MRS Analytics Spotlight: Kate Clarke
24 July 2024

Interview with Kate Clarke - This month's MRS Analytics Spotlight
Authored by Alex Maddox, Senior Partner at DataTile. 

Kate has over twenty years’ experience of client-side market research working in established companies and start-ups, digital first and disrupted industries. She has worked extensively with marketing, content, advertising and product teams

She takes great joy in interrogating business problems, needs, levers, audiences and markets to really develop projects that deliver excellent value across the whole business from marketing, to product, sales to C-Suite.

What is your current role?

I have just launched an Insights consultancy Clarke 21, working fractionally for growth companies and on larger projects for bigger clients. Prior to this I’ve got 20+ years’ experience in Client-side Insights, principally Market Research across Media and Fintech 

How did you start in the market research industry?

I had a false start in Direct Marketing, before working out that I really wanted to influence strategy through arming the business with great information about people, markets and trends.  And found my way to Strategic Planning / Research.

What attracted you to work in market research?

I joke that it’s because I’m nosey. But fundamentally we see business ideas fail because companies don’t quite understand people or markets. I love bringing these elements together with a knowledge of business operations/pressures to influence strategy and create value).

What’s the role of data analytics or data science for research purposes within your Company?

As Research has got more technical both have been instrumental in offering support where I’ve hit my limits of tech knowledge.  E.g. Data scientists have checked suggested models from research agencies, analytics have helped me fuse panel research to browsing data for hybrid segmentations. Additionally, they’ve ‘sense checked’ findings and provided solid ‘always on’ understanding of digital consumers.  Likewise, Research has helped give them both broader consumer and market context, and helped sense check / provide input to training ML models.  I believe they have to work hand in glove.   

Have you seen a shift in the nature of market research during your career?

The technical challenges have absolutely evolved since the early noughties (qual vs quant, maybe an online panel). But over the last decade embracing disruption has become ‘normal’ especially in data rich environments where innovation has been strong (aided by Advanced Analytics and Data Science). This can cause challenges as the teams have different perspectives, metrics, definitions and reporting lines, which can confuse.  We have to be much smarter at collaboration.  

However, at our core the industry remains true to its values; robust, strategic, curious, critical and all about creating value.  We still care regardless of methodology good questions are asked, to the right people and results distilled into something impactful.

How do you see advanced data analytics (and perhaps even machine learning/AI) impacting your business in the future?

I think AI will be a substantial disruptor, offer opportunities for better insights / delivery and require robust management.  It is easy to catastrophise and lament the end of Insights professions and some businesses will undoubtedly go this way. As an industry we will have to evolve to ensure we add value to the tools; bridge insights, contextualise, experiment to identify opportunities, understand the workings of the models (to advise what will work) and advocate for ‘good AI’ tools. I.e. be human, creative and additive in the face of a reductive technology, use our robustness and experience to interrogate the output, to weed out hallucinations and input to the training.

Why is it important research uses data analytics/science in your opinion?

Data analytics and data science have a different perspective than research does. Research is great at big picture stuff (ideas, motivations, values, how’s and why’s). Analytics / data science is amazing at going super deep, relatively narrowly, on your site or other sites that allow access to their data. Bringing these perspectives together can hugely add value, and negate weaknesses. But really, working together is fun, challenging and critical if you are interested in innovative methodologies or work in a data rich industry.

Have the research questions that your clients bring to you changed over time? Have the solutions changes?

The questions, not so much, it’s still about how to monetise and grow.  It still requires a decent amount of probing and discussion and a solid understanding of the business to get to a decent brief.  The solutions are vastly different as the way to get to answers (especially in the digital space) have flourished.

What are the key benefits and challenges of data science/advanced analytics being used in market research?

The key benefit is the different perspectives and skills, which together can generate a step change in how we approach what we can learn about people, trends and markets.  The key challenge is often that there’s a ‘them and us mentality’ that encourages the misperception that one approach / skill set is ‘better’ or more truthful.  All insight approaches (Research, Analytics, Data Science, CX, UX) have pros and cons, and a siloed attitude is a huge barrier to good collaboration and better insights.