Schedule At A Glance

• Warwick Allerton Hotel's - M Avenue Restaurant
• Open bar + hors d'oeuvres

• Full breakfast
• Registration

Welcome!

Speaker: Cassini Nazir, University of North Texas

Curiosity is powerful. Research tells us it has the power to enhance intelligence and increase perseverance. Being curious propels us to deeper engagement, superior performance, and more meaningful goals. How can we be more curious? Is it possible to invite others to be curious as well? We will explore a framework for designing curiosity. This session will give you an orientation to the strange, fascinating, and fragile phenomenon of being curious. Together, we will tackle these three topics:

• Defining curiosity: What is curiosity, and how does it manifest? We will learn the five faces of curiosity and — more importantly — what kind of curious you are.
• Producing curiosity: Humans can naturally produce curiosity—the question is, how? We discover the emotions that yield the by-product of curiosity and learn the ways in which curiosity may germinate.
• Inviting curiosity: How might we design ways to invite curiosity? We’ll look at a framework for inviting curiosity in your next design effort. 

Speaker: Rita Chen

As the destination marketing organization (DMO) for Chicago, Choose Chicago's mission is to bring visitors - business or leisure - to our city for the economic benefit of our members and community. But what happens when you introduce a disruptor like the pandemic that shuts down travel? The pandemic changed everything, including travel, the way people travel, their attitudes and behaviors around travel, especially around populated urban areas. It was time for us to reassess our audiences and find high-potential visitors during recovery. This session will discuss the research behind our audience segmentation study, key insights, and implications for our advertising strategy.

• Announce 15-min break and raffle + charity and sell raffle tickets
• Snack: chips and pretzels

Speaker: Frankie Lipinski

The Insights Association IDEA Council, in partnership with 11 research partners, has groundbreaking research to share on how (and when) to ask demographic questions on race and ethnicity in a more inclusive and sensitive way. This research assesses 10 different race and ethnicity identity question formats that are currently used in marketing research studies, customer satisfaction surveys, and panel membership surveys. In this presentation, we will share recommendations on industry standards for inclusive question formats that survey participants feel accurately reflect their identity, as well as how and when to use these questions in sample design.

Speaker: Kevin Davis

"What does it mean for an organization to be diverse and inclusive? What sacrifices and commitments must be made for the betterment of the organization? Learn actionable ways to begin transforming your organization into a more diverse and inclusive one, starting with the marketing department."

Lunch buffet

Speaker: Stacy Byers

Learn more about how Highmark Health is using what they learned from game design to create remarkable customer experiences. Leveraging key insight-driven tools like archetypes and mental models, Highmark is finding new ways to understand human behavior, motivation, and expectations in order to design a system that better meets customer needs and expectations. Critical to this transformation is applying systems thinking approach to manage insights and scale the availability and use of research in a large, complex health care insurance and delivery organization.

Speaker: Karen Kraft

It’s easy for brand managers to quickly get into the tactical weeds during annual planning. In order to help their brand and innovation teams think more strategically while developing new 5-year plans, the Johnsonville Consumer Insights and MarCom Teams partnered up to develop a unique brand planning kickoff event. In this session you’ll learn how this event grounded the entire marketing team in key strategic insights, while also educating key internal cross-functional and external vendor partners.

• Raffle tickets
• Cookies and brownies

Speaker: DesTenee Green

How do we ensure that an inclusive mindset is embedded throughout our evaluation methodologies? Representation does not simply mean checking a box. There is a responsibility to better understand our diverse consumers, adapt our methodologies to promote equitable research, and learn how diverse insights shape the work we do.

Beer, wine, and appetizers provided

Power breakfast

Welcome remarks - 

Speaker: Tchicaya Robertson, Accenture

With more than 20 years of corporate research experience, Dr. Robertson’s primary focus is on customer experience measurement. She has co-developed and applied a data-driven approach to experience measurement that is changing the way companies think about the interactions they create with their customers. An expert in quantitative methods, Tchicaya’s expertise includes advanced statistical modeling, analysis, and survey-based research. Prior to Accenture, Dr. Robertson was the Research Director for two lottery agencies overseeing all organizational and marketing research, including user testing, concept testing, employee surveys, customer segmentation, in-depth interviews, customer needs analysis, and new product development.

Speaker: Steve Wierdak

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) is an international orthopedic organization with approximately 39,000 members. The Academy provides education and practice management services for orthopedic surgeons and allied health professionals. Over the past five years, the survey response rates for their Member Value & Satisfaction survey have steadily declined, and Academy leadership was concerned that the "customer voice" was not being heard. In 2021, the AAOS Membership Council, a governing body of volunteer members, initiated a workgroup to evaluate the MVAS Survey and address steadily declining survey response rates. Based on that evaluation, the Academy did something unconventional and retained an ad agency to create a campaign around bolstering the survey response rates to ensure that the customer's voice was being heard. Learn what tactics and creative communications were employed to increase survey response, ultimately tripling it from the prior year. 

• Last chance for raffle tickets
• Announce short 15-minute break and hotel check-out time
• Mixed nuts and granola bars

Speaker: Brooke Reavey

One trend in the marketplace is to move insights work away from vendors and bring it in-house instead. Some firms have created an Insights Engine that houses primary and secondary data, while others rely on DIY software that requires on-the-job training. Finally, others are using third-party vendors for select jobs. This session will cover the current trends, benefits, and detriments of each style.

Boxed lunch

Speaker: Coming Soon

Speaker: Terrae Schroeder

Examining the say-do gap between sustainability and affordability. This talk will explore how consumers feel about these two areas and what to do when the needs seem to diverge. We will explore how to create meaningful consumer value, close the say-do gap on sustainability and share out-of-the-box ways to uncover insights that reveal consumers' true motivations.

Raffle, wrap up, and final announcements