Consultation by AURA with insight clients, agencies and micro-businesses identified that lack of understanding for each others’ challenges can cause unnecessary pressure, waste and stress in research and insight work.  Both clients and agencies referenced the ‘us and them’ culture as a barrier: partners on the supply-side don’t always have sight of clientside pressures; and clients often under estimate the impact on their research partners when projects change.

Following our webinar last year to introduce AURA’s Working Well Together campaign, AURA is returning to this topic, and this time focusing on understanding more about clientside life in 2025.  Armed with this additional context, ICG members will be better placed to develop great relationships and collaborative approaches that truly support their clients.

Clients from AURA (the UK’s biggest community exclusively for clientside researchers) will share their experiences, plus the findings of a recent survey with AURA members – which can also give clues for when clients will or won’t be more open to working with independents; and ICG members will have the opportunity to ask questions or make suggestions.  This discussion will feed into the Working Well Together Team, who continue to develop resources and content to support this campaign.

Our Speakers

Ruth Hinton – Group Head of Customer Experience & Insight

With a career in client-side consumer insight spanning over 20 years at a variety of major retail and hospitality brands, and a background in psychology, Ruth Hinton specialises in understanding the people behind the numbers and collaborating with colleagues to drive improvements for customers.

Ruth is currently Group Head of Customer Experience at Vue International, and also Chair of AURA, the UK’s biggest community exclusively for client-side researchers – providing content, events and peer-to-peer support, to inspire insight and drive impact within organisations.

Nick Bonney – Deep Blue Thinking (and ICG member).

Nick has been a member of the ICG since 2018 when he set up Deep Blue Thinking. As many of us can probably relate to, Nick has seen the research industry from many different angles. He has had roles as an interviewer, a field manager, an agency exec right through to MD and worked a client for nearly 20 years, serving on the AURA Council . Based on those experiences, he saw the AURA Charter as a chance to get the industry to work more effectively together and volunteered to get involved.

Register for this webinar here