An executive at personal care giant Unilever has suggested the company may need to wipe the slate clean when it comes to its research approach in a bid to stay ahead of real-time marketing and optimisation.

Speaking at the Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) Audience Measurement 2016 conference, Dr Kristy Vance, Global Director/Media Insight for Unilever spoke of the pressures the company was under regarding this issue.

Vance said, “We need to think ‘research reinvented. For this to really work. I think we need to take everything that we know about market research today and throw it out the window. We need to start from scratch. Blank slate.”

Speculating on the fast pace of the digital world we now live in, Vance suggested that optimising in real time was key to staying ahead in and receiving feedback in a timely manner.

However, will this more fast paced research model detract from offering the best, more thought out research campaigns? She continued, “Do I think that the need for speed will sacrifice research best practices? Potentially. I think it will challenge best practices in a good way.
“I think that a lot of the best practices that we have are built on an old way of thinking – an old way that consumer behaviour existed.

She continued, “In a good way, we need to challenge some of those best practices and develop some new best practices.”