ESOMAR Congress 2023 - Powering Up through Day Two

Despite a full house at the Heineken Experience the night before, attendees at this year’s Congress showed up bright and early for day two of Congress. North American delegates, the third largest contingency at this year’s event, started their day out with a networking breakfast at the venue. On the stage, the day got off to a strong start with the Research Got Talent Competition 2023.

One of the morning’s tracks was focused on the Metaverse, providing fascinating use cases for conducting market research in the virtual world, such as evaluating product packaging in a "meta mini-market" and an examination of methodology effectiveness. We also heard about how to measure the impact of augmented reality on shopper behaviours and how this technology fits into the sustainability conversation.

In the afternoon, several of our speakers tackled the complexity of researching the youngest generations, including the not-to-be-pigeon-holed Gen Z, plus the critical role that empathy plays in market research, social and emotional topics, and much more. The breadth and depth of topics presented on stage illustrated the multi-layered challenges researchers face in achieving human understanding and the web of influences, behaviours, circumstances, context and other variables that must be considered when seeking insights. 

While all three of our stages were filled with the exchange of knowledge, sharing of inspiration and some of the most innovative projects in research today, we’d be remiss not to mention one of our most popular aspects of the conference: our on-site arcade. With old-school gaming style, our video game consoles provided the perfect place to chill during the non-stop action of the conference. There has also been a fierce Pac-Man competition to win the Infotools “Spacies to Think” console, which the lucky winner will get to take back to their office or home! 

We closed out the main stage with presentations from some of our award finalists, as well as the announcement of winners in several of our annual awards categories. Our YES! Award winners were revealed as: Catherine Wertz from SKIM The Netherlands (Gold); Valere Demelier, Insights Analyst, Nepa (Silver); and Harita Rawat, Research Executive, Ipsos, India (Bronze).

Our Research Effectiveness Awards were announced, honoring impactful projects of the insights and analytics community that made a huge impact on the end users. They were:

Gold winner: 
Owning Inspiration

• Daron Sharps - Pinterest

• Martyn Hill - Firefish

Silver winner: 
An Innovative Approach to Employee Experience

• Laurie Hibbs - Judo Bank

• Garreth Chandler, Ben Griffiths - The Evolved Group

Bronze winner: 
How an Agile Community Approach Supported the Transition from Uncle Ben's to Ben's Original

• Katie Kaylor - Mars Food

• Patricia van der Hart - Human8

We also honoured our tireless and much-appreciated ESOMAR Representatives with a special “off-script” moment featuring all of our current and past reps joining our Director General on stage. ESOMAR couldn’t do what we do without them! This year’s honorees are:

• “The Pioneer” ESOMAR Representative Award 2023: Zahia Boumaiz and John Presutti, United Arab Emirates

• “The Connector” ESOMAR Representative Award 2023: Dan Fleetwood, United States

• “Outstanding” ESOMAR Representative Award 2023: Dr. Josiah Ebhomenye, Nigeria

ESOMAR Congress delegates then travelled to the famous Fabrique des Lumières for a spectacular evening against an immersive backdrop of art, music and technology. The stunning display was an experience in itself, as art was brought to life all around us - and we, of course, ended the evening with a DJ and some fairly intense dance moves.