6 Month Update from Council

Growth

First, some general administrative updates:

We are taking a more data-driven approach to run ESOMAR which means we’ve migrated from NetSuite to Salesforce & Salesforce Marketing Cloud to map proper marketing-to-sales funnel and understand what the drivers are behind membership acquisition and renewal.

 Second, our investment portfolio (which is significant) has been in a highly conservative/defensive position for over ten years, which means we’ve missed out on some considerable market returns. Alain Mizrahi, Council Treasurer, and the ESOMAR finance team have repositioned the portfolio into a more moderate offensive position to take better advantage of market opportunities and decrease our cash position (which was actually resulting in fees from our bank).

 Now onto Working Group updates…

Client Member Growth

Client memberships are up YOY, and our corporate pricing is now simplified to make it easier for organizations to understand the benefits of membership and associated pricing.

Qualitative/User Experience Growth

We were thrilled to have legendary qual researcher Naomi Henderson in the spotlight at this year’s Insights Festival. We’ve also scheduled our first qual-focused event, Qualitative eXchange, on the calendar for December 15. Qualitative eXchange is our first qualitative event since 2019 and will also feature UX and other qualitative focused disciplines. Information about the event and the call for submissions are featured at the top of ESOMAR’s events page.

Data Science/DaaS Growth

We are actively expanding our membership remit to include data scientists and DaaS firms, including building awareness of ESOMAR within these roles and companies and ensuring that we provide training and upskilling our existing members on data science techniques and best practices. Stay tuned for more updates on content and training opportunities.

YES (Young ESOMAR Society)

We had a great number of submissions for the Insights Festival YES awards and two award winners – a tie! We have a YES session coming up at Quirks in London this week and have also kicked off a Research World series for YES members to share their thoughts with our global community. Lastly, we will be surveying our YES members to ensure our programming and services stay relevant as this membership grows.

North American Growth

Thanks to a very successful campaign by Canadian Reps Jean-Marc Leger and Rob Berger, we’ve experienced a significant increase in membership in the region. We are also making progress on our growth initiatives in the US and now have a US business entity to expand our presence in this important market. Sadly, our US Ambassador, Reg Baker, will be retiring end of 2021 (many many thanks to Reg for all his work building our presence in the US!). Given Reg’s departure, we are in the process of recruiting a US-based head of membership sales and engagement for North America. Interested in applying? We’ll have this job posting live soon. Lastly, we have officially registered a US business entity for ESOMAR to enable hiring and other critical business functions in this region. 

Access and Engagement

Looking at Access & Engagement, we’ve updated our website from a custom build to a standard WordPress CMS to make access to ESOMAR content and our directory easier, particularly on mobile devices. Kudos to Kim Smouter and the marketing team for getting our new site up so quickly- have feedback or uncovered any site issues? Please reach out to us.

Dynamic Pricing Initiative

At ESOMAR’s AGM in July, members approved the Council’s dynamic pricing initiative to ensure that, as of October 1, membership is equitable regardless of where you live in the world. Many thanks again to Alain Mizrahi, Marie-Agnes Mourot de Lathyle, Xabier Palacio and Cristina Buerbaum for the countless hours they put into this effort.

Insights250

You may have seen the recent press release that ESOMAR has formally partnered with mTab on their Insights250 report. The inaugural Insight250 list revealed on April 2021 features leaders, innovators, visionaries, and pioneers elevating and enhancing market research, consumer intelligence and data-driven marketing. The inaugural winners came from over three dozen countries across academia, enterprises, agencies, charities, and associations. To date, the list has received tremendous industry acclaim with over 20 million online impressions. ESOMAR and our global Reps will lead the nomination and selection process to ensure we are celebrating a truly global list of innovators and visionaries. Nominations for the 2022 Insight250 officially open on October 18 at insight250.com.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

We’re in the process of finalizing a list of candidates to serve on a new DE&I Sounding Board to support the DE&I efforts with internal and external stakeholders. ENAR and ESOMAR have written a joint letter to the European Commission to facilitate the collection of equality data across Europe.

Also, our Community Circles program continues aiming to organize ESOMAR’s first co-creation exercise for baseline global guidance on inclusive research.

 Value Proposition

Although not a formal Council working group,  I am very pleased to share that Anne Sophie Damelincourt is formalizing ESOMAR’s global value proposition. In the previous Council, work had been greatly progressed on this initiative through a working group. Anne Sophie has graciously volunteered to guide a globally representative team of members and Reps to ensure the work done to date is relevant to our diverse member base and formalize a path forward for ESOMAR’s internal membership and comms teams.