PANEL DISCUSSION

Connecting with hard- to reach- people
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moderator:
Pravin Shekar, The Social Catalyst, India

Panel:
Brian Fine, Australia Online Research, Australia
Henry Gazay, Medimix, USA
Tom Kojima, Interface Asia, Japan
Namita Mediratta, Unilever, Singapore
Richard Thornton, CINT, UK

So much talk about Online, Offline, Web 2.0, Mobile – but are we talking to the right people?
• How do we connect with the hard-to-reach segment? Are they available for research?
• What constitutes a right approach?
• How can we use different motivation factors to reach different types of demographics?

This session is important for both clients and agencies and covers B2C, B2B and the social sector; the responses shall assist in soliciting opinions from the right audience which will directly aid key decision making.

PRESENTERS

Pravin Shekar

Pravin Shekar has been in the research domain for the last 15 years. He is a startup specialist and has successfully incubated companies and steered them towards significant growth.

His passion lies in pushing the boundaries of research and leveraging technology in this quest. A speaker with strong communication skills, Pravin has presented at several international conferences.

Tom Kojima

Brian Fine

Brian Fine is Adjunct Professor Business School, University of Technology, Sydney [UTS], CEO of Australia Online Research, founder and previous Chairman of AMR Interactive and The ORU, ESOMAR Representative for Australia, fellow of Australia Market Research Society, QPMR accredited, an Honorary Life Fellow of the International Marketing Institute of Australia, and past President of AMSRO,AMSRS and CAMSA.

Brian was awarded “best paper” at 2009 AMSRS Conference, and nominated for “best paper” at 2006 ESOMAR Panel Conference and has been a frequent speaker at previous ESOMAR APAC Conferences, Congress and Panel Conferences

Henry Gazay

Henry is CEO and founder of Medimix International. Henry graduated from École Centrale Lyon with a specialization in data-processing and statistics and completed a post grad program at EM Lyon (MBA). For more than 20 years, he has been working exclusively in pharmaceutical marketing research and has managed more than 500 surveys & missions in more than 60 countries around the world.

Henry is an active member of PBIRG, EphMRA, ESOMAR, ABEP and LES in the Americas, China marketing Research Association in Asia, and AMA. In 1999 he was appointed EEC expert to assess community investment programs in top 12 Europe. He is also Conseiller du Commerce Extérieur de la France – Pharmaceutical Sector (appointment of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs).

Henry is trilingual in English/French/Spanish, fluent in Portuguese and conversant in German.

Namita Mediratta

Namita Mediratta is Regional CMI Director – Hair Care (Asia), Unilever Pte., Singapore. Namita is an Instrumentation Engineer, with a Masters in International Business. She started her career with Unilever and has ten years of experience across a wide range of Product Categories including Ice Cream, Coffee, Oral Care, and confectionery across most geographies in APAC. While heading Regional CMI for Oral Care, Asia from Indonesia, she has led a lot of pioneering work globally on behavior change measurement for Unilever.

Richard Thornton

Richard has over 10 years experience in consultancy, operations and commercial strategy positions within the research industry, building up a particular expertise in the online research sector. A BA Honours graduate in Human Resource Management and International Marketing, Richard started his career as a Research Analyst at CAP Ventures, a strategic Marketing Research and Consultancy organisation. During this time Richard worked across Europe with clients like Hewlett Packard, Canon, Xerox and others on competitive analysis, product positioning, and forecasting. From there, Richard moved to Ciao Surveys to start-up it’s UK operation, establishing a client services and operations team before taking European commercial roles and then subsequently becoming co-European Managing Director until he left to pursue new opportunities in December 08. During his time with Ciao Surveys, Richard was instrumental in setting up its Sydney office and oversaw successful revenue and territorial expansion both in the UK and across Europe.

In February 2009, Richard joined Cint AB, a technology and solutions provider to the research industry, to set-up its UK operation and to introduce Cint’s Panel Exchange market place and range of self-service research tools to the market. In December 2009, Richard was appointed Global Commercial Director for the Group.

Richard is a member of ESOMAR, Market Research Society, Business Intelligence Group, and Media Research Group, and has been a regular speaker at conferences and seminars (MRS Online Research Seminar London 2004, 2009, ESOMAR Conference Cannes 2005, BIG Conference UK 2005, MRG 2005, MRS Conference 2006, Admap 2007, 2008, AIMRI 2009). As well as this, Richard is currently one of the industry experts writing features for the industry website, MRweb.