Article by ICG member Nik Harta

There are few things more heart-stopping than a communications crisis – it rarely arrives politely but comes crashing through the door, demanding an immediate response.

Your phone lights up.
Leadership wants answers.
Legal wants reassurance.
Social wants to know whether to pin a comment or hide under the desk.

The instinctive response is to do something. Say something. Anything. Quickly.

The pressure to act is intense — and understandable. But acting fast without understanding the landscape is one of the quickest ways to turn a difficult situation into a reputational mess.

This is where market research comes in — not as a slow, academic exercise, but as a rapid, practical tool for sense-checking reality before you open your mouth.

First rule of a crisis: understand what’s actually happening

In the early moments of a crisis, comms teams are often expected to be both firefighter and fortune teller. What’s going to happen next? How angry are people? Is this a storm or a drizzle?

The default response is usually to draft something quickly — a statement, a post, a holding line — based on gut feel, anecdotal feedback, or the loudest voices on social.

Sometimes that works.
Sometimes it really, really doesn’t.

Without insight, you’re relying on instinct at precisely the moment when emotion (internally and externally) is at its highest. That’s how brands end up:

• Over-apologising for issues that haven’t landed
• Sounding defensive when reassurance was needed
• Amplifying a story that would otherwise have fizzled out

Market research gives you a pause button — not to delay action, but to ground it in reality.

Market research helps you separate noise from signal. Before drafting a statement or filming an apology video in front of a neutral background, research lets you answer some critical questions:

• Who is aware of the issue — and who isn’t?
• How strongly do they feel?
• What specifically are they concerned about?
• What do they expect you to do next?

Without those answers, you’re effectively guessing — and guessing in public is rarely a winning strategy.

That insight changes everything. It allows you to respond to real concerns and to prioritise clarity over noise.

Listening before speaking (a radical concept)

Most crises escalate not because a brand did nothing, but because it did the wrong thing.

A tone-deaf response.
An over-apology for something people don’t care about.
A defensive statement when audiences wanted reassurance.

The most effective crisis responses often start with listening. Research allows you to listen at scale before responding. It’s like pausing the argument to say, “Hang on — what are you actually upset about?” rather than launching straight into a prepared speech.

By understanding the emotional drivers behind the reaction — anger, confusion, disappointment, fear — you can tailor your response to address real concerns instead of perceived or imaginary ones.

Or, to put it another way: you stop shadow-boxing and start engaging with the actual opponent.

Speed is no longer an excuse

One of the biggest myths around market research in a crisis is that it’s “too slow”.

Today, that excuse doesn’t really hold up.

Modern research methods mean you can:

• Launch rapid polls or surveys within minutes
• Get directional insight back in hours
• Sense-check messaging before it goes live
• Track sentiment shifts in near real time

This doesn’t mean waiting days before responding — it means making a better response within the same news cycle.

In practice, this often occurs in parallel with drafting statements, rather than instead of them. By the time leadership asks for a recommendation, you’re bringing evidence to the table — not just opinion.

The budget elephant in the room

Here’s a slightly uncomfortable truth: when a comms crisis hits, budgets often become remarkably flexible.

Overtime is approved without hesitation.
External advisors are brought in at speed.
Campaigns are paused, reworked, or scrapped entirely.

And yet, research is still sometimes seen as a “nice to have”.

A small, pre-agreed allocation for rapid insight — or even the willingness to approve one quickly — can be one of the smartest investments a comms team makes in a crisis.

Why? Because a few thousand spent on understanding the situation can:

• Reduce internal panic (“It’s bad, but not that bad”)
• Prevent costly missteps
• Reduce the need for repeated corrections
• Avoid escalating an issue through poorly judged messaging
• Help leadership feel more confident in the response
• Save time, energy, and reputational capital

In a world where one wrong sentence can dominate headlines, insight is relatively cheap insurance.

It helps you say the right thing, not just a thing

When brands get crisis responses wrong, it’s often not because they didn’t care — it’s because they misunderstood expectations.

Research helps answer questions like:

• Do people want an apology, or an explanation, or action?
• Are they looking for immediate action, or a long-term commitment?
• Which words or phrases are landing badly?
• Which messages actually rebuild trust?

This insight is gold when crafting statements, FAQs, internal comms, and spokesperson briefs. It turns messaging from “what we want to say” into “what they need to hear”.

Think of it as the difference between turning up with a megaphone and turning up with a translator.

A reality check: research isn’t a magic wand

All that said, research isn’t a silver bullet — and pretending it is would be irresponsible. There are some important watch-outs.

First, timing still matters.
Research should inform your response, not delay it indefinitely. Silence can be interpreted as avoidance, so sometimes an initial holding statement is necessary while insight is gathered.

Second, bad questions lead to bad answers.
Crisis research needs careful design, even when done fast, rushed, leading questions can do more harm than good.

Third, data doesn’t remove accountability.
If you’ve genuinely made a mistake, research won’t talk your way out of it. Insight helps you respond better, not dodge responsibility.

And finally, beware confirmation bias.
If you’re only looking for data that supports what you already want to say, you’re not doing research — you’re just shopping for justification. Research should challenge assumptions, not simply validate the response you’ve already written.

The smart middle ground

The most effective crisis responses tend to strike a balance:

• Move quickly, but not blindly
• Be human, but informed
• Act decisively, but with evidence

Market research sits neatly in that middle ground. It doesn’t slow comms teams down — it stops them from running in the wrong direction.

In high-pressure moments, insight buys you clarity — and clarity buys you credibility.

Final thought

A comms crisis isn’t the time to wing it; teams are judged not just on how fast they respond, but on how well they read the room.

Sometimes research reveals that the best course of action is a low-key clarification, not a full public acknowledgement of fault. Other times it confirms that a stronger response is needed — but at least you’re acting with intent, not fear.

Done right, market research doesn’t slow you down — it stops you from tripping over your own response. because when the pressure’s on, the goal isn’t just to respond quickly. It’s to respond wisely.

Ask yourself one simple question:
If this happened tomorrow, would we be ready to listen before we speak?

If the answer is no, that’s your starting point.

 

Nik Harta, Author at The ICG

(6) Nik Harta | LinkedIn

 

Written by ICG member Iona Carter, as part of a series of posts she’s writing on LinkedIn.

 

Phil Barden (of DECODE marketing) and I teamed up this year to look at 12 Christmas traditions through the lens of behavioural science.

I’ve selected a couple here to share, but if you’re interested in having a look at all 12 – you can see them in my profile on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iona-carter-cmrs-96b6214/

I’ve chosen to share Days 1 to 3 for you here.  Hope you find them interesting and put you in the mood for the festivities to come

THE FIRST SEASONAL TRADITION is… Gifting

Christmas isn’t Christmas for many of us without the giving and receiving of gifts: a tradition rooted in a rich blend of Christian theology, ancient pagan festivals and modern customs.

THE BESCI PRINCIPLE:

There are many, many behavioural science principles that are reflected in the giving and receiving of gifts, but we’ve chosen to talk about  The Warm Glow / Impure Altruism Effect which describes the positive emotional reward people feel when they act generously or do something good.

In other words, it isn’t just about the joy of opening our own gifts, it’s also about the reward we feel knowing that others will enjoy the gifts we give them (a 5-pack of underpants, or a badly knitted jumper notwithstanding!).

Neuroscience studies have shown that the act of giving to meaningful others activates reward-related brain regions.

WHERE DO WE SEE THIS IN MARKETING?

We frequently see brands and retailers using phrases like “give joy”, or “share the magic” in their advertising which trigger the concept of the joy of giving in our minds.  This year, we’ve seen Stacy Solomon starring in the AbbotLyon Christmas ad., which perfectly encapsulates the warm glow effect.

https://www.facebook.com/AbbottLyon/videos/1367582338292559/

THE SECOND SEASONAL TRADITION is The Advent Calendar.

Its origins are typically traced back to the early 1800s, when German Luthereans prepared for, and anticipated the marking of the birth of Christ by deploying countdown practices such as lighting a candle or marking chalk marks on doors or walls.  The, now ubiquitous, chocolate calendars didn’t become popular until the early-mid 20th century.

What began as a spiritual timer has become one of retail’s most powerful rituals of daily reward and rising excitement.  Advent Calendars work because they turn the waiting into the main event (obviously helped by a series of mini-rewards along the way).

THE BESCI PRINCIPLE

So, for the Advent Calendar, we’ve chosen to talk about The Anticipation Effect which describes how the brain often gets more pleasure from the expectation of a reward than from the reward itself.

In neuroscientific terms, dopamine rises in advance of the outcome, which is why waiting, wondering, and counting down can feel as emotionally powerful as the moment of reward itself.

WHERE DO WE SEE THIS IN MARKETING?

We think @Aldi have got the anticipation effect all sewn up with their 2025 Christmas advertising campaign which celebrated Kevin’s 10^th anniversary with a three-part romantic saga from proposal, through a chaotic stag do (and dare I say, a more refined hen do), culminating with Kevin and Kate’s marriage. And all this supported by a combination of integrated messaging across platforms, the obligatory merchandise (have you got your Caulidog yet?) and clever references to classic Christmas movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaF1fzzfM74

 

THE THIRD SEASONAL TRADITION is The Christmas stocking

A tradition with many suggested origins and cultural variation, it’s widely believed to be rooted in the story of St Nicholas secretly dropping bags of gold coins down a chimney for three poor sisters, with the gold landing in their stockings (or shoes) that were hung by the fire to dry.

So, the Christmas stocking symbolised quiet generosity long before it became the temporary home of chocolate coins and novelty gifts. By now, it has, become an annual source of excitement and anticipation for young children and adults alike.

THE BESCI PRINCIPLE

For the Christmas stocking tradition, we’ve chosen to talk about Emotional Memory Encoding…

… which is the process by which experiences paired with strong emotion e.g. excitement, joy, anticipation are stored more deeply and durably, and recalled more easily, in the brain than neutral ones.

When a ritual like the Christmas stocking is repeated every year in childhood, it becomes a lasting emotional shortcut to how Christmas feels, not just what it is.

WHERE DO WE SEE THIS IN MARKETING?

There are so many examples of brands and retailers reactivating those first emotional rituals of Christmas,  it’s hard to pick just one!

The most obvious and literal, of course, being the proliferation of Christmas Stockings (with variable contents) aimed at adults, and which tap into those early memories of excitement and joy in order to make the ‘gifts’ inside feel irresistible.

But we couldn’t leave out this year’s @JohnLewis Christmas ad. which, amongst other things,  capitalises on emotional memory encoding by reconnecting viewers with the feelings of youth, caring for others, and identity. It doesn’t sell a gift — it reactivates a memory of who you were and who you still are at Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1bRlnyQeDk

Article by ICG member Jill Elston, Insightful Research 

When the government published its long-awaited Curriculum and Assessment Review on 5th November 2025, the reaction from unions, subject associations and education organisations was immediate and vocal. But what about the teachers and school leaders who will actually be implementing these changes in classrooms across the country?

We decided to find out. Within days of the Review’s publication, we surveyed over 100 education professionals to capture their initial reactions whilst they were still fresh. This was a deliberate departure from our usual approach (we typically conduct in-depth, nuanced qualitative research with schools). However, this moment called for a quick temperature check to understand sector sentiment before moving on to more detailed exploration.

Who we spoke to:

• Headteachers, senior leaders and heads of department

• Staff from academies, MATs and local authority schools

• Primarily secondary teachers, with some primary representation

Whilst not statistically representative, this research provides a timely snapshot of views from those at the chalk-face.

The headline verdict? Cautiously optimistic, but with significant concerns.

What teachers welcomed:

• Reduced emphasis on EBacc: seen as offering greater flexibility for creative and vocational subjects

• Promise of less exam content and exam time: reducing student stress and curriculum overload

• Modernisation of the curriculum: particularly digital literacy, financial literacy and oracy

• Evolution rather than revolution: 48% felt the amount of change proposed was “about right”

Overall, 54% had a positive reaction to the proposals. Teachers told us they were pleased to see many of their long-standing hopes reflected in the Review.

But concerns run deep:

However, 43% had mixed feelings, and 57% felt the Review hadn’t fully captured all the issues schools face. When we dug deeper, persistent worries emerged:

• Teacher workload: the number one barrier to implementation (cited by 65% of respondents)

• Insufficient funding: the second biggest concern (61%)

• Staff recruitment and retention: particularly acute for Triple Science and Computing (52%)

• The enrichment accountability announcement: many feel positive curriculum changes will be undermined by new demands

Analysis revealed that many concerns related to funding, inspections and workload which were issues outside the Review’s Terms of Reference. This highlights an important truth: curriculum reform is just one piece of a complex jigsaw.

What schools will need in the near future

As schools move from reaction to planning mode, our research points to significant demand for support.

Teachers told us they’ll need:

Most in demand

• Clear, practical implementation guidance (42%)

• New or updated teaching and learning resources (40%)

• Subject-specific training and CPD (36%)

• Digital and online teaching resources (34%)

Growing areas of interest

• Curriculum planning tools and frameworks

• New assessment materials

• Support in delivering enrichment programmes (15%)

• AI-enabled resources for marking, assessment and resource creation (13%)

This presents clear opportunities for education suppliers, publishers and training providers who can genuinely support schools through this transition.

Download the full report below to explore these findings in detail, including what different types of schools said, specific subject concerns, and the barriers they anticipate. Whether you’re developing products and services for the education sector, working in policy, or leading a school through these changes, this research offers valuable insight into how teachers and school leaders are responding to one of the most significant curriculum reviews in a generation.

Insightful Research – Curriculum and Assessment Review – Key insights

Planning your response to the curriculum review? We can help you understand what teachers and school leaders actually need to make implementation successful. Contact us to explore how research can inform your next steps.

By ICG member Saul Dobney.

The Cxoice Survey Platform (run by Saul Dobney, ICG member) has been extended to include real-time video capture as someone completes a survey; together with speech-to-speech AI and conversational AI capabilities. This means participants can talk to the survey as they complete it, to explain their reasoning, or so you can see their reactions to prompt materials. The benefit is quant data with added transcriptions for commentary, and video show people can show you things.

Video with quant might seem a strange idea for researchers who only use traditional tick-box questionnaires. However, for surveys that ask people to do visual tasks like marking up a webpage, or asking for participant to show their preferences, or to collect reactions to new marketing materials, then the combination of video and speech allows respondents to ‘show you’, not just ‘tell you’.

It also works for video-based tasks – for instance show me the cosmetics you use, or show me how you load a washing machine.

With all the issues over data-quality and the need for researchers to go deeper and to provide research that can’t be done with AI, video has the potential to have a much bigger role in all types of research projects.

Saul Dobney | LinkedIn

Article by ICG member Viviana Codemo_ Marea Research Qualitative Thinking_ ITALY

 

 

 

 

Some good news! We can give AI a run for its money with our creativity and the unimaginable resources of our unconscious.

A few years ago, I enjoyed writing an abstract that I then sent to the Esomar Call for Contribution, and to my great surprise and excitement, it was accepted as a speech at the Esomar Qualitative Congress,. The topic was very fascinating to me: how to use fairy tale archetypes to imagine a qualitative research tool to be used in focus  groups.

The inspiration came from Bruno Bettelheim’s magnificent book, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. What was new, and exciting, was the warmth, humane and urgent, with which Bettelheim expounded fairy tales as aids to the child’s growth, which he understand as growth through
conflicts, the chief conflict being Oedipal. The wicked stepmothers and fairy godmothers he translated as, all, Mother, and the kings and hunters as, simply, Father. It is the essence of the fairy tale to objectify differing facets of the child’s emotional experience; by showing the underlying identity of polarized and duplicated symbolizations, Bettelheim’s readings make sense of much that seems nonsensical, and relieve the tales of much of the cruelty that has turned many parents and educators to tamer, but thinner, narratives for children.
An adult, in telling a story, though encouraged to yield, like the countless tellers before him, to “his conscious and unconscious feelings for the story,”is strictly admonished never to “explain” the meaning. Bettelheim’s explications of two dozen or so best-known tales convince us, indeed, that we may not know the meaning, or that the child of four or five knows it better. That the child does not “catch”all the symbolization Is the opposite of an objection; these tales’ merit is that the little listener takes what he can, responding to the unspoken significances unconsciously, mastering anxieties bodied forth for him by these venerable fantasies, being led through Oedipal and sibling conflicts toward an eventual happy union with an “agecorrect” partner.

What struck me when analysing Bettelheim’s theories was the universality that could be found in their meaning: those archetypes of the maternal and the paternal, of hunger that devours from within (expressed by the wolf) spanned entire generations, remaining unchanged and continuing to “speak” to our unconscious. Therefore, I started from a premise that seemed almost obvious: each of us was once a child (yes, it’s true!) and each of us came into contact with fairy tale characters (the fairy, the king, the wolf) during our childhood, at least until classic fairy tales became part of our imagination. We may soon have to update these reflections if we realise that today’s children have been deprived of this precious emotional treasure chest, leaving them alone in front of a screen.

Returning to methodology, I discovered that I could use fairy tale archetypes to work with both adults and teenagers on the relationship they establish with a certain product or brand, and monitor its evolution over time.
For example, through the transition from the “good fairy” to the King, it emerged that the more distinctly maternal nature of some brands had gradually become institutionalised, losing that intimate role of mothering and shifting towards the normative and authoritative system typically associated with fatherhood and
represented by the King. None of this had been mentioned by the interviewees, so it had not been brought
to a conscious level, but it was clearly evident from the cards they had chosen and the imagery suggested by those choices. Moreover, after collecting interviews, diaries or narratives, you can:

• Analyse the stories by looking for archetypal structures (e.g. a participant who
describes themselves as “travelling”, “struggling”, “guided by someone” →
hero’s journey).
• Interpret the transformative passages in the stories according to fairy tale
models (crisis → trial → rebirth).

When I presented my paper to the Esomar delegates, I invited colleagues from cultures other than Western ones (I am thinking of the African continent, but also India, China, etc.) to look for characters in their traditional fairy tales that could represent the same archetypes identified by Bettelheim. I do not know if anyone did so. Yet it would be an interesting challenge (which AI has not yet imagined!!), because everyone, wherever they come from, has their own inner child, which guides their emotional world.

Useful references
§ B. Bettelheim – The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of
Fairy Tales
§ J. Campbell – The Hero with a Thousand Faces
§ C. G. Jung – Man and His Symbols
§ V. Propp – Morphology of the Folktale

 

Viviana Codemo | LinkedIn

 

The IPA’s Effies awards recognise campaigns that have made a measurable business difference, evidenced by robust submissions that are forensically examined by experts in the field.  Success is driven by fresh strategic thinking, realised through original creative ideas, supported by clients with clear objectives and an openness to producing advertising that challenges convention.  And the best qualitative development research can play a critical role in getting them there.

The first article in this series explained the role my research played in the development of the EBS campaign that last year won a silver in the Finance & Insurance Services category of the Irish Effies – no golds were awarded.  In this second article, I will talk you through the Allianz campaign that won a silver Effie for the brand and its agency, Forsman & Bodenfors, in the Sustained Effectiveness category.

In 2019, with arrival of a new CEO and CFO who understood and valued brand strength, Allianz and its agency embarked on their mission to rebuild Allianz’s position in the Irish market.  Allianz has been in Ireland for over 100 years but, in recent years, insufficient brand investment and an undifferentiated brand positioning had resulted in stagnant growth and very low trust scores.  So, Marketing was challenged with creating a sustainable and differentiated brand position to drive long-term growth for Allianz in what is a notoriously low-interest category.

Going against category norms, Allianz sought to differentiate itself by reframing insurance as ‘a positive force that enables customers to live fully. Not cautiously.’ The campaign launched in 2019, on the platform ‘We Cover Courage’.  However, COVID and lockdowns had a negative impact on consumer confidence, and by 2021 it had become clear that a new iteration of the strategy was needed.

This is when I became involved, called in by Mark Brennan, who joined Allianz in 2021 as Head of Marketing from AIB, where we had worked together on many brand and comms development projects.  Over the next couple of years, I worked with Allianz and Forsman to apply research to the development of new advertising that propelled Allianz from 6th to 3rd place in terms of spontaneous brand awareness and moved it from having the lowest trust scores to the highest.  Commercial confidentiality prevents me from giving you specific figures

on business performance, but I can tell you that, over the period 2019-24, Allianz grew market share and experienced double-digit policy growth year-on-year.

How did research contribute to this success?

In late 2021, we researched two alternative approaches to re-energising the campaign.  Reactions to one of the routes revealed issues about the explicit advocacy of ‘courage’ in relation to insurance.  Allianz is heavily involved in sport through sponsorship and funding, and the idea focused on the brand’s support of the courage shown by Paralympic athletes and football and GAA players.  However, while this was not disputed, insurance was not seen as an active choice that requirescourage, particularly in the obligatory and commoditised categories of motor and home.

Reactions to the second route, however, showed that it had the potential to much more effectively convey how trusted insurance cover from Allianz could empower customers, by bringing to life the idea that cover from Allianz supports the choices people make in their lives.This was a classic case where the script researched was far from the finished article, but the response to certain elements indicated how the concept could be developed to maximise its relevance and differentiation.

People had very little awareness of Allianz’s scale and longevity, both factors that engender trust in an insurer.  Against this background, the research revealed the potential the advertising had to build trust by making people aware that Allianz had insured some of the world’s most ambitious and iconic projects, such as the building of the Golden Gate bridge. However, while this offered a dramatic example of how Allianz’s support could enable people to make dreams become reality, the research also showed the need to feature alongside these achievements more personal, Irish stories, so that people could gain the sense that they too could realise their dreams when backed by Allianz.

Forsman & Bodenfors fully embraced the development direction coming out of the research to create the first film on the new brand platform, beautifully summarised in the line ‘You Write It. We Underwrite It’.

Further success came with the next film in the campaign, designed to demonstrate Allianz’s support for self-determination in the field of sport, but in a very different way to what had gone before.

We researched four potential routes and reactions gave the lie to the all-too-often repeated trope that people in focus groups prefer the safety of familiar ideas.  In my experience nothing could be further from the truth, and reactions to these ideas lent further proof.

Two routes were well understood as celebrating that the greatest rewards from sport come not from winning but from taking part.  However, there was little enthusiasm for this approach in the groups, both scripts being seen as rather generic.

What connected much more strongly were two routes that addressed the issue of kids dropping out of sport.  Between primary and secondary school, one in five children give up sport altogether, which has multiple implications, not just for health and fitness but also for people’s sense of community, life skills and simple joy.

Again, one of these two routes felt executionally familiar. However, the other route knocked it out of the park.

The film followed one disenchanted young girl as she discarded her sports kit, before revealing that hers was but a tiny contribution to a literal mountain of abandoned equipment. By focusing on one child’s journey and keeping the reason for quitting open to interpretation, people were able to see their own children in this story. And while her frustration is personal to her, the huge pile of kit showed that she was not alone: many thousands of children had felt that same frustration and made the sad decision to give up on sport altogether.

Responses to the idea in research clearly showed how the use in advertising of metaphor, symbolism and exaggeration can create impact, engagement and memorability. The mountain of kit was seen as a powerful and memorable symbol of the high number of kids that have given up sport, as well as the diverse range of sports to which this applies.  And ‘Stop the Drop’, was felt to be a very apt and memorable campaign phrase.

Allianz – Stop the Drop – click on image to play 

The Allianz case study shows how insightful, human-powered development research can provide clear direction for the development of highly effective advertising.  None of the scripts that we took into these two research projects would have achieved the impact they had without considerable further development.  But through appropriate exploration of responses and careful analysis of feedback, interpreted through a deep understanding of how advertising is processed by real people to create engagement and build brands, I was able to provide clear direction for the development of the final films that helped maximise their effectiveness.

In my final word, I should also emphasise that none of this would have been possible without the open-mindedness and willingness to apply the learning coming out of research demonstrated by both client and agency, ingredients that are always essential to the creation of campaigns that make a difference.

Graham Booth | LinkedIn