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July 9th 2024
Herberts World #14
Issue No. 14 of the Mafo.de column "Herbert's World"! The topic this time is the very conspicuous "Teutonic reticence" at the largest international market research congresses - for example at the upcoming ESOMAR 2024 in Athens in September.
You can read what Herbert makes of this and why this should not be misunderstood as a threat in the following reprint from "Herbert's World"!
Enjoy reading it!
”Oh no! Here come the Germans…“ or maybe not!?
"Oh no! Here come the Germans ..." used to be said whenever a small group of German delegates entered the international arena. "Oh no! Here come the Germans ...", so here comes the discussion of methods, here comes the general German skepticism, here comes the "German Angst" of new developments and here comes the reminder of the German extra code to the ESOMAR Code. Here come the uncomfortable, the critics, the unpopular. But these times, it seems, are long gone
The United Kingdom has 27, the USA 14, Canada seven and France six. The list continues with the Netherlands and Australia: both five. At the bottom of the list of 25 countries are Costa Rica, Chile and Lithuania with one.
27 and 14 what? No, these are not numbers from sport, so nothing to do with soccer, tennis or the Tour de France. It describes the number of speakers at the upcoming ESOMAR 2024 conference in Athens.
Four days of program under the motto "Mind, Myth, Machine" with a number of exciting events and a who's who of minds who will share their latest findings with the audience. Here is the link to the agenda.
But - and this is my point - how many speakers from Germany appear in the program? There are actually zero speakers. Yes, zero. Really? Yes, ZERO!!!
There are at least two from Switzerland, but zero from Austria. That makes a total of two from the entire German-speaking world. But back to us:
As a heavyweight in the global economy (and market research), Germany is almost invisible at ESOMAR?
The world's fourth-largest economy with an extremely high-revenue of the insights industry does not have a single representative on the program at the world's most important event for our industry. Is that just interesting or shocking?
In any case, it's hardly surprising. After all, last year (ESOMAR 2023 in Amsterdam), the organizers counted 14 German guests, including me! 14 guests among more than 1,500 delegates. This means that Germany was represented by less than 1% of the participants. Really now? Yes, unfortunately.
ESOMAR 2024 as the knowledge hub par excellence!
To give you a brief overview of what this year's conference is all about: all four days focus almost continuously on the key trends in our industry, i.e. artificial intelligence is covered almost everywhere. Equally prominent are current brain, emotion and empathy research, brand development, (synthetic) consumer behavior, sustainability strategies, findings from "reality perception", developments on GenZ and GenAlpha and, last but not least, forecasts on media and advertising research.
As a researcher with all my heart, I can only say: What an agenda! Diverse and challenging, what is on offer in the Greek capital this fall. ESOMAR describes itself, not entirely immodestly, as "The champion of the insights sector". And with the promise: "The global business community for every insights and analytics professional". Big words, admittedly. But both the topics and the speakers live up to it!
Our playing field is no longer just Germany or Europe!
As always, the ESOMAR conference is a central knowledge hub for us insight professionals. But why were there only just under three handfuls of visitors from Germany last year? And why not a single one of us on stage this year? Market and opinion research has long been a global business. Hardly any institute can afford to focus solely on the domestic market these days. Even Europe is still too small for most of them. That alone should be reason enough for our country to be present at this congress in as large a number as possible in order to actively represent our interests, initiate our own initiatives and thus help shape future developments.
Or are the Germans self-sufficient because of their size? I would consider that to be very short-sighted. For decades now, innovations in technology, methods and processes have rarely come from our midst, i.e. common industry conventions have long been negotiated internationally. The latter mainly at forums such as IIEX or ESOMAR, where we seem to be chronically underrepresented.
In my opinion, we need a new beginning: more proactivity, more presence and more dynamism from within ourselves!
Enough said, because doing is like wanting, only more blatant: I want to resurrect the "German Lunch". But with one addition: the German Lunch will become the "DACH Dinner" - as a meeting place for the German-speaking research community!
The "DACH Dinner" will take place as part of the ESOMAR conference and is intended - quite literally - to strengthen the German-speaking community again, or at least play its part in doing so. And all this under the best possible networking conditions in one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.
Save the date on September 8, 2024 from 6 p.m. in Athens!
I would therefore like to cordially invite all German-speaking, accredited participants of this year's ESOMAR to spend the evening before the conference together in an exclusive get-together. Let's try to breathe new life and strength into the German voice.
The "DACH Dinner" is sponsored by moweb research and AMR Advanced Market Research and is free of charge for all members of ADM, BVM, DGOF, VMÖ and Swiss-Insights.
I have made it clear that I personally would like to see more local visitors and representatives at congresses of this kind. It would be even better if there were more experts from our ranks on the official agenda! At least in the long term, that should be the goal for all of us.
Who will be in Athens?
My invitation to September 8 at 6 p.m. is hereby promised! Registration at: www.weloveresearch.com.
The "DACH dinner" in Athens already sounds like a great "match". After all, the German palate has always gotten along very well with Greek cuisine. With this in mind: "Τα λέμε στην Αθήνα"! See you in Athens! I'm looking forward to it!
Herbert Höckel is a managing partner here at moweb research GmbH. He has been a market researcher for more than 25 years. In 2004 he founded moweb GmbH, which he is still the owner today. moweb from Düsseldorf operates internationally and is one of the first German market research institutes specializing in digital processes.