Speaker 1: So thank you so much for the introduction. So I'm Hannah Rogers, I'm one of the research directors at Blue Yonder Research, and the plan for my 15 minutes is to talk to you about how we tell stories at Blue Yonder, and how basically we've progressed to storyboarding our edits, our presentations, our documents, and for us it's all about adding value to every project and it's about generating that absolute buy-in from stakeholders, whether that's your clients, that's their clients, that's grocers. So however far the stakeholder chain you need to get, this is what we want to do with storytelling. And I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen as well, so obviously if you do have any questions please feel free to ask them at the end. So for us it is about great research deserving outstanding storytelling and how we feel about this is that everyone loves a story, absolutely everyone, the part and parcel of everyday life and from a really early age, bedtime stories, news stories, amazing films and pretty much everything that you remember in life is because someone told you a story, you were telling a story or you were part of that story and that was the premise for how we changed the game with our reports and with our edit and it is, you know, imagine you're going out for coffee with your friends and you know they really hook you in, they tell you a dramatic story and it's a story something that grabs your attention, that really helps you feel the emotion and then really importantly it's got to bring you to that conclusion, so it's connective and you know with research and in stories in our own lives you need something that's immersive, you know thinking about watching a film you've really got to get hooked into it because that's the bit that makes you act, that's the bit that makes you tell your friends oh guess what I saw guess what I heard and you need to be able to long for that answer what happens next and the important bit is when you get that what happened next with a really good story it's resonating it's making you act on it and obviously applying this to market research it's the acting on it that matters it's so powerful for our clients and because no one effectively wants their report you spent you spent so much time on it, it's absolutely laden with insight, it's not just superficial learning, this is really good stuff, it's game-changing stuff. You don't want that to be swallowed up on the main server and forgotten, you want that to be in the open talked about, you want your stakeholders to act on it and do something to accelerate their journey and basically we need to tell them research stories that they remember and that act as a call to action and ultimately that's going to drive their growth because it accelerates their brand and their product. So I think it's it's important to say what do we mean by outstanding storytelling because I feel when I've talked to a few people about storytelling the the word storytelling the term it implies fiction and I think that can be quite dangerous because you know in market research we pride ourselves have been you know the voice of the consumer it's fact it's reality It isn't fiction, it's simply making the story all happy and shiny to impress the clients. That's not what it is about. It's about telling clients what they need to hear, which isn't always what they want to hear, but it's about bringing it to life, making your point, making it compelling and meeting this need that people have to listen, to understand. All our clients themselves have stakeholders, even at the highest level, they will have stakeholders and their need is to get the stakeholder above them to listen, to buy in, to believe them and to act on the information they present and you know the term bringing people close to the consumer it can be very much overused, you know ethnography we use it all the time, focus groups, it is all about getting the consumer close to your clients but with the storytelling element I think it does really bring them closer because it's in their own words, it's fully immersive, it's getting the emotion in there. And I think the important thing for me is that stories can be good or bad news and the key bit is that they're compelling, they capture the engagement and they're energizing and people want to act on them. And I will say as well I think you've probably all experienced this if you're research practitioners, it you know or even if your client's looking to upsell the news in the business, it can be particularly powerful storytelling when there is bad news because often you know there are things that come up that are unexpected and that's that's great that's an insight that's something that's challenged and game-changed but it could be something quite negative which means they have to act they have to change and if you present your client or your stakeholder with something that is a story you know this isn't this isn't as an agency this is this is what you consumers want they get fully on board with it because they've seen the full journey, they've seen the why, the what, the so what, all those elements spelt out through the consumer narrative is direct access and it is incredibly powerful. And for us it's about storytelling as a new approach for a new era of insight, so as practitioners we have to change. And the benefit really it's you know this absolute stakeholder buy-in. It's accelerating journey from vendor to partner. So obviously the first time you work with the client, your vendor, they're trying you out, they're testing you, you may maybe have a problem with another supplier but you know they ultimately they've come to you because they want you to deliver. So by sharing a story with them obviously you're heightening your expertise, you're showing your quality, you're showing how close you can get to consumers and what we find is it helps as it pushes us through that process that they love it they come back time and time again and it helps them take you to that partnership level which is what we always strive to achieve it's that relationship with your clients so you're all involved in this story together. We also find it bonds teams with each other as well so this is obviously the research teams but the client teams and working collaboratively and because they tend to commit to getting more out of everything and it's something that we've seen they get excited you know when the clients come back to us for the next project we go oh my god I want to see output like that tell me the story again that went down so well so they begin to get excited about the the videos that we show it re-energizes, it excites and crucially it lands the insight message far better and we know that because it's people reach the conclusions faster and they think more about the implications because it's how it's presented to them. One of our clients said if we start telling stories early on in the iterative process, we get to the end quicker and this is what he was talking about. He's saying my stakeholders listened quicker, we got to the point quicker because we had the whole story encapsulated. It wasn't just about well you know this is a background, this is the objectives and this is the key insights. It was beautifully put together. They got engaged, they got on board and they got on board quicker. So projects that can take months, when you tell a really good story and get people fired up and get people really understanding, then it shortens the timeframes massively. And the question is obviously how do we tell a great story? And the answer to that for us is digitally. Though I have put some hints and tips in in a second to talk you through what we can do with standard and PowerPoints and and qual and quant as well because the future really is digital and it is a new buzzword and so often digital it means cheaper, faster, poorer quality and learning not insight but this is completely the opposite. Digital storing is different, it's about being clear, concise, compelling and the highest possible quality footage turned into the highest possible quality output and when you get it right this is the output, this is a two minutes of story that finds itself on the phones of your your VPs, your brand directors, they're carrying it around with them because they're so impressed with it and it's about bringing footage into a quick story. You know you might have from groups, you might have you know six hours of footage from in-home ethnography, god that can be you know 20 hours of footage from shopper research, again 48 hours of footage. You need to bring that into a two-minute story and it's new practical things, the starting point is, you need to get filming. So it's, you know, get the best quality cameras you can afford, get 4k, get HD. If you're doing ethnography, even if it's video footage filmed on a phone, get people to use the highest resolution in-home video footage. Use the phones, get that information, because that is how we're going to get the story told. And, you know, obviously don't just get the back of the moderator's head in the focus group, you know, keep as much, think, keep about as much footage in there as possible, get everything recorded and so the storyboarding element of this, I think it's time to talk about this, and you have to make sure that the story reaches its potential and how we do that is we basically reverse engineer it, we storyboard it, so that the challenge we always face is well how do you know what's coming up, it's research, you know you can't predict what's going to happen and yes you know we've all been in the industry quite a while, so we can predict roughly how we think consumers will react. What we don't know is exactly what they're going to say and how they're going to behave and that's that we fill in, that's the last bit. But the first question we always started with is what do your client stakeholders need to see to get them on board? So this is not just your client, what does the VP, what does the grocer, what does the buyer need to see to get them on board? So think right to the end you know and if you think right to the end obviously that's going to help you define your methodology as well so you've got your objectives you know that but there's no point doing quants if you know this this buyer will only look at in-home video diaries for example there's no point doing video diaries if he will only look at numbers or he or she will only look at numbers so it helps you define the methodology you know it makes you optimize your audio-visual setup as well so think about what they need to see the need if it's a product, they need to see it in hand, they need to see that first taste moment, storyboard that, get out the A3 piece of paper and draw it. What could that look like? Yes, you don't know exactly what they're going to do, but it's a placeholder in the story, like we need to bring them on this journey. It helps you set specific tasks as well, so if you know what your stakeholder needs to see, it helps you define the projectives that you use, the in-home tools that you use, you get your consumers to go on a scavenger hunt, That is very powerful if we can see consumers rushing around trying to find words, images, objects which sums up what they're feeling or what they're using or the sensory experience of something and it also helps you set your location. So if you're thinking right to the end, if you're storyboarding right to the end, where does this need to be? Will they only listen if they actually see it in action in home or can this be done in a focus group? Can this be done round a table, so that will help you. And then storyboard the content as well, so ask the questions, you know, what theme, what style, and give some examples as well, you know, is this highly dramatic, is it technical, is it crisp, is it clear, you know, is the music, all these things. Get to know your stakeholders, what they want. Make sure you know your key touch point shots as well, because consumers might do all sorts of things, but if they're not pivotal, if they're not the behavior that we need to see, they don't go in. So when you've got the objectives, if your objectives is how easy is this to use, you know you need to storyboard and create these space gaps for them using the pack the first time, the second time, the third time, when it's near empty, any struggles, any unexpected ergonomics or intuitiveness and also use it to use the flow of the insights and basically use consumers to fill in the blanks. So write it all out on A3, this is what it should look, this is a vision and use consumers to fill the blanks with fresh insight and with language and their behavior. And it is absolutely about creating impact and you think about documentaries that have really stood out to you and their editing style, L cuts, J cuts with the audio, B roll where different angles and shots are used and force the attention onto the screen, use picture-in-picture, video overlay, consumer voiceovers, annotations, animations. You storyboard these in advance and plan them so that the edits after the understanding is there, get these little shots in as well so you know how to make it like a documentary. And it works without Soundstore because that's something that we've been asked to do more and more. You think when you're scrolling through Facebook, if you, a really good video is something that you understand without, you know, lying in bed, turning sound on and waking your husband up. So if you can actually see that, if you can understand it without audio, well, that's even better. And just a couple more slides now, because it is challenging. I think one of the questions previously was, what if I can't afford the cameras? You know, what it is, it can be quite expensive. But you know, you can use this technique with PowerPoints as well. They're not just referral documents. It is a story in its own right. So, you know, if stakeholders read only the titles, look only at the pictures, let them, if they just flick through, they will understand the story. It needs chapters. So think about what we're calling scene blocking. It's how your objectives, territories flow into the next, but each page was captivated and engaged beautifully as well. So it's that what, what is the point that consumers are making? Why, why are they making that? And so what, you know, you need to create these micro stories of the client, when what is the benefit to them? Obviously, the challenge to this is, what about quant? It's really natural to tell a qual story. You've got story, you've got people, you've got engagement, but the quant really has to be brought to life as well. This is about digitizing your data, it's animating your graphs using verbatim overlay, and it's a seamless integration of stats, images, animations, videos, and this not only creates a deck that is beyond challenge, it's data-driven, it's a compelling story. The way to do this is use the same principles. What are the key questions asked? And although you won't have the answer until the data is actually in, you can start playing the story of the quantum part. What questions do you think warrant animations, videos, images? And you can actually, there's programs now that we use to create animated graphs. It just brings it to life. It makes it more engaging and it gives you this head start. And finishing off, what happens when an insight agency tells a story? It is absolutely outstanding. It's captivating, insightful, natural, and it's straight from the consumers. And it's absolutely certain to drive the stakeholder buy-in. And actually, last year, we were challenged to create testimonial demos ready for TV. And we got a great reputation for storytelling reports. But it was like, take it a notch up. What can you do? Push yourselves. What can you do? And basically, they wanted a TVC, an advert-making. And it really had to get to the heart of the consumer experience and deliver a powerful reason to purchase. And the approach we took was that the combination of the research expertise, the highest quality moderation, all the logistics in place, but crucially, it was a storyboarding that had been the game changer. So not only did we have to think about what came out, we had to really think about how it looked, what are all these documentary techniques that we can use to bring this to life, as well as obviously the 4K big camera filming. But then, obviously, we did this. We've done it time after time again now. It's absolutely outstanding. But the techniques that we use to make these TVCs, we're now filtering through into everything we do, whether that's three focus groups, whether that's some in-home ethnography, whether that's an in-home usage test and a quant report. We use the same techniques. We plan ahead. In an ideal world, what's going to happen? What's it going to look like? What do we need to get stakeholder buy-in? And then when we get the results, use that to fill the gaps but we have to make it beautiful. Cool and thank you for your time hopefully I haven't waffled on too much and I think we'll go to the

Speaker 2: question section. Thank you very much Hannah we are a little tight on the time but we've got some questions so let's make sure we take them. The first one here is in Twitter so in your opinion is there a plot storyline that drives

Speaker 1: actions more than others? Is there a plot storyline? I think it would tend to be, it's a really good question actually, it would tend to be presenting the challenge first. What is the challenge? So if you always go with it, this is a consumer, it's almost the bad news first. This is the consumer frustrations, this is the issue, because it gets them involved, it gets them to sit up and listen and go, oh my god we need to change, we need to do something, it's the call to action. And then I think it's a case of taking them through that in detail, so big picture issue taking them through their issues in detail and then the positives are so what this is what we do this is what we recommend and but all in consumers own words so I think tends to be bad news first but finish on a real and this is what you do to make it better. Does that help?

Speaker 2: It does, it does. Okay we have another question here. My challenge is that I work in a B2B organisation and so when I'm researching with end clients they're in a business environment, usually short of time and are talking to me as a favour with no incentives. I often do teledepths which in themselves are not visual. How do you suggest we bring some of these less interesting elements to life?

Speaker 1: So you could ask if you can record the, I mean I think you probably will record them already, but if not you could do some animated text on there so you could still create it as a video but maybe do it with a series of images with words that that pop up to really talk you through it and if you're talking about a particular image or something or ask them for some images as well if they have time but if not I think just the words popping up in powerful orders with images that you feel relevant could really bring it to life.

Speaker 3: Super, thank you so much Hannah and a really good tip there at the end.