Angus Reid & Vision Critical: Research Solutions for the Digital Age

Market research is often touted as just a generator of statistics and data, but one of Canada's largest research organizations saw the opportunity to go leverage Digital Research solutions and differentiate themselves from the competition. They are no longer just a data source, but a data or market research source for the digital age.

The website alone shows a marked difference:

Ipsos-Reid
Vision Critical

Why did they go this route? Essentially, they had to. The traditional telephone research method wasn't working, in particular with the numbers of people who use cell phones exclusively, making them unreachable. They also had to speed up the process. In the old days, you would wait up to 6-weeks for preliminary data, today clients want their data instantly. Going digital has meant becoming faster, more efficient, and cost effective.

From a web 2.0 perspective, VC regularly updates their blog, twitter, and You tube social networks, but the experince and interesting source of data comes from the customized panels they create for their clients and the information that's generated by their own digital research work. They currently tap into 300,000 Canadians for their own polling source of data. It really has revolutionized the research world with stories worth talking about. Here's an example:

The Gap/Banana Republic: after approaching VC, received a customized research panel, of which 50,000 people joined. Talk about already being statistically significant. These people became the BR insiders, all ready to discuss the latest in fashion trends. The Insiders would participate in monthly surveys, receive sweepstakes incentives, newsletters to keep them on the inside track and engaged. One exercise that was particularly ground breaking, was each insider was asked to photograph themselves in various outfits. The results, allowed BR to (for the first time) peer in to their panelists closets and get a stronger sense of who their customers are. This information became significant to BR, when designing clothes or creating an in-store experience. The message starts to become viral with panelists themselves spread the message through their own social networks.

There's more examples like these for Nascar, Kodak, Jet blue, and so forth. Case Studies

Today, Vision Critical has created a great engine to reach the world with interesting relevant data and research experiences that people want to tweet, blog, and tell each other about.

VFS: New Media Became Part of Their Brand

When we were asked to present two examples of good new media experiences, I immediately placed the Vancouver Film School at the top of that list. I had the privilege of hearing Stephen Webster, Director of Marketing at VFS describe how he was challenged to spearhead an international marketing campaign, that was designed to put VFS on the map as a world renowned school. Today...

"VFS is not just a place where people come to make movies, but rather a place where the ideas, stories, and talent for film making originate. VFS plays a central role in Vancouver's creative development, providing a constant stream to North America's third largest television, animation, design, and video game production centre."

How did VFS come to make that statement? First, they recognized that traditional strategic marketing doesn't work. It just isn't responsive enough, and particularly so when you're dealing with 13 different products, 13 different markets, 13 different demographics, and 13 different psychographics. They took a different approach that meant first creating a handshake with a new customer, second, nurturing and growing the community, and lastly, creating opportunities for these communities to connect to one another, while establishing a unified brand focused not only on the skills, the education, but more importantly on a key differentiating factor, the experience at VFS (student work and portfolios).

Create the First Handshake: Show-off the variety of student work and launch the first VFS You Tube Scholarship Competition and then let the work speak for itself.

Peace of Mind Video
Scholarship Video
The Winner

The goal was to make the community involvement as large as possible, have a long-term tie in to the VFS brand, and because the You Tube community chose the winner, they had to be willing to accept any of the winners. The Theme of the Scholarship Competition was, What Matters to You, It's all about You".

Nurture & Grow the Community and allow them to Connect:

Connect and have a presence on "many" social networks (VFS blog, You Tube, Twitter, the list is endless)
Live by one guiding principle monitor all the feedback and comments and "Respond to Everything" with an authentic voice
To help add more fuel to the engine, Google and You Tube caught wind of the campaign and kicked in $500,000 in advertising, promotional, and custom applications.

The outcome

* Demand for the scholarship competition was and still is huge
* 2008 saw the largest intake of students in 22 years of which 50% are international students
* The calibre of candidates attending VFS has improved by leaps and bounds
* Created huge brand awareness
* Considered the # 1 School Channel on You Tube
* Get over 20,000 visits a day of which 94% are new visitors
* Recruiters approaching VFS and students for talent
* The story continues with the students. They are provided with tools to embed their work onto their blogs, websites, and you tube channels THE MORE PEOPLE SEE THE WORK, THE MORE THEY JOIN THE CONVERSATION!

The process today

* Post a video to Youtube every day of the week& make regular blog & twitter posts.
* Monitor the feedback and comments
* Respond in an authentic voice (no sales jargon)

Students Wreaking Havoc