MRG conference: Closing thoughts from Malta 2010

Stuart McDonald, co-chair MRG, says “it has been a tough two years, but with the hope that economic posterity, business confidence and hopefully research budgets are returning, it is now an opportunity for us to be strategic and show the value that research can offer“…

So, that’s another MRG overseas conference finished for another two years.  A year in the planning, it was a hectic time for the committee, but now we are back we have an opportunity to look at the themes that surfaced and reflect on what they can mean for us as an industry.

The title of the conference was “Change – the future communications ecology”, and whilst we have to pick the title many months out, it became quickly apparent that we were bang on the money.

Since we last met in Lisbon, it has been an extremely tough two years. Malta 2010 gave us the opportunity to come together as an industry and discuss the major issues away from our day to day routine.  The fact that it was in Malta made it even more palatable and 150 industry professionals made their way to the sunny isle for three days of presentations, debates and networking.  As chairs of the conference, Neil Mortensen (co-chair with me) and I had the opportunity to set the tone for the conference in our opening intro by highlighting what we considered to be the key themes for the conference, and we also found that they were picked up by many speakers over the course of the week.  They were:

• Get research into more boardrooms (and many different approaches were discussed)
• Be aware of new technologies, the rate of adoption and how they can be measured
• Be strategic – and with that we can dictate the pace of change within our industry
• Lets do less in silos and more collaboratively (not new, but some interesting thoughts came out of discussions)
• Embrace data and analytics (90% of MRG members feel that this should be part of research)

For the first time we decided to have debates on key industry issues, which proved to be lively and educational.  We tackled subjects such as online piracy (incorporating research specifically commissioned by BDRC Continental for the conference), whether online currencies were stifling cross media opportunities (the answer was an overwhelming ‘no’) and whether online research was killing quality (‘yes’ and ‘no’ depending on who is commissioning!).

There was a call for greater accountability on quality within the industry and who the governing of this sits with, as in the UK there is no governing body for media research.  The MRG will look to lead the debate in this area over the coming weeks.  Training needs were also discussed and the MRG will be looking at how our education programme can do more in this area.

The standard of presentations this year was very high and both Neil and I would like to thank everyone for the hard work they put into them – especially our excellent keynotes (Nigel Walley, David Hulbert and Steven Van Belleghem) and our debate moderators (Tom Ewing, David Fletcher and Helen Gawor).

Malta 2010 also witnessed the staging of our inaugural MRG Awards at the gala dinner, which we are hoping to repeat and expand.  Our congratulations go to the award winners: MediaCom, BSkyB, Ipsos MediaCT, Guardian News & Media and Simon Kendrick from Essential Research (for the IPA presented Simon Broadbent award).

There was a definite feeling of solidarity at the conference, and it was comforting to see that many people shared the same concerns. There was also a feeling of wanting to evolve our roles and our responsibilities.

It has been a tough two years, but with the hope that economic posterity, business confidence and hopefully research budgets are returning it is now an opportunity for us to be strategic and show the value that research can offer.  In our closing address, Neil and I talked about the role of the research professional and how it is our job to inspire, provoke and to transform – we would all do well to remember this in the period of readjustment that our industry is currently going through.

I’d like to finish off by thanking everyone for their continued support of the MRG and roll on Rio 2012 (we wish!).