NEXT 2019 Pre-Conference Series - Frank Kelly - Ipsos

Happy Market Research Podcast

The 2019 NEXT pre-conference series is giving listeners an inside look into companies such as IBM, Voice Metrics, Ipsos, and Pulse Labs.. Join insight leaders on June 13 – 14 in Chicago for NEXT, where you can discover how technology and innovation are changing the market research industry. In this episode, Jamin Brazil interviews Frank Kelly, Global Head of Operational Product at Ipsos.

Find Frank Online:

LinkedIn

Website: www.ipsos.com/en

[00:01]

Hi, I'm Jamie Brazil, and you're listening to the Happy Market Research podcast. This is a special episode connected to the Insights Association’s NEXT conference, which is being held in Chicago on June 13th and 14th.

My guest today is Frank Kelly, head of Innovation and NPD at Ipsos. Now, Frank, I do have a question. I have always said Ipsos. I think it's pronounced “Ipso”, is that correct?

[00:27]

If you are French.

[00:29]

Okay.

[00:32]

For everybody else, “Ipsos" works fine.

[00:33]

Perfect. So Ipsos is a global market research and consulting firm headquartered in Paris. Founded in 1975, Ipsos is publicly traded and ranked in the world's largest market research agencies, actually number three, I believe, with offices in 88 countries and employing over 16,000 people. Prior to joining Ipsos, Frank has held senior leadership roles at Nielsen, Greenfield Online, TNS and Lightspeed/GMI. Frank, thanks so much for joining me on the Happy Market Research podcast.

[01:01]

Ah, thank you very much.

[01:04]

You’re speaking at this year's NEXT event on how to integrate voice in your total customer experience. My second episode on this particular podcast was centric to voice. I am so excited to see a conference, the first conference that I know of in our space, that is really kind of centralizing the communication around this particular medium. How did you first come to realize that voice was important?

[01:29]

If I go back maybe 8 or 10 years ago, when I started seeing people use voice to text, it dawned on me. As soon as people started using features like that, there's this bound to be an application and research, because they're just showing preference for a way to communicate. And we have to accommodate those preferences in the way that we capture data. But I guess the real big thing was certainly when Siri was introduced by Apple –I think it was 2011. That really seemed to show the promise of what you can do with voice communication. And it showed that with work eventually that could become a major component of how we collect research data.

[02:11]

Yes, for sure. You know, it's interesting 2011. I think it's September 2016 that Alexa launched. I think I have the year right. Does that sound right to you?

[02:22]

That sounds right. Yes.

[02:23]

So the big head start that Apple had inside of this space, and yet they certainly have taken a back seat from a growth perspective with Google Home now being the fastest growing voice-based platform. And obviously, Alexa. I think Alexa is still dominant.

[02:42]

Yes, well, again, a lot of people are using the Apple, the Siri on their other devices. So it's not just the voice assistant devices that we should think about because research could be captured probably more commonly through the voice assistants on the phone.

[02:59]

Right. Yes, yes, for sure. I was talking to my kids. I have a bunch of kids, some older ones and some younger ones. So the younger ones are utilizing, and this is all just organic, Alexa right now to play hide and seek. It's just really funny. Oh, Alexa, stop! Sorry. She's now going to be called “A”. No, no, stop!

So the other side of it is, my older kids were talking about how it would be really cool if they could get an audio feed that highlighted stuff coming out of their Instagram account that they could then somehow magically connect right to their phones, to get in the visual pieces there as well.