Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

The one thing you can't do is give a boring presentation about market research. You need to focus on the BENEFIT an agency can get from well-planned market research. You might even want to find other words for "market research" because it conjures up all sorts of math and statistics that agencies often eschew.

Consider is talking about the nature of creativity and how people come up with new insights. That should be of high interest to the audience. Of course, one of the key underpinnings of creativity is associations between seemingly unrelated facts, and when you have more data you have a greater chance of having a creative "breakthrough." (Hence the need for research, as input to the creative process.)

If you go this route, there are several good books on creativity and how it "works."

I have found "The Creative Brain," by Ned Herrmann to be a really good way to think about the subject. Herrmann came out of General Electric and did some pioneering research on creativity and how the brain works. He also wrote another book, "The Whole Brain Business Book." It has a lot of the same information about his approach, but it's quite specific to business applications.

The Herrmann Group has a website at www.hbdi.com , but I don't know how helpful it will be. The book is much easier to understand and digest. Get "The Creative Brain." It can be the foundation for a fascinating presentation ... even interactive, if you're so inclined. (Gets the audience even more involved in the subject matter.)

I've used the Herrmann work as the basis for several consulting projects and presentations. It hasn't failed me yet.

If you want more references along these lines, let me know and I'll send them. I had to do a lot of research into the subject of "insights and how we get them" for a ghost-writing project I did a few years ago, and I still have the notes.

hi agor

great response from experts. i agree with micheal that dont give aboring presentation on Marketing Research. these guys alredy know about it. rather give them the Benefits of Mktg Research from their Point of View. your selling point will be Providing Mktg Research info of THEIR need, tailor-made for them.

in addition to preparing the presentation, you can do the following (just some wild ideas)...

1. find out all the existing accounts of the agency and collect all the possible data on all the aspects of those accounts.

2. also find out which new account the agency is trying to get or account it was unsuccessful in acquiring.

3. develop a multi-tiered Ad making excercise in which you give various market research information to increasing extent in each stage and ask the partcipants to create teh concept of an Ad or an Ad. (it can be print, TVC or any other). what you will find is that is that with more information being available at each stage the Ad concept and/or the ad is changing. divide the participants into various groups and collect/keep all the concepts in each stage to see the progress/evolution of the ad/concept.

this, i hope, will drive the message of the importance of Marketing Research in advertising as well as your ability to provide information WHICH THEY REQUIRE (do highlight that ability in the presentation also).

hope this helps.

cheers!!