The concept of advisory panels is based on the belief that your best consultants are your customers: the people who interact with your category, products and services everyday. This is still a relatively new research arena but there is no doubt that Consumer Advisory Panels represent a key part of the future of consumer insight. Youthography is proud to have played a pioneering role in the development of this exciting new world of research.
At the heart of Consumer Advisory Panels is the notion of ongoing, target-based input into the day-to-day decision-making and planning of marketing professionals; getting your younger consumers into the boardroom metaphysically or, as has happened with a number of our clients, physically.
This insight and input can be delivered to our clients in whatever way and whatever timing suits their needs; short term for, say, a product innovation or brand extension exercise with weekly exercises, or a longer term panel that lasts a year with reporting monthly or bi-weekly.
Same wide open customization is available in terms of what type or what size of panel suits a clientÕs particular needs. Currently, we run a wide variety of panels ranging from tight groups of very active and engaged young consumers to panels that span the continent with proprietary panels populated by well over 1000 young North Americans.
As with well nigh all our research and strategy offerings, Youthography will custom design a panel methodology dedicated exclusively to you. Youthography will recruit a select group of teens and/or young adults to match your specific needs to be on call for regular assignments and feedback opportunities. These are usually posted online (using engaging and proprietary online hubs)but often involve a huge diversity of assignments not necessarily conducted online; from meetings with the client to mystery shopping exercises and webcam exercises Ð the sky is the limit!
Key benefits derived from running a Youth Advisory Panel include:
ACCESS AND EFFECIENCY
The greatest value an advisory panel offers is the ability to mobilize opinion around a brand or organization for fast response and research. Direct access to a panel through online communication allows for very quick turnarounds on tactical research or where directional feedback may need to be solicited ASAP. While advisory panels don't replace all other forms of research, they can help narrow the focus of subsequent studies so that they are more reliable, fast and accurate.
CURRENT, REAL INFORMATION
By retaining these members on an ongoing basis and creating a context whereby they are rewarded, the incentive to provide quality feedback is heightened. Online forums especially allow young people to communicate in a manner that is essentially second nature. The ability to capture written feedback rather than verbal responses very often results in richer, more thoughtful results. The longer-term value of such a panel is that over the course of a year's worth of involvement (which is as long we will retain one specific panel) the panel members learn about the brand, the category and the client and become more adept at responding to its needs. This is particularly the case for tighter and smaller panels but the principles remain the same no matter how large the panels get.
FLEXIBILITY
Based on objectives, the panel can be focused on one brand, many brands or an entire company. Feedback can be engaged on many different levelsÑfrom product development to creative communications to promotions to retail distribution. Depending on the size of the panel, research can be focused in a range of areas: from guiding the re-creation of a brand (e.g. an ideation session) to compiling statistics on a particular market (e.g. a survey). Panels can also exist as potent avenues for up-to-the-minute cultural trending feedback loops providing government as well as the media and entertainment industries with the type of information they need to keep their initiatives and offerings completely current and well focused.