MRA Boston Day 2 – More good stuff!

[tweetmeme source=”lovestats” only_single=false]The weather was gray and dreary today but with the MRA schedule, it was nothing but a great day. It started, of course, with breakfast and while there was no bacon, there were blueberry blintzes. I’ve never had them before but it was a like a party in my mouth and everyone was invited.

First up was the general membership meeting. It seemed that half of the audience was the board of directors, all of whom sat in the seats that no one ever sits in – the front row seats. I was prepared for boring and dull but the in fact, they managed to keep the meeting light and only highlighted the tidbits of info that would be interesting to most people. During this meeting, next year’s board of directors was duly sworn in. I was quite amused that they are now required to obey the standards of the MRA. Because they weren’t before? 🙂

Next up was Adenia Cooper from McDonalds. She was absolutely hilarious. Hecklers, people who refused to try Angus burgers, and McDonalds fans alike were all given, or thrown, gifts. The audience couldn’t help but laugh along with her as she shared what McDonalds has learned about speaking to consumers who represent different ethnic groups. Truly a fun and informative presentation.

I attended Aaron Reid’s presentation called In Defense of Marketing. He showed some great BBC video of birds including some who did the most incredible dances and the most incredible sound mimicry – camera sounds, car sounds, music sounds. The point? That every aspect of your life is a marketing experience. The way you dress, speak, move is your attempt to market yourself to other people. Even more interesting, and really reaching the psychologist in me, was the recognition that these types of behaviours are interpreted by others almost completely unconsciously. Which means any time you market a product, there are reasons, far from logical, causing people to purchase it. Watch the whole video. It’s amazing!

Then came the networking lunch. The intent was good I think, but in the end, we ended up chatting with each other as we might have at any other table. So the blue rope separating the “networkers” from the “regular people” didn’t seem to make much difference. But that was ok. Lunch was a tasty salad, with cheese ravioli, and caramel mousse. Yum!

After lunch came a session by Kathryn Korostoff, @ResearchRocks, in which she talked about ways of making people actually USE research results. She actually made me think of ways of sharing research results that I had never considered before. Why not videotape yourself presenting results so that other clients who weren’t at the presentation can watch too! Why not start the presentation with a quick quiz that you developed based on the results of the research? Good stuff!

Finally, I attended the presentation by Bernie Malinoff, @BernieMalinoff, and Jeffrey Henning, @JHenning, about using rich media in surveys. This is the kind of research on research that tickles my fancy. Forget whether the research is about soap or cars or banking. What is it about HOW the questions were placed on the page that affects the answers. There were tons of interesting factoids in the presentation so be sure to have a look at it when it goes public (i assume it will!).