You say you want a revolution ... well, you know, we all want to change the world.  But Andrew Grenville (pictured above), Chief Research Officer of consumer intelligence firm Maru/Matchbox, has a two-word solution for revolutionizing the world of market research -- question everything!  Grenville's new book, published by Maru/Matchbox, is a call to action for a more effective insight generation that will support business strategies and not just marketing plans.

“Technology enabled research is a trend in the marketplace,” noted Bruce Friend, President of Global Media and Entertainment, Maru/Matchbox.  Harnessing the power of technology in the pursuit of research insights is something at which Friend excels thanks to his previous work at OTX and Vision Critical.  Now, much of his effort focuses on “building capabilities that are platform-based [unlike] a traditional research company, which still tends to be very focused on one-off, ad hoc studies, employing different survey based methodologies,"  he recently told me.  Friend helps clients create single-source panels that leverage a company’s own consumer assets, essentially connecting behavioral data from their DMP and other data assets with survey based demographic and attitudinal data to track over time.

"Data, data everywhere and much too much to drink" could be the resounding verse of many a company right now.  Across industries, business professionals are navigating new and different data streams, but from which is it actually safe to drink?  Enter Ged Parton, Chief Executive Officer of Maru Group.  With a storied career in consumer insights, serving as head of Synovate, Ipsos and now Maru, Ged is acutely aware of this challenge.  "Businesses can be overwhelmed by the number of available data sources," he says.  "They want to use information to inform decisions, but the data is not always packaged in a way that can be easily manipulated."