Interview with Florence Hussenot (Founder and CEO of Adwise).
Courtesy of MRNews
What if research communities were the ideal tool for helping companies to transform themselves in line with today's agile and customer-centric imperatives? This is the conviction shared by Florence Hussenot (Adwise), who believes that creating a community should be a strong, engaging act. One that enables research to contribute to the development of long-term strategic thinking, rather than being locked into a dominant logic of validation. She discusses the decisive advantages of these systems, pointing out a number of false beliefs that need to be eliminated.
MRNews: The use of communities for research purposes has become widespread in companies. But there is still some confusion about what is meant by the term. What is your definition?
Florence Hussenot (Adwise): There is some confusion, particularly with panels, stemming from the communication of technological solutions that present themselves as community-based when in fact they are primarily quantitative survey solutions. Companies have the impression that they have a community, whereas in most cases they have a panel. But a community is more "qualitative"; it's much more like a discussion club that meets in a café, where the intimacy of the relationship is of a completely different order. And this confusion is a pity, because at the end of the day, few companies use their panel to create a qualitative community, when this can easily be managed using a panel and these same survey solutions.
This confusion is also partly linked to the diversity of forms of community: perennial or flash; while their usefulness is different.
MRNews: What are the specific advantages of communities in terms of getting to know consumers?
We use communities (cf. Digital communities) in all their forms for a long time; but what seems to me to have a real impact today are permanent communities. This kind of community allows us to work on the principle of "variable geometry", zooming in (on a target, a behaviour) and zooming out (on trends, levels of knowledge), and thus moving flexibly from the general to the specific. And this approach is an interesting way of anchoring an analysis in a more strategic planning perspective, which, in our view, gives the research director back all his power.
Because we work over a longer period of time, brands have the opportunity to build their thinking with the consumer. This means seeing consumers differently, not just as targets, but also as partners. This is a major point. It means sharing, giving information, not just money. We need to be involved in exchanges. It's a very different approach to traditional research.
MRNews: Are communities used first and foremost to identify new insights?
Let me give you a Norman answer. A lasting community is built on a brief. It's an ad hoc tool that can be managed using a quantitative panel. We build it on the basis of the 'usual' or necessary studies, and we add value-added approaches over the course of the year. For us, it's first and foremost a partnership with an advertiser.
Read the full report here: MRNews
