The following Press Communiqué announced the creation of the association Recréation which was recently set up to represent a significant number of players in the marketing research and opinion poll sector.

Press Communiqué dated 25 January 2011

The leading players in the marketing research and opinion poll sector believe that their industry no longer has an annual event representing the diversity and vitality of the sector and which is not sufficiently appealing for the buyers and users of studies.

This has led to the creation of the association “Recréation” the vocation of which is to define what should be the new key event for professionals in the sector: objectives, content, form, organisation, topics, audiences... The success of this spontaneous initiative points to the urgency of taking action: in just 4 weeks, more than 55 research institutes – including 12 among the Top 20 – and service providers joined the Association, which now includes close to 100 members.

The aim of the association is to define specifications based on the analysis of past experiences and expectations and which will also introduce innovations. These specifications will be communicated at the end of 2011 to event organisers.

The users and commissioners of research studies, research institutes, companies conducting field research, data processing specialists, software providers, and the representative organisations of the sector… all marketing research and opinion poll professionals are invited to provide input.

To join us, subscribe to the association on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=3701284&amp...

Companies already belonging to Recréation:
ABC Marketing, Actudes interviews, Actiplay, ADN, Ami Software, Areyounet, Askia, Audirep, BVA, Callson, Cint AB, Concomitance, Côté Client, Cyble Marketing, CRM Metrix, Datacall, Double Précision, EDfield, EDinstitut, Equal, Ellipsa, Enov Research, Gent Area, GFK-ISL, GMI, GMV Conseil, GN Research, GN Operations, Harris Interactive, Ifop, Impact mémoire, L'Institut des Mamans, Le Terrain, LH2, Linkfluence, Marketresearchnews.fr, Mica, MV2 Conseil, MSM, NETETUDES, Nomen, Numsight, Nxa-Nouveaux Armateurs, Occurrence, Opinion Way, OTO Research, Reference Fieldwork , Research Now, Reperes, Respondi, Sky Consulting, Socio Logiciels, Sorgem, SSI, Strategir, Synovate, Toluna, TNS direct, Update France, Voxco, WSA, Zed Marketing Research

The list is regularly updated at the following link:
http://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1kWQ-mgmcGzlNEC8sq...

To contact the bureau of the association:
Guillaume Weill  François Abiven,

For a number of years now Repères has been conducting research on non-verbal communication. The idea behind this research is to acknowledge the importance of the body in our research processes. It is often said that non-verbal communication accounts for more than 80% of human communication and yet practically all market research relies solely on the analysis of verbal communication via respondents’ statements. Conversely the observation techniques used most often tend to focus on behaviour to the point of disregarding respondents’ statements.

Our approach is to bring to research a holistic vision of the respondent integrating verbal and non-verbal communication.

Our first experiments, conducted in collaboration with Franck Saunier, were presented at the Esomar conference in 2008 (Cf. article, under ESOMAR copyright) and at the UDA ADETEM conference in January 2009 (Cf. interview – in French - with Franck Saunier on François Laurent's blog).

The aim at this stage was to demonstrate how a qualitative approach could be enhanced by a detailed video analysis using the techniques of slow motion and of the identification of asynchrony between gestures and words: This provides us with access to communication that occurs without the subject being aware, and which when revealed offers the possibility of detecting in a statement what relates to an accepted notion and what on the contrary relates to a strong emotional implication on the part of the subject; in other words non-verbal communication is used as a tool to identify the relevant verbal message .

Since then we have pursued our research by applying these findings to a quantitative approach for the screening of concepts: Would the integration of a non-verbal reaction to a concept enable us to better identify those concepts that are more appealing?

The initial findings we obtained based on a pilot experiment were extremely promising: We built a first benchmark for non-verbal reactions to a concept (based on a combination of several objective behavioural criteria which were relatively easily codified). This non-verbal benchmark makes it possible to identify a level of emotional implication regarding a concept and when it is combined with the classic statement of interest it provides very significant added value to the analysis of the results.

Thus, from our pilot test, 8 ideas of new products were tested:

An analysis based purely on statements would have led us to conclude as follows:
1 effective concept, 5 undifferentiated “average” concepts, and 2 concepts rejected

When we combine verbal and non-verbal communication, 3 routes are identified as interesting:

. The concept stated as being the most effective also generates strong emotional implication

. 1 of the undifferentiated 5 routes also stands out because of the strong emotional implication it inspires, whereas the 4 other concepts generate little interest expressed solely by statements

. 1 of the 2 concepts generally rejected deserves selection: It proves to have a strong segmenting impact and generates strong emotional implication among all people who claim to be interested, even if they are a minority.

At the same time one of the other deliverables of the protocol is the possibility of updating the non-verbal grammar used by the respondents when they describe the inferred benefits of these new products.

We are therefore able to identify the routes that are the most promising and to recommend to the advertiser the appropriate non-verbal grammar to use to effectively communicate about the benefits of the products.

These results prefigure a strong potential for this type of approach and have led us to apply for OSEO support, which has been given to us, and which will enable us to pursue our research in two directions:

. To test the relevance of the approach within the framework of sniff-tests and taste-tests, with the creation of benchmarks for emotional implication based on non-verbal communication,

. To look for technological partners to validate the possibility of automating the codification of non-verbal reactions in order to improve productivity during analysis.

To be continued…

Do not hesitate to contact us for a detailed presentation of this research

1) OSEO is a public organisation for the support of innovation.

As a part of our quality strategy we were proud to obtain ISO 26362 certification at the beginning of the year for our access panel of French internet surfers.

Repères is the first market research company in France to obtain this certification which guarantees compliance with the best practises for the management of an access panel as defined by the profession.

This is a part of our Web strategy:

Since 2006, we have greatly invested in the Web with the aim of renewing research protocols by using new technologies.

This has led us to develop our own platforms such as the one used for the Home Use Blog or to explore new territories such as Second Life, in which we have set up an access panel of more than 10 000 avatars from all over the world.

All this research and experimentation has enabled us to acquire in-depth expertise in the field of online research and the creation and management of Internet panels.

Last year, we created a Web Development department, with three people under the management of Christophe Desgouttes, and dedicated to:

• The designing of new on-line qualitative and quantitative protocols,
• The production of online studies (with panels or through interviews conducted by interviewers equipped with EeePc and 3G connections),
• The creation and management of online Panels.

We have thus been able to recruit French Internet surfers for our own access panel and have gradually started to insource our online studies (our international online studies are still conducted with partners, namely SSI).

This strategic choice of insourcing enables us to offer our clients more competitive prices, while guaranteeing the quality of the information gathered.

The Repères panel is composed of 27 000 people today, with an objective of 50 000 people within the next year.

The integration of the real and the virtual world is a major trend that has still many surprises in store for us.

This amazing video produced by the Proâme prospective agency that Maryline Passini informed me about is not to be missed.

The part that is recommended above all starts from the 5th minute, where the computer is freed of its traditional supports (screens, keyboard and mouse) and starts to interact with the real world:

As in 2008, Repères received two "Grands Prix des Etudes" Marketing awards at SEMO.

This is the second year running that the Emotional Monitoring method has won awards: After the Silver Trophy in the category of International Surveys for a Thalys Emotional Monitoring conducted in 4 countries, we were proud to receive the Golden Trophy this year in the Brand/Product/Communication category for an Emotional Monitoring study of Fleury Michon.

The aim was to determine the impact of a TV sponsoring operation on the emotional relation linking the customer to the Fleury Michon brand. The Emotional Monitoring approach has proved particularly effective in analysing the impact of a campaign and in providing operational recommendations.

At the same time we received the Silver Trophy Field award for the Prospective Interactive Co-design of “Fresh fruit and vegetable kiosk” undertaken jointly by Repères and the prospective agency Proâme (Maryline Passini) for UNFD and CTIFL. The objective was to use consumers' imagination to promote the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables in an urban environment.

A warm thank you to our clients who put their trust in us regarding these new approaches, especially Catherine Roty from CTIFL, Sandrine Choux from UNFD, and Eric Coly and Hervé Dufoix from Fleury Michon.