At Angelfish Opinions, one of the things we pride ourselves on most is the people in our team and the relationships we build with our participants – we believe it’s something that really sets us apart as a market research agency with a difference! As we know so much about you, we thought it was only fair that you have the chance to get to know us a bit better too – so please allow us to introduce our “Five minutes with” series of blogs. Each time, we’ll grab (you guessed it!) five minutes with a member of the Angelfish Opinions team and ask them a few questions so you can find out a bit more about what makes our wonderful team tick. So first up, let’s kick things off with our Head of Consumer Research, Kelly Barnard…
Why did you decide to pursue a career in market research?
I studied Social Sciences (BSc) at Cardiff University and have always had a fascination with psychology and understanding people. I originally wanted to pursue a career in the Probation Service as I had a real interest in criminology, however, after deciding against this I happened to come across a role within market research recruitment and I’ve never looked back! After starting out with Gillian Kenny Associates who specialise in healthcare market research, I learnt a great deal about the importance of quality and accuracy within recruitment by working to very specific briefs for large pharma clients. When Angelfish Fieldwork and Angelfish Opinions was created a few years later, I jumped at the opportunity to lead project delivery and found that working in market research is definitely where my heart lies!
What’s your favourite part of the job?
As cliche as this might sound, for me, it really is the people! Whether it’s interesting respondents who brighten your day just by speaking to them or being able to have a good chat and a joke with our lovely clients, the people are the thing that makes this job so special. I’m also really lucky to be surrounded by a like-minded and equally enthusiastic team. We always joke in the office that it’s like some kind of vortex and we don’t know where the time goes each day – obviously because we are having so much fun!
Tell us about an interesting project you’ve recently worked on and why you enjoyed it
We’ve been running a client list project recently for a large retailer who is looking for a small number of respondents to be the face of their AV/computing campaigns for their website/social. This required a complex, multi-stage recruitment process as we needed really specific respondents who were very confident and relaxed on camera that would represent the different categories well. Part of the recruitment process was managing and reviewing video applications of the respondents chatting and giving a room tour in their home; the response was incredible and I must admit I teared up a few times watching the videos as I felt so privileged to be watching this insight into their lives and how amazing it was that they were so happy to share it with us!
What about a challenge you’ve recently faced and how you solved it?
Recently, a lovely client of ours came to us with a challenge concerning a charity Market Research Onlne Community (MROC) we were recruiting for. They were incredibly busy with a number of different staff on holidays, so they needed extra help moderating and reviewing the content on the MROC to ensure the respondents were correctly answering all the tasks. We came up with the solution that Angelfish would take on increased responsibility for engagement management; this involved reviewing all respondent posts daily and being able to probe where necessary to ensure all the questions were answered adequately. For this to be feasible, we worked with our client to ensure the team fully understood both the objective of the study and each task. The result was 95% engagement out of a sample of N=60 over 17 days which was absolutely fantastic!
What are your professional goals for the next year?
To continue to develop and grow the team, to attend more industry events and keep my finger on the pulse with the latest news in working in market research by watching more webinars and reading more blogs and industry magazines such as Impact and In Brief.
And how about the next market research industry trend?
There’s been a lot of debate in the last year about AI, the threat to the qualitative industry and whether the advance of AI makes the human contribution redundant – a scary prospect that ‘quallies’ everywhere have obviously been fighting against! I hope to see a new trend emerge whereby instead of pitting them against each other we can focus on how the two can complement one another as I’m a true believer that human interpretation and relationships cannot be replaced – especially when it comes to working in market research!
Quickfire round
Tea or coffee? Coffee
Winter or summer? Summer
Cat person or dog person? Both, but as I have a cat I’ll go with that!
Heels or flats? Flats for sure! Although years of sensible dead flat shoes have now given me collapsed arches and swollen ankles – how unfair!
Favourite film? Oh lord, probably Disney’s Cinderella – the opening music alone makes me cry and wish I was five years old again!
Favourite song? ‘Africa’ by Toto – an absolute tune that never gets old!
Who inspires you and why? That’s a really hard question because different people inspire me in different ways every day! If I had to pick someone who has shaped me and I continue to aspire to in life, though, it would be my late Godmother. After suddenly being widowed at age 48, she devoted the rest of her life to helping others through voluntary work and chairing numerous clubs and committees. The ultimate testament to creating positives out of a pretty life-changing negative!
Thanks, Kelly! Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we introduce all of our team – next up we’ll spend five minutes with our Project Manager Jade.
Until then, why not take a look at our current paid market research projects and see if there’s anything you’d like to get involved in or sign up to be on our panel below? From Accompanied Shops to Focus Groups, Online Communities to in-home interviews and more, there’s something for everyone – and some great incentives for taking part, too!
