Ipsos Update - February 2018

We start with Flair India, the first publication from India in our Ipsos Flair series, investigating society, consumer behaviour and market trends in the world’s second most populous country. It’s available as a full report or, for a shorter read, you can download the 10 key points.

Painting a global picture of the year ahead, this special 28-country Global @dvisor poll examines people’s predictions for 2018, discovering that almost half (59%) think that China will become the world’s biggest economy this year.

Shifting our attention to food, Ipsos Retail Performance have published a new paper investigating how technology is transforming the grocery retail industry. It examines the impact of smartphones and explores how chat is opening up new channels of communication between retailers (or brands) and their customers.

Meanwhile, understanding and explaining how brands grow is top of mind in the industry. This new Brand Growth thought piece presents our research findings into the importance of ‘more people’ versus ‘more often’, exploring the purchase behaviour of consumers across 200+ brands over a 12-month period. It provides evidence that brand growth is not solely about increased customer penetration, but also about maintaining (or increasing) the levels of spend from existing customers.

Staying on the topic of brand growth, Getting Brand Assets Right offers tips on how to leverage your distinctive brand identity to grow your brand, at a time when brands exist in an ever-changing, dynamic environment with plenty of disruptive competition. The paper demonstrates our newly developed approach to help clients prioritise a set of unique brand assets that strengthen the brand and which can then be reinforced through communication and packaging, etc.

Turning the spotlight to the healthcare industry, The Future of Intelligent Things is a new paper looking at how connected health is disrupting the world of MedTech. There is little doubt that connected health may offer the answer to alleviating financial pressures on healthcare systems and improving patient outcomes, but how exactly can this be achieved? The paper sets the scene.

Meanwhile, our recent research into consumer attitudes on Open Banking, conducted just a few months ahead of the launch, offers us a snapshot of the sorts of organisations that consumers are likely to trust to use their data. Unsurprising, established banks come out well ahead of other potential provider groups – suggesting they have a clear head start when it comes to taking advantage of the opportunities which Open Banking offers.

Finally, Get Fair or Fail sets out why fairness is key is business success. Acknowledgement of customer experience (CX) as a driver of business performance is at an all-time high, but for many the question remains; how do you choose which customers or situations to prioritise? The paper explores how to judge what incidents are critical, which customers are expendable and what the most suitable and cost-effective response or intervention will be to give a competitive advantage.