The modern way to source insights across your organization

Market research methods have evolved and a research marketplace, or connected insights system, offers a host of benefits for the modern marketer and researcher. 

Quick hits: 

• The way brands receive and understand insights is changing, fast

• A fragmented media landscape demands a different kind of research to gather insights

• Working with different vendors is expensive, slow and sometimes misleading

• Research marketplaces bring order to the chaos of concept testing, copy testing, innovation research and more

• Each study builds on the last so that knowledge accumulates over time

Let’s dive into how research marketplaces and connected insights platforms are changing the way insights teams gather and use consumer research.

This new model for testing concepts, ads, creative, packaging and more is reshaping how insights teams work, and not a moment too soon. Marketing is under pressure to do more research, do it faster and to be able to justify every penny spent. 

Here’s a deeper look into what’s happening:

Rising demand for more research, faster

Today, your target audience is scattered across channels that continue to multiply. Even if a brand has a very defined demographic, it’s likely the audience is fragmented across streaming platforms, social media, gaming platforms, network television, podcasts or other types of media. 

Creative, product and marketing teams need continuous insight streams in order to assess what’s happening on those different channels. 

Traditional market research tactics and processes can’t keep up with this fracturing media environment, nor with the speed of change. Imagine sending consumer surveys and waiting weeks  to get the results back. In a world where Punch the Monkey becomes a globally beloved character overnight, brands need that information far faster! As technology evolves, research methods must stay current. 

The complexity of managing multiple suppliers

At first glance, working with different vendors for different types of research seems like a good way to get a customized set of reports, tailored to exactly what your team needs to make informed decisions. Maybe you have one firm that provides great campaign optimization, another that offers brand tracking and an entirely different one for innovation research. Each specializes in one important type of research. 

One problem with this approach is that you end up with a set of mismatched tools and inconsistent  deliverables. Your team is looking at different reports and dashboards, analyses performed in isolation and on different timelines. 

It’s like having a drawer full of charging cables that all go to something—but not the thing you need to charge right now. 

Another problem is that vendor governance adds friction. When you manage multiple vendors, you need a system and processes for working with them in order to keep your budget on track, ensure deliverables arrive when you need them and  prevent replication. You’re spending time managing vendors instead of analyzing insights or making creative decisions. 

All of these issues come down to speed and accessibility. Brands that have pertinent information in hand, across ad creative, product concepts and branding, are able to act quickly and are more successful than those waiting on a report from one more vendor to gain the full picture.

A research marketplace, or connected insights platform, brings order to the chaos. Centralized access, standardized frameworks and speed are three of the main benefits of choosing a single research marketplace rather than evaluating, vetting and managing a host of suppliers. 

Here’s a deeper look into each:

Centralized access to diverse research methods

This is one of the biggest operational advantages for modern teams. 

Teams can run everything from concept testing and copy testing to ad testing, innovation research and custom studies within a single platform. That means consistent methodologies and metrics can be applied across projects, making it easier to compare results and build on what’s already been learned. 

You’re not reinventing the wheel each time you need answers — you’re working from a shared, cumulative knowledge base.

The benefit isn’t just convenience, it’s better decision-making. When research is scattered across partners and tools, insights get siloed, timelines stretch and learnings are often lost between teams. 

Centralization removes that friction. 

Marketers and insights teams can move faster and connect dots across studies without waiting weeks for coordination. That means lower costs and more confident decisions, because every decision is informed by a complete, connected view of what consumers think, not isolated snapshots.

"We are getting smarter & smarter over time by connecting all our data across brands, countries, categories, to give us meta learnings with Zappi."

- Stephan Gans, SVP Chief Consumer Insights and Analytics Officer, PepsiCo

Standardized frameworks for quality and comparability

In addition to gaining speed and encountering less (or no) friction, working within a research marketplace means you have consistent metrics and benchmarks. Comparisons are like to like and progress is measured in the same ways, using the same tools. 

Comparing two studies from two vendors can be tricky. Add in different research types (Think: Your latest ad creative and your new product packaging concept) and comparisons are even more difficult to make in a reliable way. 

When you have standardized frameworks, you have a more streamlined process for examining the results. 

Faster turnaround and reduced operational overhead

How long does it take to commission a new study from a vendor? How many times is that process duplicated in a fragmented research stack? How much does that time cost in operational overhead? 

By working within a research marketplace ecosystem designed for speed and flexibility, insights teams don’t have to expend effort on manually coordinating supplier timelines. 

As I covered above, using a single platform for research reduces friction and adds speed. It also improves decisions about ad creative and product innovation. Let’s take a look at how. 

Enable always-on insight generation

The difference between starting from scratch and learning from previous insights is significant. It’s similar to the difference between remodeling a house and demolishing to build from the ground up. 

Generally speaking, it’s more efficient to modify an existing building, and that’s true for ad campaigns, too. Identifying the elements that work well with your audience and building on them saves time and money. With always-on insight generation, teams can learn from previous campaigns or innovation concepts to start with what you already know works with their consumer, giving you a head start on the next campaign or concept — ultimately allowing you to create better and better ones over time. 

Expand experimentation and idea exploration

Testing is all about lessening risk. But, creative optimization requires taking some risks. 

Being able to test multiple ideas and avenues before investing in production is crucial to striking a balance. When testing is incorporated from the very beginning stage of idea generation, you have the data to validate the direction of the campaign. 

Is an idea surprising and delightful or just weird? Creativity is risky but validating ideas that you’re not sure about reduces the potential for a big misstep. At each stage of a campaign you can test, make changes and test again, with all of your learnings captured in one place so you can refer back to them for the campaigns to come. 

"A big benefit of the platform is being able to look back and see what worked and what didn't and theme the learning to focus on better product options in the future. We have learnings we can now apply and get smarter."

- Amanda Addison. Senior Manager, US Menu Insights, McDonald’s

Support global teams with shared standards

Global teams face barriers that national or regional ones don’t. For instance, shared standards that support consistency are often lacking in global organizations. A research marketplace or connected insights platform can help eliminate that problem by providing universal frameworks. 

Just as having four or five dashboards stitched together creates problems, so do regional differences in what’s being measured and why. Giving teams a common language and shared framework for insights makes the data more valuable because it’s more applicable to everyone.

As a connected insights platform, Zappi elevates the idea of a research marketplace and brings it into one system where all your data can be accessed in one place.This model lessens risk, brings consistency and makes campaigns more effective. Zappi tackles each of these areas with our connected insights platform with a unified methodology, automated workflows and scalable testing across advertising, innovation and brand tracking. 

This includes: 

• Unified methodology across every study: Emotion, attention, memory and brand metrics are built into all assets, meaning your team sees those results consistently no matter what you’re testing or where they are. 

• Automated workflows that simplify research ops: Running tests in hours instead of weeks and with less operational lift translates to better results.

• Scalable testing for large organizations: Multi-brand portfolios and global teams have  more complex environments. Smoothing the processes related to research while instituting shared frameworks and a common language means that learnings accumulate and improve decision-making. 

“With Zappi’s platform, we have a collaborative workspace where we all have access to the same tests with one click of a button. We have the analysis in one agile space, where we can adapt and change as per our analysis needs.”

- Georgina Farmer,Global Insights & Analytics Manager, Intimate Wellness, Reckitt

A connected insights platform brings together a unified methodology, shared frameworks, a common language, operational efficiency and centralized access to insights teams. This gets you reliable results and connected insights at the speed you need them. 

Want to learn more about Zappi’s connected insights platform? Talk to us.