Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The Persuaders Marketing Radio Show & Podcast

With just over a week to go to the Irish Life Dublin Marathon on Sunday 27th October, my guest presenter David O'Sullivan was joined by the heads of Irish charities whose funding will hopefully benefit from the sponsorship and donations from those involved.

Grainne O'Leary Chief Executive Arthritis Ireland ★Jimmy Fearon Chief Executive, DEBRA Ireland

Among the main themes explored were...
1. What is the historical context of Irish charitable giving?
2. How has the Irish charity sector evolved in terms of governance and professionalism?
3. What are the key challenges faced by Arthritis Ireland and Debra Ireland?
4. What are the main misconceptions about arthritis?
5. What is Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), and why is it referred to as “butterfly skin”?
6. How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Irish charities?
7. How has Colin Farrell supported Debra Ireland?
Colin Farrell, the renowned Irish actor, has been a long-standing supporter of Debra Ireland, forming a close friendship with Emma Fogarty, a prominent ambassador for the charity.

One new event to mark on your calendars for next year is The Reinvention Summit which takes place in Dublin on April 29th and 30th. It's the brainchild of Aidan McCullen and Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva. Dr Zhexembayeva, who has published multiple books on the topic of business reinvention, was in Dublin this week for a series of meetings and promotion events in advance of the Summit. According to a Harvard/Reinvention Academy study some 68% of leaders struggle with company reinvention; a real problem in an era of exceptional business disruption. I got a chance to interview her about some of the themes that will be explored in the Summit, to define the nature of reinvention, and to share some best-practice examples. 

Interview with founder of SkillDing, Kevin Redmond. The company aims to revolutionize the way both providers and consumers approach soft skills training. By collaborating with podcasters in the business and marketing space, the company has a SAAS system that enables listener to integrate the content from podcasts into their learning journey. #podcasting #marketingtraining #salestraining #softskills

Interview with Belinda Barker, Chief Executive of World Media Group who was speaking at the launch of their report What's Next for Content-Led Marketing

We begin by discussing what's meant by content-led marketing - essentially revolving around the story of the brand. The report is in its third year and addresses many trends in content-led marketing including the factors that respondents felt added impact and effectiveness to brand storytelling around ESG issues for international audiences. Asked to predict the most exciting trends in content-led marketing over the next two years respondents provided a fairly balanced mix of forecasts around tech platforms, formats, and creative approach. The most frequently cited trend was the continuing growth of podcasts and audio formats. Clubhouse and the rise of other online communities were mentioned – how can brands make a play in this space? The pandemic has seen events of all kinds shift online and respondents envisage a continued exploration of brand activations in this space. And there was a divergence of opinion with respondents mentioning the need to “humanify” marketing and make it more personal, and others mentioning AI generated content.

A fantastic discussion on #retailmedia on last week's show with Colin Lewis who is the leading writer on this topic, and has recently penned the WARC Retail Media Platform Primer Series -- a great range of topics covered ...What exactly do we mean by Retail Media? What is the catalyst for the explosion in Retail Media? How important is it actually in overall retail revenues? What are the brands that are taking advantage of this? Leveraging Retailer's first party data. #AmazonMarketingCloud #AmazonFlywheel #WalmartConnect #retailmedia 

Interviews from the expo area of the Dublin Tech Summit 2022 held in June 2022 at the RDS expo area in Dublin.

Although the event had continued in a virtual format, the opportunity to network face-to-face was one that the 8,000 delegates relished. There was a palpable buzz in the exhibitor halls and hospitality spaces as the attendees digested some of the content of the keynote speakers, and looked to foster linkages with potential partners and investors. The weather obliged also which helped showcase the enduring appeal of Dublin as a location for technology events. There was also a strong social dimension to the event with the city centre meet-ups giving delegates the opportunity to network long into the night.

There were several interesting Irish start-ups that caught our attention. Averil Power, co-founder of Gist, described the company’s technology which helps companies repurpose long-format video. It helps revisit corporate content to increase engagement more fully. At the core of the technology is an AI algorithm which identifies the key points and creates a bespoke video. The company was among those who made it to the last five on the start-up main-stage competition. Power’s sense of the DTS was that it did allow a good mix of meeting potential customers and investors. Another Irish start-up was recruitment specialists, Search Talent People. Established in 2019, they focus on tech companies‘ full hiring needs. Business Development manager Skai Morkeliunaite was of the view that AI, Cybersecurity and Automation were the sectors that were showing most promise at present. There was a very strong presence of international exhibitors at the event this year, testimony to its growing reputation on the European tech conference circuit. Among the exhibitors start-ups were to the fore. One such company is TravelPerk, headquartered in Barcelona. Chief Revenue Officer Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo outlined that their technology allows individuals to bypass traditional corporate travel agencies. He was able to confirm that their systems were strongly orientated around corporate compliance; they had done Series D funding and achieved unicorn status – they had been extremely aggressive in acquisitions over Covid and had grown five times. They were also of the view of business travel was changing – people are traveling less than pre-covid but more people are traveling. While the overall travel costs remained the same what was evident was that companies are exchanging office costs for travel costs – bringing them together for team-building purposes rather than the traditional road warrior purposes. He also felt that events such as Dublin Tech Summit are changing considerably with a lot of focus now on networking with more tightly defined teams in attendance than heretofore.

Mary-Rose Lyons, from Irish consulting company BrightSpark Consulting was the MC on the Horizon Stage over both days, and as such was well placed to give a reflection on the conference –she was of the view that Dublin was established in its tech-cred and an emerging eco-system. For her own business she has seen a switch from social media specific consulting to a more rounded strategic input to digital strategy. Among the first-time exhibitors this year was Guy Sear, Commercial Director of PayHawk – the first Bulgarian unicorn. This company helps management efficiency visibility and compliance in employee spend. One of the biggest problems remains visibility of spend and whether it’s in compliance with policy. Their 3% paypack system was one that offered the potential for paying for itself for some clients. He said Ireland was a market they wanted to get into, and as an exhibitor the event facilitated this.

Listen here to interviews with all the above mentioned companies. 

An extended interview with James Chappell, Global Business Director, Horwarth HTL and Global Chairman of  Horwarth HTL, John Fareed. Both men were visitors to Dublin recently and I got the chance to talk hotel market trends with them as we emerge from the worst of Covid....also in this podcast ( 19'58" ) an interview with Killian Stokes, founder of Moyee Coffee and incoming CEO of Proudly Made in Africa

In this podcast an interview with the founder of start-up in the Augmented Reality space Imvizar, Michael Guerin, plus Kevin Rowe tells me about a new outdoor light extravaganza that his company will be running in a Wexford #augmentedreality #immersivetechnology 

On 29th December I hosted the 2021 Immersive Tech Review with panelists Alan Smithson and Julie Smithson from MetaVRse and Judity Okonkwo from Imisi 3D. Our discussion was wide-ranging covering events such as new launches from Snap, Niantic, no and lo-code game engines, Microsoft Mesh, acquisitions that made headlines including Wikitude, Pico and Sketchfab, the growing participation of women in XR, hardware launches from HP, Pico and Varjo.  And of course the big story of 2021, FB morphing into Meta.... #metaverse #immersivetech #xr2021 #immersivetechnology #ar #vr

Feature interview with Mal Stevenson, former Creative Director Irish International /BBDO Dublin and David O'Sullivan, director of Ignition and Bloodychic.com where we dissect four popular Christmas adverts gracing Irish television screens this festive season: Woodies, Supervalu, Lidl and Tesco.  #christmasads #advertising #adstrategy 

In this podcast I interview Mal Stevenson who was Creative Director at Irish International when the Guinness Christmas advert was first aired in 2003. In a wide-ranging interview we discuss the creative brief behind the advert, the creative idea and execution elements of what has become one of Ireland's most-loved adverts. Thanks also to Dave O'Sullivan from Ignition for helping to set up the interview. #advertising #Christmasads #Guinnessadvertising

In this podcast we are rejoined by Kay Mc Carthy from planning agency MCCP to discuss the impact that the Covid crisis has had on consumer sentiment. We trace many of the likely implications for marketers. In part two of the podcast an interview with Finola Mc Dermott from the marketing team at EPIC in Dublin's CHQ.

On this edition of the show Dave Byrne, Head of Creative at Thinkhouse, discusses the marketing opportunities offered by the TikTok platform with a case-study on the campaign they ran on behalf of client Goodfellas for their Pizza Pockets brand. Also on the show in Part Two, an interview with author David Kerrigan about his latest book 'Unlock your Learning'. In the interview we discuss how breakthroughs in Cognitive Psychology in recent decades, coupled with unprecedented levels of access to learning opportunities, herald a new golden age of learning.

On this episode of The Persuaders -- the topic of innovation is one that we have covered numerous times on the show, but never from the perspective of philosophy. Professor Xavie Pavie, who lectures at top French business school ESSEC's Singapore campus, is an acknowledged global thinker in how companies can be more responsible in their innovation strategy, especially by framing their thinking in a philosophical way.

Prof. Pavie's contact information: www.linkedin.com/in/xavier-pavie-75a5374/

In part two of the show (19'10" ) Edel Mc Partland from the Sligo Park Hotel describes their marketing approach, as they prepare to reopen their doors to the public following a long lockdown due to Covid restrictions.

If you would like to contact us here on the show with a topic idea or some general feedback –we would love to hear from you – drop us a line persuaders@dublincityfm.ie

Keywords: #responsibleinnovation #philosophy #innovation #ESSEC 

Presenter: Alex Gibson
Producer: Kamila Lewandowska

In this edition of the show, we have as interviewees: Damian Young, founder and CEO of ZEUS Scooters - an Irish company deploying the World's FIRST 3-​wheeled electric scooter for the urban mobility sharing market. Launched in the city of Heidelberg in Germany in June 2020, ZEUS Scooters has expanded to 17 cities in Germany, making it the fastest expanding Micro Mobility company in Germany.

We are also joined by Ciaran Fitzpatrick the founder of Cookie Dó, which is part of Aldi's Grow with Aldi programme. Cookie Dó was founded in the kitchen of Irish speaking 'Aon Scéal Café', in Tallaght Village Dublin. They spent 2020 perfecting the cookie and coming up with new and unique flavours.

Presenter: Alex Gibson
Producer: Kamila Lewandowska

In this podcast, ecommerce expert Vinny O'Brien of Vinny & Co. discusses: how Covid has shaped retailers' ecommerce capability and to understand if this has created winners and losers? What are the types of issues that retailers typically need to address in their ecommerce strategy?

What are the skill-sets required to really manage e-commerce - Vinny points to Shopify as being innovative in this respect, and we discuss how to maximise the online customer experience to mirror the retail one.

In part two of the podcast, Damian O'Reilly from School of Retail and Services Management, TU Dublin,  reflects on the role that AR and VR technologies will play in retail.

In this episode of The Persuaders, we talk to Ray Sheerin who founded the Chemistry advertising agency about the need for advertisers to be prepared to take risks in their creative strategy. We discuss IPA research that points to award winning work effectiveness being on the decline.

Plus, Pearse Keller from KelAir Campotel discusses how his company has had to seek new markets as Covid decimated their Irish holiday segment.

The CXi Report is published annually by The CX Company which is based in Dublin. It is based on an annual survey which is carried out on behalf of the company, by Amarách Research.

Between the 13th July to 17th August this year a cross section of 2,500 Irish consumers were asked about their customer experiences with 151 brands across ten sectors.

In this podcast Alex Gibson interviews the founder of The CX Company, Michael Killeen. As well as discussing the CXi Report there is a wide ranging discussion on the place of CX in today's business world and the impact of COVID on CX activity

In this episode an interview with Jennifer Condon and Adam Fulham, founders of The Irish Start-up Conference, taking place online on Tuesday 27th April 2021.

In addition to the content of the conference we discussed:

How has the Covid impacted on start-ups? Issue of scaling up seems to be important - how can small businesses plan for this? And what is of interest for the marketing audience in particular. We discuss how the conference has evolved and its interesting structure build to accommodate a significant US speaker input.

Presenter: Alex Gibson
Producer: Kamila Lewandowska

In this edition, we talk the co-founders of The Indie List, Una Herlihy and Peter Mc Partlin. The Indie List promises to bring together the best strategic, creative and technical skills in Ireland for the benefit of businesses and agencies seeking meet the demands of a fast-evolving business environment with maximum flexibility, efficiency and impact.

In Part 2 of the show, Diarmuid O'Riordan from Braveherders.ie discusses how they are leveraging digital marketing strategies to boost sales of beef from a rare Irish native breed- the Dexter.

Presenter: Alex Gibson
Producer: Kamila Lewandowska

In Part 1 of this Podcast, an interview with Belinda Barker, Chief Executive of World Media Group about their recently produced research report and survey on Content Led Marketing trends.

Among the topics we explored are: How do you define content led advertising? How many years has the survey been running? How has proportion on content-led advertising changed since last survey in 2020? We also explore the issue of brand safety --what exactly is brand safety in this context? And we preview the World Media Awards which are now accepting entries.

In Part 2 of the podcast, starting at 17 minutes in, I talked with leading marketing author and consultant, Thomas Barta. Thomas is one of the world's foremost thinkers, speakers and writers on the subject of marketing leadership. A former McKinsey partner, he co-authored the path-breaking leadership book 'The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader' and has consulted for some of the world's most prominent brands. In our interview we explore how marketers can build their leadership capabilities among other C-suite executives.

Thomas has a number of practical suggestions to do this. We also discuss the popular Marketing Leadership Masterclass that has begun to run in an e-learning format. marketingleadershipmasterclass.com/

Presenter: Alex Gibson
Producer: Kamila Lewandowska

In Part 1 of this edition of The Persuaders, an interview with Aidan Duff who is an expert in Amazon Selling. We explore the systems that are needed to take advantage of the digital marketplace, and in Part 2, John Dunne, CEO of Ignite Digital examines the changing nature of the digital advertising landscape including the challenges posed by the imminent demise of cookies.

With more than 50% of expenditure on advertising now going on digital, we explore the need this creates for strategic digital media planning.

Presenter: Alex Gibson
Producer: Kamila Lewandowska

In this episode of The Persuaders, a feature interview with Dr. Alex Gordon, founder of Sign Salad, an agency specialising in semiotic analysis.

Alex Gordon has worked as a semiotician for 20 years and has led cultural insight projects across five continents for global blue-chip brands such as Unilever, PepsiCo, Airbnb, Ritz-Carlton, Diageo, Kraft Heinz, HSBC, Danone, Pfizer, Colgate Palmolive, Kellogg's, Nestlé.

Prior to founding Sign Salad in 2007, he established the semiotics & cultural insight division at Flamingo, a strategic brand consultancy and qualitative research agency.

We began the interview by tracing Alex's career pathway which culminated in his establishing Sign Salad, before discussing how semiotics fits into the broader market research landscape today. Alex discusses how cultural change impacts on unconscious consumer behaviour and attitude to brands, and how marketers can gain greater control over brand meaning by using the right visuals and language across touchpoints. Several practical insights are drawn from examples in the tea, coffee and fast-fashion markets.

In this episode of The Persuaders, Alex Gibson talks to Marketing Institute of Ireland Chief Executive David Field, in advance of the annual DMX marketing conference which takes place on March 25th, and Martha Kearns, from Storylab.ie talks about the role storytelling can play in developing brands.

In this episode of the show, an extended interview with Paul Dervan, author of Run With Foxes - must-read collection of real-life stories, revealing the messy reality of decision-making in marketing and the secrets of making better decisions.

In the interview Paul gives his insights gleaned from 20 years in marketing, working for high-profile brands, creating new ones and helping to rescue those that have got in trouble.

Interview with Brid O'Connell, CEO, Guaranteed Irish about the launch of Guaranteed Irish Gifts to encourage more Irish consumers to shop local.

Show hosted by Ronan Kinahan with guest Niall Corcoran from Atomic

A special radio show and podcast from the Phocuswright Europe conference held in Dublin in May 2016. In the radio studio I am joined by Santina Donogue from Unravel, Conor Galvin from Golf Voyager and Nicky Kelly from Surfholidays. In addition at the end of the show there are several interviews with participants from the conference including Stephen Kaufer, CEO of Tripadvisor.

In this podcast we are joined by Conor Lynch and Evan Adrial from Connector who give us a series of tips in using the Instagram tools as marketing tools. 

Plus an interview with Vincent Forde, winner of the Accenture Ireland Leaders of Tomorrow completion, along with some of the other finalists.

In this special preview of Phocuswrite Europe we talk to Tony D'Astolfo from Phocuswrite about this year's conference theme: Europe 2016: Unsettled Yet Undaunted. Europe's economic issues – a fragile and uneven recovery, high unemployment, lagging consumer spending, weak tax revenues – and geopolitical conflicts are having a major impact on Europe's travel landscape.

Live in studio I'm joined Kevin O'Shaughnessy, founder of Indigo and on the telephone by Charlie Osmond from Triptease.

In advance of the forthcoming ARVR Innovate Conference and Expo taking place in Dublin on April 28th we interview speaker and panel chair James Dearsley from The Digital Marketing Bureau. We discuss the impact of AR and VR technology on the real estate and construction sectors.

Also live in-studio I interview Ronan Jennings and Laura Halpin from Havas Worldwide Dublin’s team who have just been announced as Ireland's representatives in the film category of the Cannes Young Lions competition, as part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2016.

Finally there is an interview with Oisin Brown, who is a former binman and who is celebrating the launch of his second book ‘The Binman’s Guide to Marketing’ this week. After the success of Oisin’s first book ‘The Binman’s Guide to Selling’ which climbed to No. 3 in the Amazon Bestseller list in 2013, Oisin has launched a collection of Top marketing inspirations & ideas from branding, social media, PR and digital marketing to traditional media that will help business owners and marketers increase sales.

https://soundcloud.com/dcfm-1032/the-persuaders-1st-april-2016?in=dcfm-1032/sets/the-persuaders-1

In this podcast a first look at this year's ARVR Innovate Conference taking place on 28 April in Dublin's Croke Park Conference Centre.

Speaker are Yoni Nevo- Founder and CEO of AR Retail Specialists Cimagie and founder of iTagged, Keith Jordan.

In this feature interview with the founder of Adforce, Colm Geary, we explore a wide range of issues impacting on digital advertising today including:

What's been happening with Adforce in the past year: the company recently penned a deal with NYPS for digital ad services for 750 newspapers in New York .

Adforce also signed a significant deal with Triton Digital Audio Advertising which will cover the rapidly expanding area of audio streaming. 

We also explore...

- The digital advertising landscape and how it's evolving: how media organisations are bringing a collective offering to advertisers with wider reach and premium content.
- Adforce's end-to-end service and how ad agencies and advertisers are responding
- Trends in Digital Audio advertising: how it is the 'next frontier' in advertising, the opportunities for the radio industry, the ad formats you can deliver, the captive audience and stats around the audience for digital audio

In this podcast there are interviews conducted at the AAI Toolkit Seminar on How traditional media is embracing new technologies for advertising and marketing. The event was held at Core Media.

Interviewed were  Gráinne Dilleen – Kinetic and Emer Moran – The Irish Times, and I was joined by telephone by Su Duff, Head of Business Development at AAI

Kevin Branigan, CEO of Radio NOVA 100.3FM is also interviewed by me at the start of the show profiling the Radiothon that the station are hosting on the 18th and 19th of February.

In this podcast an interview with Joe ???? Head Brewer at the White Hag Brewery in Ballymote, Co. Sligo.

And from Cong, Co.Mayo I am joined by Eoin Kennedy, founder of ConnGregation 2015 celebrating its third year.

In this podcast an interview with Eoin Wrixton from Wide Eye Media about trends in the cinema advertising market, and cinema formats generally. Among the topics discussed with Eoin are:

Plus Eimear Faughnan from Kantar Media is in studio to discuss some of their recent research in the following areas:

Retail and Christmas Shopping; how the discounters are holding market position, what's happening to online shopping versus 2014, planning cycles for Christmas, and gifting patterns across various demographic categories.

Websummit 2015 saw over 40,000 delegates converge on Dublin's RDS conference centre to hear web visionaries, promote their start-up business and generally enjoy the famed Irish hospitality.

In this podcast a series of interviews conducted at the event including:

Shadow Technologies - user review data aggregation ( 1'00")

KNOQ - content delivery platform - location specific ( 3'40" )

UniTuition - connecting students with tutor (6'45")

9Sharp - making the CV redundant (9'40")

Meeting Mole - B2B communications (12'45")

@Eventerprise - creating a marketplace in the events sector (14'50")

Vagoo - premium secure video content platform with analytics (21'55")

Modern Democracy - enabling software for electoral professionals (23'35")

StartPlanet- non-profit organisation supported by Invest Northern Ireland (25'45")

Creative Inc rebranded one of Ireland’s leading estate agents Gunne Residential to Quillsen. Starting with the name, the project involved the design of an identity system for all communications material from external signage and displays to the full spectum of printware and advertising. In the podcast we talk to director of Creative Inc Niall Corcoran...among the topics discussed were: What was the strategic issue behind the decision to rebrand?How long was the process and what were the challenges to communicate this internally, and how did you address this?

Also there is a report from the recent HSMAI Europe Marketing conference held in the Gresham Hotel Dublin. Interviewed are Lennert de Jong from innovators in the hotel sector, Citizen M, and Ingunn Hofseth from HSMAI Europe talks about a number of initiatives the organisation is undertaking.

Finally Conor Lynch from Connector 360 reviews this year's Huawei Instagram Snapys awards - rewarding excellence in Instagram imagery and marketing.

This weekend saw the eyes of the Irish nation turn to Cardiff for the quarterfinal clash between Ireland and Argentina in the Rugby World Cup.

There can’t be many tougher sports than rugby, with its high impacts and fast pace… …but despite the aggression on display on the pitch rugby is also renowned as being a sport where there is great banter between opposing fans at the game, and increasingly social media is playing a growing part in the sport’s success.

Discussing the issues involved in building and managing conversations around this Rugby World Cup were:

Jim Kelly from O’Connor and Kelly.ie

Janet Gunner  Managing Director MMR International

Lisa Couzens Marketing Director MMR International

In September 2015, Irish telecoms company, Eircom officially unveiled a new name for the group in a rebranding exercise costing €16m.

The change of name to Eir marked the largest rebranding exercise in 20 years in Ireland. The change in name marks another new phase in the firm's chequered past, which includes multiple changes in ownership, a phase of examinership and a controversial flotation on the stock market. In studio to discuss the issues involved in this particular case, and the broader range of strategic issues in a corporate rebranding exercise I am joined by Pat Kinsley from Neworld Associates. One of the original Brand Thinkers in Ireland, Pat has spend the last 28 years extolling the virtues of branding as an essential commercial device.

The  Allianz 2015 Business to Arts Awards programme saw a 25% increase in nominations, with projects valued over €10m put forward for consideration. The 24th annual Allianz Business to Arts Awards took place on 1 September at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, attended by over 500 arts and business leader

To discuss the role of the awards, and some of the broader issues in arts business relationship I was joined in studio by three guests….

Andrew Hetherington, Chief Executive, Business to Arts

Damien O’Neill, Group Marketing Director, Allianz Ireland the title sponsors

Bernardine Maloney, Corporate Communications and Public Relations at ESB – who were the inaugural winners of the Portfolio of Sponsorships category.

In this podcast an interview with Aer Lingus Director of Communication Declan Kearney about the launch of a revamped Aerlingus.com website. The new site includes an explore tool, best fare finder, personalization options, booking management, online check-in and a price-lock that will allow you to hold your flight with just a deposit. The website is part of a new brand repositioning which launched in Spring 2015 “Smarts Flies Aer Lingus,”.

Post-recession ? is this being felt in sponsorship

In this podcast I am joined by Lorcan Lynch from DataXcel , Ann Marie Dunny from Microsoft, and Dave O'Sullivan from Ignition. We talk about about the resurgence/renaissance of DM, what’s changed, the central importance of data to off-line and on-line marketing, lower postal volumes but increased frequency due to better targeting and segmentation of data etc. Also how DM and Digital are ideal partners. We also preview the forthcoming IDMA Conference Loyalty: Show me the Love  which takes place on October 1, 2015.

In this podcast I am joined by Gerard Tannam from Islandbridge Brand Direction and Ross Good from Pubble.co

We explore the branding challenges for a SME Pubble.co who provide a website based messaging service. Gerard offers his insights into how the company can build a brand in the challenging context of scaling up a tech business.

In the run in to Dublin hosting the ESOMAR Congress, this podcast an interview with founder of Catalyst Market Research Dan Mc Guinness. In our discussion we touch on many issue relating to the modern market research sector.Re-positioning of MR - more contemporary discussion on Insights - what is meant by this?
Technology - lots of new tools -  Qual and Quant perspectives --- the tend to allow fast reporting, but is this at the expense of strategic insight ever?
Big Data - huge hype around it -- what are the opportunitiies for MR companies - existing players or are we going to see new entrants?

Is there a trend for companies to do more in-house analysis using the new tools available --- threat or opportunity?

Qual and Quant - differences, how they complement each other
Qualitiative Research trends.