. They were like, "Oh, you know, you're a strategic partner. Don't change. You're a strategic partner. We love the work and the high-level insights you bring. Don't change." Well, we know we have to change. So, that is nice, but also not hard to act on cuz it basically says don't act, but we have to. But But one thing that we learned is what doesn't change and what they still need it it's the closeness to the business. It's

7:47 knowing and the organization cares about what not. It's closeness to the stakeholders. It's closeness to history of an organization and brand that not every AI model might know in every nuance. It is of course about relationships and yes, even politics sometimes. What can you say? What can you not say? These things they all still want from us and when someone says I see you as an like extended arm my team or my external brain trust, I don't really think that changes a ton through a new AI tool. And I say that knowing full well that again, the clients are bombarded and they're like, oh, here's your cloud subscription. Dump everything into it and hope for the best. Like make it work. It's easier said than done. I mean, as much as we feel challenged, I sometimes feel clients are even more scared and challenged in how to navigate all these things.

8:38 I don't think I was just going to say that I love that idea of our external brain trust, I think you said. I just I really like that way of the framing it. And I think to add to that, I think the one thing we'd both say is we're also not afraid of AI and we embrace AI. I honestly think it's going to massively change our industry, but it's going to make it better. And I think you have to have that point of view to learn with it, to grow with it and to understand the power of it in a way that really smart minds like the you know, our team and Martin and I can help that move forward because at the end of the day, right now and our CEO is pretty famous for saying the AI you see right now is the worst you're ever going to see. It's phenomenally going to get better. So, you know, there's no going back. But at the end of the day, it starts to narrow down and focus what we can do better. And so, use it for the efficiency. Use it for the small questions that you don't need my brain for that's been doing this for 25 years to answer to question.

9:36 You can have those things. But what you can't automate real life. You can't automate how the way people are also changing and learning and evaluating and discovering and making choices. So you have to stay I just think you have to keep staying close to the humans to help the AI be accurate and be reflective and be helpful in that way. But you can't go away from the fact that you probably need to check in with people all the time on what's actually happening, what actually matters, how they're making decisions, and staying connected to them. I mean, God, I hope it doesn't go away. But I don't ever think it should and I don't really think it will.

10:14 Well, and Katie, to dig into that a little bit more, I mean, there is kind of I won't say a temptation to, but there is a contingent in our field, I would say, reframing custom as kind of the old model and automation as the future. Why would you tell us not to think that way? And some of you've already gotten into this some, but I'm curious like what else does that framing miss besides maybe a deep understanding of consumers? Does it fundamentally misunderstand anything about the role of strategic research and insights?

10:45 I think it's a phenomenal question because at the end of the day, I think it is going to shrink our industry for a bit. I say that and I think that the next two years people are going to rely on AI in a way that they are excited about and they want to use I feel like custom research should be the fuel or the engine behind whatever that automation might be. You absolutely have to have the real life experiences and stories and narratives and generally just behaviors that people are doing to make sure that all those things that the wonderful robots are doing are right and reflective of who we are as people and what we want and where brands can meet those people in relevant and meaningful ways. So it's got to be the blend of like the power of those two things working together. If you go too far into one of those sides, I think you're going to miss a trick. And that's what I believe the beauty what this will all look like in the next two to three to four years of finding a balance. When

11:44 can clients and brands make pretty easy decisions based on AI? Do it. Go for it. Wonderful. Like be more efficient. When do we need to go deeper and richer to really understand what's behind that and fuel that engine in a way that they you can still make, you know, better decisions the next couple months or years after that, too. It's symbiotic. It's cyclical. It has to We have to find a way for it to work together and convince everyone that actually it working together is the way forward.

12:12 I'd like to build a little bit on that. I think especially if you read the stuff from Lenny and the good folks at Green GreenBook and the investment something, I forget the name, but the new weekly Substack. Um it's good stuff. It's It's almost too much. But when you read about the stuff that comes up there and they talk a lot about human oversight, the control layer, governance issues, and all this stuff, I'd say a lot of this to me sounds kind of like the strength of traditional custom researchers and and strategists. This kind of layer above.

12:49 Yes, we want to get efficient. Of course, we're using an AI platform to field surveys faster. Yes, we're fully embracing that. We'll talk later about the implications for structure and team and junior folks. But in general, that oversight layer on top and how it's all come comes together, um at least say on a kind of insights stream level feels very relevant for custom research. Now, we are not not platform builders and that kind of stuff, but on a insights generation level, I think it speaks to a lot of our traditional strengths, actually.

13:21 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And I think some I think you both were kind of pointing at something that I think about a lot too, which is that there is a bit of like flattening and sameness that occurs when we rely on AI in particular. And I think that can be a benefit in templated research, right? It's it's only good, right? That's an area where you want things to be the same because you need you know, comparable data for decision-making in concept test, let's say. But I sometimes think of custom research is in that context, it becomes your intellectual property.

13:55 Like the way you choose to ask questions and then the interpretive layer you put over top, that's the secret sauce, right? Like that's where all the differentiation lives. I feel like that's our secret sauce. Cuz I do think there's a fair amount of people that will say, "I'll ask this question. I I know your objective. We're going to ask it this way and we're going to probably, you know, do it in this uh way." I think what we do at Basis is what we like to call integrated intelligence, but it is that absolute way of how do you integrate methods, disciplines, thoughts, analytical lenses to say, "These are the unexpected insights that are going to come from doing it a little bit differently." And I I and I think that has to come from the analysis versus just the questions you ask. And that's hard. Yeah, I mean, AI can do that and you can absolutely train it to do it, but I think even on that end you have to have somebody you have to have the human to look at it to say, "That actually makes sense or it doesn't."

14:48 And what I hear you saying fully agree with, I think I see ourselves as the ingredient makers. Like the the still something at the core There's so much talk about synthetic data. If you read the new Grit Report that came out a couple of days ago, the I think one of the fastest-growing things is synthetic data. Of course, everybody talks about it. But if you read the people that I read that I have highly respect, are very discerning but what is it good for and what is it not good for. And there's some really cool stuff, like for tracking survey, if you would create synthetic data for every wave you field, not in just for every wave say every month, and you say, "Oh, here's this question we want to add. I wonder what people would have answered 5 months ago." You could actually use the synthetic twins from 5 months ago and get at least an initial sense of So, you can look into the past into a hypothetical past. That's cool stuff. I mean, yes, but it's still based on data from that month. And so,

15:45 I hope we're going to find an equilibrium between you have the the true, I mean, organic custom research and and data that is created, and then all the synthetic stuff, all the stuff that is being built on top of that. Um and I think again, if you read all the all the you're bombarded with all these articles, a lot of people talk about if you want to succeed, you need to create a data moat of sorts. Like have your own data that nobody else in a way, whether that's behavioral or custom or literally, as we will might talk about later, like get clients in front of customers in person. That is data, too.

16:22 And how you use that, but have this original data layer before it all goes into the AI swirl. Absolutely. Well, let's get into the consumer side a little bit that we hinted at at the top. Martin, you have used the phrase age of distrust when talking about today's consumers. I'm curious, what feels fundamentally different about audiences now compared to even say 3 years ago? Are there particular drivers of this effect that you can unpack for us? And is there any broadly applicable advice you would give to a brand right now that's kind of wrestling with this, the implications of the age of distrust?

17:00 I think we really believe in that, the age of distrust, and it's a real challenge for brands, for us, too. I mean, we're a brand, we're an organization, maybe even for individuals. So, we believe that really is true. We believe that is maybe not totally new, but the intensity and the what how wide this is spread has changed just recently. Of course, a lot of it is driven by AI, but not only. And taking step back, if you think about people know that anyone can create any content with the click of a button. Like you could go to an AI tool and say, "Oh, write me an article, a nice thought leadership piece, 10 paragraphs on this topic, make it sound like that in my tone of voice." It's but right, I could go on and on. It's very easy.

17:44 So, knowing that, plus there was an article in the New York Times, I think yesterday, that the world's leading deepfake expert has now officially said, "I can't tell anymore." He's not even real. That's what I read. Right, even the most who he'll watch a video 100 times and say, "I don't know if that drone is real or if that was like fake into the video." In that world, when leading experts don't know what we can trust anymore, how can we expect consumers to trust? And they know that. So, they feel that. How do they look at something they see? And then of course, you have on the flip side, it's so easy now. You don't need to go the old Google model, go and search, and then go to 10 websites, and you know, now you look at Gemini gives you the summary. Why would you click through to 10 individual websites?

18:29 But how do you trust that if you know that all this background? So, there is a growing, I think, deep sense of distrust. And what does that mean? And also, easier and faster is not better and deeper, and obviously. But so, what does that mean for a brand? A, I think there is a feeling, and if they don't realize that, they better do it quickly, that you're losing control of the narrative. Like how you show up elsewhere is determined by many things out of your control. And who knows, like how where you used to show up as a link in a Google search, and people get reliable information. Now, it might be an AI summary that is mainly based on Reddit posts. So, I think they're losing the race for owning the narrative. And how do you do that? So, I think we would recommend do to our clients do a severe rigorous reassessment of every customer touch point. How do you show up? Where do you show up? How do people react to that? And I'd argue that goes be that goes

19:26 all the way of course in AI and there's tools for doing that already. Don't just see how am I the first brand mentioned? Well, sure of course, but like how are you mentioned? Qualitative aspects of that. Are you recommended? Is there attached a sentiment score? These tools are starting to come out and available. We want to go eat deeper on that and then we don't stop there. Like what does it mean for in store? We do we did a big project for a big beauty retailer where a lot of it was about how you use the app in store while showing up. Well, now people might be in store and looking at Gemini summary. So what does that mean?

20:00 A rigorous reassessment of every touchpoint and many of those you might not even be aware of for the the evolution is real fast and see how you have influence, what you can do and how you show up where. Great advice. Oh, I was also going to say I think it's really interesting to look at trust by category cuz it means different things. And I mean honestly, what I've been doing this for 25 years and trust never stops being the question that most people are in interested in, but I do think our perspective on the age of distrust is different than the way in which people think about it. How do we keep trust? How do we sustain our trust? And I want to be like, wait a minute. No, you don't even have services, it's very much like, well, I don't trust an institution, right? I mean it's not even your brand. You've got a category problem. In tech, you've got, well, is it safe? Is it secure? I mean you've got nuance and layers of kind of trust. Retail, I mean, you know, where am I am I finding dupes? Am I

20:57 finding is this what is real? What's not real? So trust means different things to different categories and the more you can define that, explore it, find the nuances of that, and realize how you have to earn it and keep it versus having it gifted to you how it used to be is a way in which I think people brands do need to switch their thinking. Like, you know, you you sit in a little bit of an ivory tower all the time at the brand side, I think, and you're like, "But we do well. We do this right." But that's not how people are feeling it anymore.

21:32 And I it's different by category. I think this is a great caveat into our next question, which was about this idea of consumer closeness, which is obviously not sitting in an ivory tower and being intentional about how you connect. Actually putting leadership at these organizations face-to-face with the people that they serve. So, I'm curious to hear from you both what happens in those environments when you you have an interaction like this that simply can't happen looking at an Excel sheet or a presentation deck.

22:03 Yeah, I mean, I think this is very close to my heart. So, I I will probably uh start us off on this, but we have a an approach called the front row, and its entire purpose is to get specifically executives back in front of regular people. Because to me, sometimes when I say that loud, I sound I feel like I sound like a bit of an but I'm just like, people who are making the decisions are very far from the people they're making the decisions for. And it's not even their fault. It's just the way the world works, right? It's just like this is how it's happened. And I get it. And I actually worry more about the bigger brands than the smaller brands. Because I think there's something there's some tenacity and some interest and some like even in a startup, they're like, "Well, I did this for a reason. I know the pain point, or I'm intensely close to it." I feel the bigger brands, it's more dangerous for them to start to rely on old reports or whatever AI is going to put out or whatever that is because you rest on

23:01 your laurels. You're like, "Hey, we're successful. We're winning. We've got this." And then you just kind of go, "Okay, that's the same as the same." Well, it's not the same. It definitely isn't the same. And as much as research is changing, people are changing way faster. Categories are changing, brands are changing, and the way in which they're finding things out, I mean, I just keep coming back to discovery, evaluation, and choice. They are fundamentally three different behaviors that were 2 years ago. How you discover something's different. How you evaluate something's different, and how you choose is different. And we're still using frameworks or questions that ask pretty old outdated things on that. So, to me it's it's not only the way in which we ask questions or what we do for for clients, but actually getting them in front of people, walking in their shoes, sitting in a car with them, going on a date with them, going to a bar with them, going shopping with them. Whatever it is is just getting you immersed in their life, which you are actually quite

23:58 far from, typically. In my experience of the the person making the decision from the person they're making the decision for. Yeah, and and that that's a really interesting way of thinking about it because that's maybe something that people don't recognize on the day-to-day. Like actually how close you should be to your consumers and what makes them tick. If that's not that's a new language to learn. It's potentially not something they're versed in doing. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, it's what Insights is built to do, right? Like everyone knows like you might be, you know, 50-year-old guy making decisions about tampons. That that's fine. And and you know, for a while, I mean, I think we got some more women involved here because it's gotten much more innovative and better. But at the end of the day, it was fine. There was Insights that started doing that for you. But like, are you going to sit in a bathroom with a woman going through this? Like how do you get people closer to that? I mean, there's a lot of new menopause or perimenopause kind of things out there right now. They're so interesting. No one's really touching, right? It's like, why aren't we talking

24:56 more about this? Why aren't we to understand what the woman's going through and how close we can get to that and how you can fuel innovation behind that or even just connect with people through that. And I just think there's a lot of things that are going to be talked about more that should be talked about more that you can use insight and research to uncover a whole load of things that are going to make you connect better, easier, faster, and more meaningfully in the future. Absolutely. I want to build on that. I think that's why Katie and team are so brilliant about that. This is a real art. Cuz it's not just, "Hey, put some customers in front of C-level people."

25:33 And you know, that there's so many pitfalls. It could just turn into a simple bitching session. Sometimes that is what you want. Like, "Hey, give it to us straight. What do you hate about our brand?" There's a place for that. But this is a carefully calibrated and planned exercise. In fact, often it the best there's no way around in person. It's a really important part of it and it's very different from the McDonald's CEO, you know, eating a burger or working in the restaurant for an hour. I think that's almost more for themselves or for the employees or for PR.

26:04 Or you could go viral in like all the wrong ways. So and and then everybody else jumps on it and does it better or differently. Anyway, so it's very different from that. It's a carefully planned, orchestrated, recruited, prepared kind of exercise where we really try to think about what is what are the client the gaps in the client's knowledge, how we truly get them close to what matters. And I think from the feedback we get, clients really do care about that. Now, it's not new and you always every brand always should be close to their clients.

26:37 We've uh customers. It might be more important than ever now. I think the way in which we go about that, it's not just sitting in a car with someone or sitting in the back room and reconnecting with your consumers. I think some of the tactics we do are a bit provocative, they're a bit uncomfortable, and they're meant to do that. They're meant to put an executive and a consumer next to each other where the consumer says or that you know, their customer says, "You know what? I don't like I don't like this. I don't like this experience. I don't like the way in which your brand is saying this, so what do you have to say to that?" Or hey, Jane, like live in my shoes for 2 days because it doesn't feel like you are, so I'd like you to do that. So we try and push the envelope. We try and it's not just a nicey-nicey conversation about don't we love this brand and isn't everything great. It's really coming from a place of you know what? Not everything's great. We don't understand everything and how do we do some pretty um intense and immersive sessions

27:35 to get a bit uncomfortable and force those those kind of moments of realization cuz one thing with the front row, it's actually not you know, you think about research, you think about a deck at the end of the day, a report that lives somewhere or just it's really not that. Like there is no output other than that day. I'm going to go away and do that. Like I don't need a deck to tell me that I just that I just have been making kind of crummy decisions for them for a while and I'm going to make a change tomorrow.

28:02 So I think that's also the flip of like don't emphasize this 2-week period where you get this analysis and this deck. It's like what can you do now to change like what what can you experience to change decisions you make tomorrow for people. Everything's moving so fast, so does insights and so do the decisions that these people make. Um and that's what we're trying to do. And for your for the executives you put them with to be also receptive of the criticism, too. I'm sure it's part of the art form.

28:28 Well, and the thing is we do I mean I've got to be honest, there's a little bit of a white glove treatment. You got to get execs out of the office. You got to be like, "You're going to enjoy this. This is going to be an experience." And we don't make it fake, right? People are real. We don't we don't tell them to say anything. But we try and get the most articulate greatest version of whatever that maybe audience is or segment. But at the end of the day you still have to make it worthy of an executive to spend a day outside of their office. And what we do there is not only make these very immersive experiential kind of um moments, but we have a dinner that is fully facilitated by someone like me or Martin that is like, what do we learn?

29:05 What are we doing? What are we taking away to do tomorrow? And that's it. I mean, then you go and you fly. Because there's really not a deck that's going to tell you what to do. It has to be that experience that did it. Hey, I guess switching topics a little bit, but still in the veins of maybe the disconnect between our executives and our uh consumers, Kitty, your value or your badge value 2.0 thinking uh seems like it gets at this idea that consumers now expect brands to continuously earn their place in people's lives. I'm curious how that has kind of changed the kinds of questions maybe that brands are bringing to researchers.

29:42 And again, have that question of is there any broadly applicable advice that you would give brands that are dealing with this issue? I do think the questions we ask have to change because I mean, you know, for so long it was like, are we a brand that's relevant to you? Like, I don't even know what that means. Oh, so what does relevance mean and what are what does that mean to different audiences? Like, relevant to a younger audience is very different to to an older audience, which is very different from a different category to a different category. But what I do think is when we talk about earning relevance is I mean, I I think it's been one of those things, it's at least 10 years ago, but I remember doing a study about experiences and the way people wanted to experience things. And they were asking for things that still aren't possible today. Like, the expectations of consumers are wild.

30:31 Like, they get one taste of something that is tailored to them or customized to them or something they love and they're like, every category should do this. Everything that comes into my orbit should be able to do this. And literally, 90% of the time, the first time I had this conversation was at least 12 years ago, they still can't do it. But consumers will not stop expecting that it is desired. So we can't, brands can't, and I always say we because even though I'm a researcher, I always think I work for that brand that I'm on at any time. So I'm always like, we, we, we. We can't stop saying what can we do? Like the question is what can we do? Like what how can we get better? How can we do better for them?

31:09 And that is a very different period that is a very different mindset and ability than was always in kind of consumer goods and services, right? So it's like their expectations are going to be here, we're always going to probably be here. So there's a big gap. I think insights does a really good job of trying to close in terms of whether it's communications, whether it's the product, whether they experience, but how do we start to close that expectation gap? But that expectation gap is earning people's relevance and trust over time, consistently, constantly. You can't rest on your laurels at all.

31:43 Well, talking a little bit about weird consumer behavior and the things that they do, there's an interesting trend that's going on. So, Martin, I wanted to talk a little bit about your guys's most recent Tinder study, which was really fascinating because some of the findings out of that was that people are moving away from digital dating experiences and instead moving back towards real-world connection. So I'm curious, what did that project specifically reveal about where consumers are pulling back from technology in some ways?

32:16 Happy to talk about with this without revealing anything proprietary. I would say online dating, or even dating if you want, is such a fascinating historic case study of cultural shifts, if you want, because if I think all of us will remember when online dating started coming around. I mean, I remember having the first friend who married someone they met online and was like holy moly that is crazy. That was a long time ago, right? And then it exploded and from starting from match to was it eHarmony which I don't even know if it still exists then Tinder and swiping came along and then so the the curve goes up and up and up and then it's ubiquitous. Everyone like it's almost like now it's the it was the opposite. You met in real life.

33:00 Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the rarer alternative. Yeah. And now as culture goes and trends now we're we're going back and we would not revealing anything revolutionary here that with Gen Z or Gen Alpha there is a trend back to IRL and things are going there's a weariness of tech and maybe it was just too much or growing up from earliest age was too much and did weird things to your brain etc.

33:27 So there is I don't want to call it a backlash but there's the curve goes the other way now and so what was interesting about the study it was less about you know you know that we know that they're going back. I mean the usage goes down there's behavioral data we know that is happening. So what was interesting especially to us as researchers is how people are dealing with that and it really tied back to one thing Katie and I do we really push hard with our clients is you need this age you need to relearn your audience.

34:00 And you need to understand what they're facing and how they're dealing with this and in this case they need to almost relearn basic human interactions. I mean it's to me I'm 55 so I grew up without online dating and I chuckle and I'm like well welcome to my world. I feel like we're we're getting insight into into Martin here. Catch him by the pool. Catch him by the pool. So where do you find people? How do you connect? And so you tell these people are you know pardon of French scared shitless of talk of of of opening up in real life, of being vulnerable, and how to do all that stuff. So, so this is what the research was diving into. We all know the fact, but how do what does it mean in real life? What are people scared of? How can and then, of course, you put yourself into the the tech brand's shoes. How can we help with that if if things are moving against our category and what we're kind of all

34:57 about at the core? How can we provide features um that help with that? Or is it a hybrid thing? Like you use the online app to facilitate in real life meetings and etc. etc. So fascinating stuff, but it is I really would put this under this this big umbrella um of relearning your audience in in this new evolving world, which is different in every category, and how you can get closer to them.

35:27 I always love saying that back in the day, I mean, not that back in the day, but like back in the day, your parents would always say, "Don't trust people you meet on the internet and don't get into a stranger's car." And then now we summon strangers from the internet to get in their cars. I am curious, going back a little bit to, you know, a lot of the work that you guys were describing that you do with these senior leaders and you talked about getting them out of their office and getting them involved and and showing them the value of being here and spending their time doing this. What do you think is as you're seeing them in these environments where you know, their their assumptions are being challenged in somewhat of an uncomfortable way by design. What is the most outdated assumption that you still hear executives say or make about their their customers today?

36:11 I'll throw out one that is kind of on on my mind lately, especially since we're we're doing a lot of brand trackers and those everybody loves to hate a brand tracker, and but still everybody does them. But one thing is I still see a lot of kind of inside out instead of outside in thinking in terms of brand imagery and brand equity. Um so what do I mean by that? Typically when for many clients when they study brand equity is like, "Well, here's our 20 brand attributes. Now go and explore and measure and how do we do on those?"

36:47 Where I think the question should be that these brand attributes exist in your C C CMO's mind and they mean your vision. And that's fine and we can work towards that, but no one talks about you like that. Like why don't we start by like at least if not start with the consumer, at least make it bipolar like thing that comes together from both ends, right? Where we Here's how people actually talk about you and what they like and there might be things they like about you that that you don't know about or maybe you don't care about, but maybe you should. So it's still this this kind of start with what's in our mind, our vision and then push that down onto the consumer and hopefully we can do our gap analysis and hopefully we can get to where we want to be and be most known for innovation or whatever it is. We believe let's balance that out a little bit and let's give that have their an organic voice in this, how people actually talk about you even if it's maybe not in the way you'd want them to.

37:45 Completely agree with that. I would add one other thing in that I actually think AI is going to make it more easy for people to rest on research asking questions that brands and companies should answer. So I still completely abide by the way of which Apple was built in terms of you've got smart people working in that business that should design things, that should think about the next generation of what that will be, and that you hire really smart people with great ideas that are going to push products, communications, engagements, experiences forward and you should rely on research and insights.

38:25 And I would put AI in there now because it was just a way in which research and insights are going to be funneled to you in a way to inform and inspire and not decide. And I think it it's not necessarily just today. It's it's way too much in the past even 10 years of like, let's let research tell us the answer. It's not the answer. It should be one input of many, many things, and too many people are relying on that, whether their bonuses tied to that or whether they're too afraid to make that decision. I think we're going to become stagnant as a culture, as country, I guess, but even globally, if we rely on too many automated kind of this is the answer, this is what you do.

39:05 And people have to make decisions, and people have to rely on their own smartness, and I I don't think that doesn't sound smart. Their own smarts, um, and their own intuition and belief in what a brand can do, what their company can do, and what they can do. And research and insights, um, leveraging AI should inform and inspire that versus make those decisions. I have one more thing that I want to throw out cuz it annoys the hell out of me. And that is less an outdated assumption, it is more knowing something but not acting on it.

39:35 And that is related to to journey research. Purchase journeys, customer journeys, you you name it, whatever you want to call it. But we have literally, I mean, I know personally for decades, plural, talked about the journeys being nonlinear. That really is old news that journeys are nonlinear. But whatever I hear and when we talk and when it's operationalized and acted on, it's still being treated as linear.

40:03 And I'm thinking, just forget about the freaking four phases or five that we all know about. It is not Everyone says and you don't act like it. So, like, people buy on TikTok now. Boom, done. There is no journey. Awareness happens at the same time that purchase happens. Yeah. It's one big swirl and again, we all know that. I've written proposals with a big circle with everything in a million lines going in between like 15 years ago. I've written proposals like that. And people still seem to ignore. People still have the long journey infographic that you get after every project. And let's Can we just please like do away with that?

40:42 And so we push hard. We have an approach called touchpoint 360 where it's a big part of it is let's go away from the phases. Yes, I'm sure there could be a bit more discovery and then you you consider and then you make the final decision. Yes, yes, yes, but at the end of the day what we care about is the touchpoints. It makes me think Martin, we should just erase journey from all of our touchpoint 360. Like the word. Maybe that's what it is. It implies the linear nature. I also hate the word journey. But what journey are they on?

41:14 They're not on a journey. Exactly. We're trying to I mean it's it's the it might be a fight against windmills. We we don't know, but to change the nomenclature, but at least the focus we think should be much more on the actual touchpoints. What is efficient in quant talk? What is correlated or what you know, in a regression analysis would predict brand affinity or likely to buy or whatever KPI you want to want to pick. That we whether it's in phase one, two, or three, do you really care? I don't know.

41:43 So, that's something that I'd love to change where I'd love to see people stop talking about it. And I think on that from a qual point of view, the one thing I would add very quickly is like we can try and uncover the hidden touchpoints. I think a little bit better than quant or or can illuminate that for quant, but how can we even I don't know anthropologically like you know, behaviorally see what people do versus what they say? Um where are they getting information that they're not saying, but we need to find out where that is um is huge because clearly AI is is doing a lot of things that people don't even know that it's doing it. So, it's like if if people don't know where it's coming from, it's very hard for them to answer a survey on on where that is coming from. So, I think that's a great um way in which qualitative or anthropological ways of looking at things can start to I don't know fill in some of the gaps there.

42:34 We're we're going to promote this as a hot takes. We're just changing our mind as we speak. Well, you we we hinted at this at the top at the top of our call today, but you know, one of the tensions that we come across in the industry and this is back to you know, the the researcher side of the world is this idea that AI is going to start and and already is in a lot of pieces removing the kind of work that junior researchers have historically learned from. How they sort of build their skill set and their like ability to become discerning strategic researchers later in their research lives. If that apprenticeship layer disappears, where do the future strategists actually come from and and how do they develop the necessary skills to do that higher order work? Like how do you all think about that?

43:21 I think it's it's such a cool like I'm thinking about it a lot. I have I'm very close to my family. I have a lot of nieces and nephews who are just entering the workforce. I have three younger boys who I read an article that told me that when they graduate college, 80% of the jobs that they have could be things we've never heard of. Like that's fascinating. It's amazing. The name of the job they might be going after I would be like I have no idea what that is. So, I think about this a lot and more so for my nieces and nephews who are graduating now. And in in our industry what I have said and I think it it transcends industries. I think it's going to be a rough two to three years of we don't know what we're doing or what we don't know and we're going to cut junior jobs because AI is going to replace it. But the articles I've read and I my true belief and how every revolution in a way or or evolution has happened is that those things produce new jobs and new skills and new ways of

44:20 moving forward. And now maybe I'm being very optimistic in two to three years, but I mean, if everything moves this fast, I don't know why it's not two to three years that we start to ground ourselves and say, "All right, we're able to do this. We're able to do this. That means we need this and this." I think those job descriptions are going to look different, but I don't think that means we erase a junior level or an apprenticeship. I think their jobs, their skill sets, and their future is going to look different than it looks right now.

44:47 So, but I do think the next couple years is going to be really messy. And I think the past couple of years has been messy. So, you know, I don't have an exact answer for that, but I also am optimistic and hopeful that when we start to iron out what AI does versus what the humans do versus what we do together, there's going to be some clear indications of how that plays out for junior level roles. We definitely don't have the perfect solution here. Anything we we're trying to make our way through this mess just like everybody else. But, I think I put a bit also of a historical perspective on it cuz it reminds me of So, I'm a quant guy, right? So, I've used it I've worked for countless hours in SPSS, a statistical software program for for advanced analysis. And I remember I mean, as early I mean, 20 years ago I would tell my junior folks, "Hey guys, SPSS is really dangerous cuz you could run a segmentation analysis by clicking three buttons. I could teach a monkey how to do that in a minute.

45:46 That's not the challenge. The challenge is what is relevant? All the data assumptions, does it match with the client's business needs? Blah blah. That's the real work. Running it is simple. And then the same thing I remember when you remember when data science got big. And I remember always telling people, I mean, I go to LinkedIn and like 2/3 of my connections seem to be data scientists. Now, every one of their uncle is a data scientist. And I know they have some platform and they use Apache or whatever and they click or click a few buttons and they can have an ROI analysis.

46:18 They have no idea of the underlying statistics or how this all works, but you click So, this is not new, right? There was always this Oh, this makes it so easy. No, you need to know the underlying things and processes. Now, I'm not a stat- I can run stats. I'm not a hardcore statistician. So, there's the levels, of course, and layers. But, um so I would tell junior people, you don't do The first thing to do is don't just take it for what it is. Like, understand how the processes underneath work, what the core components are, how they put together, how to make sense of it, etc.

46:53 Um and then I think for us now, literally for us and our team, of course, we have abused AI. We In an ideal world, we can do away with the boring little stuff. Like, your your life could become more interesting as a junior person. Now, in a But, in an ideal world, it means less boring stuff and we replace it with more strategic stuff and hopefully you can do more stuff. But, for that, we do need more work. So, in a In essence, you either do the same work with fewer people or we need to bring in a lot more work to work with people. So, that is a conundrum we just especially as a more custom strategic agency, we need to deal with. That is a challenge for everyone.

47:36 Um and the last thought is I really believe, even more important than ever in is mentoring. I don't mean managing, I mean mentoring. Like, what to what skills are worth developing? Where do you see your career going? I think for young people, they need If you're smart, you'll latch yourself onto a senior person whose job might be a little safer because they have the business acumen or relationships and client knowledge, etc.

48:04 To do this, learn from them, learn how to if even more important now to build relationships. And by the way, on the client side, too. I have conversations all the time with I had one with a big video gaming senior researcher uh last week who said, "I don't know if I'm going to have a job in a year." There's so much in all this AI stuff. His tactic was "I'm going to try to get as close to my stakeholders as possible, develop personal relationships, show them I'm smart about the business so that they don't come to me to say, 'Run a new study.' They come to me to say, 'Hey, what should I do about X given how how consumers are today.'" They're all trying to figure out That's a senior person.

48:43 They're all trying to figure it out. But again, he's trying to latch onto senior people. I think that's the good strategy, especially in our world. Well, Martin and Katie, thank you again so much for joining us today. I think what's really going to stay with me from this conversation is the idea that in a world that's increasingly optimized for scale and automation, the things that really matter most strategically are going to become even more custom, more personal, perhaps more traditional, and and not less.

49:14 I totally agree with that, and this is something I think about a lot. My philosophy is quite similar to yours, so it was refreshing to hear you talk about the value of custom research. Moving on because people are complicated, context changes constantly, and some questions simply can't be answered through templates alone. And also this tension we talked about at the end around talent development and what that is going to look like in the future. This industry is moving incredibly fast. It always has with every technological development, but there's still something that's very deeply human about how strategists learn to interpret, connect, guide decisions.

49:52 I think it was a great point that Martin made to about finding a mentor and learning what skills are really important. And and that is all going to be really important. Feels really important for us to protect. Yeah. Martin, Katie, thank you again for sharing your perspectives and for giving us such an honest look at where research, strategy, consumer understanding may be heading next. It's so it was nice to that have the invite and general just to talk about stuff that matters still and is you know, like it's a very small, I don't know, industry and window that we get to talk about this stuff but re-energizes you and and reminds you what you're you're passionate about. So, thanks for having us.

50:28 Thank you so much and yes, I I salute you guys for doing what you're doing cuz you're busy professionals on your own and you do this kind of out of the goodness of your hearts and interest, I hope and you feel that it's worth it on some level for you guys but I think what you're doing is laudable and good for the industry and and I don't care if it's watched by a million people or a hundred people. It's great to talk to other like you and exchange our experiences.

50:55 Well, it's it's lots of fun. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to cross paths. So, I definitely don't take it for granted for one moment. Thank you guys. It's nice to meet you, too. Great, you guys. And to everyone listening, thank you so much for being part of the Curiosity Current. We'll see you next time. The Curiosity Current is brought to you by AYTM. To find out how AYTM helps brands connect with consumers and bring insights to life, visit aytm.com. And to make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe to the Curiosity Current on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

51:31 Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

Produced by aytm

Curiosity Current is made by aytm, the consumer-insights company. Guests speak for themselves; the synthesis is ours. About aytm