GreenBook Future List Spotlight: Stephen Griffiths

Outside of insights, what are your passions and interests?

Outside of work, I’m passionate about learning languages and keeping an international perspective. My dad was a diplomat, so I grew up mostly in Thailand and China. For me, studying languages like Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish created a unique conduit to better understand other cultures. I have seen those benefits again as my wife and I support our kids in Spanish-immersion schools, allowing them to learn about customs and perspectives from around the world. Since our kids are young, we try to do road-trips in the US to see new places (like Florida, Texas, Utah, and Washington) and hope to visit other countries when the kids get older. I find that studying a foreign language and traveling outside my home country can provide empathy, understanding, and inspiration.

 

When did you know you wanted to enter a career in insights, and what inspired you?

My first meaningful foray into consumer insights came unexpectedly while living in China during a summer internship. As I walked into a Chinese grocery store to get food, I was delighted to find a jar of peanut butter on the shelf. In a country where bread was hard to come by, I picked up the jar to look closer, surprised to find peanut butter in a land of rice and noodles. Apparently, the locally produced peanut butter manufacturer had the same thought: the back of the jar provided illustrated serving suggestions: eat your peanut butter with boiled eggs or a bowl of noodles! Although I knew nothing about market research at the time, I was deeply intrigued by how companies could introduce a new product, especially in a new cultural context.

Several years later I graduated from college during the Great Recession. I had applied to every job I could apply for, but with no success. I decided to narrow down my job search. I read job forecasts and predictions online, talked with 15+ alumni about their careers, and analyzed my own work experiences to figure out what I liked best. Ultimately, I decided on market research, applied to every market research company within 100 miles, and finally landed my first job at Nielsen BASES.

Without realizing it, I had essentially followed the steps of market research to land my first job! I did secondary data analysis, followed up with in-depth interviews, and finally did my own analysis to make a final recommendation. I feel very fortunate to be in this industry and love helping others learn about it.

 

What are three skills you believe to be crucial to succeed in market research and why?

Critical Thinking. Insights professionals serve as detectives to uncover the truths and marketplace realities that inform company strategy. Often our job is to build a body of evidence to help us know where to go—and sense when research results are not correct. I once worked on a pricing study that suggested the company could double prices with no sales impact. Although the analytics were correct, the results simply felt unrealistic. In that case, critical thinking allowed us to uncover an issue in how the study was conducted, allowing us to conduct different research to better inform the business.

Business Acumen. Good insights professionals know the business so well that they can translate research findings to company growth. I once received a segmentation project that provided rich insights, but it wasn’t clear how it was relevant to the business. After consulting with cross-functional counterparts, we identified how the segmentation could improve marketing, trade, sales, and consumer efforts. As researchers, we do best when we focus on information that helps a company act differently.

Analytics Mindset. Although many consumer insights professionals are not formally trained in advanced analytics, we can add the most value if we incorporate analytics into our research toolbox. For many of us, this simply means knowing enough about different analytic methods to know when to recommend one method instead of another. To do this, often means that we invest time to learn. I’ve taken analytics and data science courses from Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning that are hugely helpful. As insights professionals, we have an opportunity to pair analytic methods (the what) with other research (the why) to form a more comprehensive and compelling way toward growth.

 

Tell us about any advocacy/volunteer/association work you’re doing within the industry. What issues are you trying to solve? Why is this work critical for the industry?

These past few years it has been satisfying to give back to others in the industry, especially in helping aspiring and current insights professionals grow their careers.

Challenge #1: Increase awareness of market research careers. I remember landing a market research job right after college. I enjoyed the work and wished others had told me about that career track earlier! To pay it forward, I currently guest lecture at several universities, sharing case studies and my experiences, in the hope that other undergraduates will see how exciting a market research career can be.

Challenge #2: Help others launch a career into insights. During my MBA, I learned how to land my dream job in a client-side research role. Now, I volunteer on the advisory boards of two schools to help undergraduate and graduate students get the interview, resume, and networking skills they need to enter the market research industry. As I have volunteered as a career coach, it has been so satisfying to see dozens of early career professionals land jobs they enjoy.

Challenge #3: Give back to current insights professionals. A few years ago, I looked for market research podcasts and was surprised how few existed—so last year I started the first client-side market research podcast, Digging for Insights. As I interview insights leaders from Nestle, IPSOS, General Mills and well-known authors, I enjoy learning insights that lead to career and business growth. Now, it is exciting to have my own podcast, and partner with other market research podcasts to create episodes that help us all be more informed.

 

Where do you see the future of insights heading in the next 10 years?

I see the future of insights evolving in four important areas.

• First, as an industry, we will need to move toward behavioral data, rather than stated data. The future will require looking at actual receipt scans, location data, and website clicks, rather than relying too much on stated answers on surveys.
• Second, the future will probably include more automated data collecting, so researchers can focus more on analysis and recommendations. Traditionally, firms would spend weeks planning and fielding interviews, then spend an hour or two on recommendations and analysis. By using technology platforms and standardized templates, researchers of the future should spend much more time applying insights to a business than gathering data.
• Third, analytics will be used to formally validate research methods. Too often I see research methods that stay the same for years, often with little connection to reality. Firms should constantly be comparing research results with marketplace reality to understand how to tweak and improve their services.
• Fourth, market research will likely need to further integrate with other industries such as UX (user experience), CX (customer experience), and data science. Too often, we see these areas operate in separate silos within companies. In the future, client-side firms and agencies will do best when they integrate multiple methods and specialties all under one roof.