WHAT REAL LIFE IS TELLING US
Field Notes
Our researchers spend their weeks in people's homes across the UK. These are the notes: what people are saying, what they are doing instead, and what we think it means for research, strategy and marketing. Written by James Addlestone and Mark Hadfield. We send the same pieces out as the Dose of Reality newsletter a few days after they go up here.
The say-do gap: why contradictions are the best evidence in research
People contradict themselves constantly. Worried about AI and using it every day. Careful with money and spending the savings on the wedding. Most research cleans this out as noise. James argues the contradiction is the most useful thing a researcher collects, and shows how to read it.
James Addlestone
Confessions of a Quantaholic: the hidden costs of synthetic research
Synthetic respondents, AI personas and digital twins promise an audience without the cost of talking to one. After a career spent trying to answer marketing questions with data, James sets out three hidden costs of replacing real people with generated ones, where synthetic data does help, and how AI can bring you closer to real lives.
James Addlestone
AI in qualitative research: the best listening machine ever built
The machine that can finally process thousands of hours of real people talking has mostly been used to generate fake people talking. James on what research is actually for, why the industry went looking for its own replacement, and how AI should be used in qualitative research instead.
James Addlestone
Statistical significance in market research: when it matters and when it doesn't
Most people who ask whether a result is statistically significant are asking the wrong question. Significance tells you how surprising this sample would be if nothing were going on. It says nothing about whether the finding is big, true next month or worth acting on. Here are five better questions.
James Addlestone