Resources

Engaging Gen Z is the question on everybody’s lips

At Quirk’s, we were super excited to be able to present results from our research project on Gen Z. We’ve spent the last year digging into what makes 16-24 year olds tick, how best to engage and captivate them for market research purposes, and how we can gain better insight into the minds of the demographic with the most global purchasing power.

Well, it seems that great minds think alike, and we managed to catch a few presentations on what others have learned about Gen Z (though we think ours was the best, of course!). We saw some common themes and considerations to bear in mind while trying to engage Gen Z, including:

• Correctly segmenting this diverse group of people, rather than treating them as a singularity.
• Communicating with them in the digital domains they know and love, rather than expecting them to come to you.
• Keeping activities interesting, engaging, mentally stimulating, and perhaps lighter touch than usual.

Data quality is the name of the game

Ensuring the quality of data is still of the utmost importance to brands and researchers, and understandably so. We noticed a lot of sessions talked about the steps you can take during research to uphold the highest data quality. We’re proud to say all of these tips are a part of our standard data collection and community management procedures. These include but are not limited to:

• Survey speeders: Track time taken to complete and remove any participants who are obviously speeding through without reading questions or considering answers carefully enough.
• Straight liners: Similarly, look out for any participants whose answers are the same throughout an activity. Those who are disingenuously responding to your questions are compromising your data and should be removed from panels or communities.
• Open ends: Open-ended questions can be a good way to unearth respondents who aren’t reading questions, or carefully responding. Look for responses that might feel totally unrelated to the question, or even be entirely gibberish.
• Trap questions and contradictions: Another good way to ensure your audience are properly reading your questions is to ask the same question twice (in a different way, perhaps both positively and negatively), and compare the answers. You can also use logical impossibilities or contradictions to identify if participants are reading and responding carefully.
• Client’s point of view: As a client, don’t be afraid to challenge panel partners on how they ensure data quality. Drill down into the techniques they use, ask for examples of when they’ve discounted responses or removed participants. Ask whatever you need to ask to be confident that the results of your project are going to be reliable and fit for their intended purpose.

How you share results is as important as the results themselves

It’s all well and good undergoing a large-scale research project to get into the minds of your customers. To really understand their values and journey. But how do you make sure that the results are communicated, understood, and acted on business-wide? How can you make sure stakeholders buy into your results, and want to champion them in their respective departments?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Some people like long-form infographics, some like quant charts, and some like short videos. It might be possible to identify a departmental theme in this respect, but otherwise be aware that certain results might be more suited to a certain format, and each stakeholder might have a personal preference on how they consume data.

For key strategic projects, it’s worthwhile spending a little more time on a proper comms plan. Brand the project to help make it recognisable and tangible amongst stakeholders. Imbue presentations with a catchy hook, clearly communicate the goals and benefits of the research early on, and let each department know how they might stand to benefit from the results. However, make sure this is measured; if you’re outputting very regular results, pick your battles on which ones to make a larger fuss of, and which ones to casually share in Slack channels, Teams chats, email threads or otherwise.

We really enjoyed our time at Quirk’s London this year. If you didn’t have the chance to pop over to our booth and meet the team, why not get in touch?