Are you listening?!? Takeaways from ESOMAR Latin America 2019

Sao Paulo had the pleasure to host ESOMAR Latin America 2019. It was a visual feast. Broadcast live online, a lot of people who could not for various reasons be present physically at the event could virtually be a part of it and gather the knowledge from it. Our Project Coordinator Archana Ramakrishna participated in the event online and shared these takeaways from it.

The speakers spoke about both traditional and modern approaches followed in the research world. There were a combination of old schoolers and the newbies with different views and opinions about the research methodology.

On the healthcare side of things, there were some very interesting conversations, including a presentation on «A Healthier Approach to Research: Prescribing Real-Time Solutions in Healthcare» (Ana Alvarez [Sanofi]; Marcello Garritano [MESH])

Other conversations focused on breaking the walls between traditional and digital marketing and challenging how marketing drives brand sales and ROI. Presentations also dove into content-based research and how “digital laboratories” can be viewed as breakthrough approaches to find profound insights in social media.

Another topic titled “Are you Listening?” (Damian Suarez [MEGA Research] and Sebastian Silva [Givaudan]) looked at social listening and how it could be a strong research solution if we can listen and spot opportunities. This catchy topic focused on the common mistakes in the research world and solutions to them.

But the icing on the cake came from beverage kings Pepsi and Coca-Cola about their research approach. Those two along with other FMCG market leaders shared how facial coding helps to optimize communication and how emotions can be strong predictors of communication effectiveness.

Most speakers spoke in their local language and there were no translators or subtitles, so some of the online sessions were challenging to take in.