Here"s what you missed at Research Asia Interactive [GALLERY]

With the market research function facing a sea of change, we thought it necessary to hold Research Asia Interactive for the second time.

Here’s what was discussed.

For more pictures of the event see:

The session opened with Tyrone Almeida (pictured above), director of insights planning, Kellogg Company, Asia Pacific and S.S Africa speaking about the future of market research. Almeida advised marketers and researchers to deal with data influx by breaking down data as much as possible for meaningful insights. He also advised marketers to keep 10-20% of the research budget for experimenting with new research methodologies.

The conference then moved into interactive sessions, where hosts facilitated a series of discussions on selected topics such as the challenges and opportunities of real time research; visual storytelling; research ROI and leveraging mobile and social media for research.

Next was a panel (pictured above) on whether traditional research methods were still relevant. On the panel were Philip Steggals, insights director, Kadence International, Sohyun Song, assistant vice president market research, Group Customer Experience, OCBC Bank and Mukesh Kumar, head of marketing for MAGGI Light Meal Business, Nestle India. The three discussed their current research strategies; the challenges in the client-agency relationship as well as the challenges of integrating all data sources.

Anna Rokina, social data consultant for Lenovo’s global analytics hub spoke next on social media listening, talking about the challenges of mining social data for meaningful use, such as product or service development. Rokina also addressed the concern that such an operation needs to be a heavy investment – her team for social media data mining is a lean three person team.

Mukesh Kumar of Nestle India was up once again, speaking on competitive intelligence versus market research and how marketers still need to lead their consumers instead of relying too much on research to lead their decision making. (For more on that read: Marketers, don’t follow your consumer blindly)

In the final session, Michael Chadwick, director of brand strategy, APAC spoke on how research needs to stop being a dampener for creatives, and be fuel instead for better work. (For more on that read: Your market research should liberate creative work)

Research Asia Interactive 2014 was a one day conference held by Marketing Magazine on 27 June, at Grand Park Hotel in Singapore.

Here"s what you missed at Research Asia Interactive [GALLERY]