In an unprecedented global research initiative, McCann Worldgroup enlisted all of its employees around the world, including Dublin, to leave their desks for a day and head to the streets in their local markets to meet with and interview people face-to-face to gain insights into their shopping behavior and their relationship to cultural values. This new “Truth About Street” study will involve roughly 20,000 McCann Worldgroup employees in more than 100 countries.
Every department and level of the network has been enlisted to participate, from associates to senior management, including creative, business leadership, strategy, production and administrative teams. The questions and conversations are designed to gather additional information and insights about local cultures, brand attitudes, traditional shopping, e-commerce and emerging consumer sentiment.
Luca Lindner, McCann Worldgroup President, said: “This is the first time that we have galvanized our entire employee base to help us develop in-depth insights about local culture and its connection today to brand attitudes and shopping behavior. In doing so, our employees will hear first-hand the cultural shifts that are affecting our clients and have a deeper understanding of how to apply these learnings to help grow our client’s brands and businesses.”
Suzanne Powers, McCann Worldgroup Global Chief Strategy Officer, said, “This builds on our initial Truth About Global Brands research, which uncovered shifting human and cultural dynamics, requiring new approaches to marketing that we’ve called ‘Deep Globality.’ By empowering our whole network, we will both be gaining rich truths and inducting everyone personally behind these new global and local perspectives that are influencing how our clients need to go to market.”
The findings will be incorporated in the next wave of the company’s Truth About Global Brands study. First conducted in 2014 by McCann Worldgroup’s global intelligence unit, McCann Truth Central, it looked in-depth at the changing dynamics affecting global brand marketing. The research entailed quantitative work with 30,000 people in 29 countries, supplemented by rich ethnographic research with consumers as well as with marketing, cultural and entertainment experts.
McCannBlue Dublin’s Strategic Director, Susan Kelly explains why they got involved and what it might mean for businesses in Ireland: “After the success and impact of our localised ‘Truth About Youth’ insight piece in March, we were really excited about what this unique approach may uncover about the Irish psyche and attitudinal differences to our global counterparts when it comes to culture and brands. Today, we have five street teams out seeking authentic local vibes and global views throughout the city at the same time as 20,000 other McCann people seek cultural truths in 120 countries across the globe. We are thrilled that this Truth About Street event complements our Agency ethos of Create Change, an ethos that drives us to dig deep to find shared truths that connect people and brands. So, we’re already intrigued about how these findings could transform the way we help brands market themselves better not only to the Irish consumer but to export markets across the globe. The world is shifting and global and local marketing strategies will have to too, these insights will be invaluable to Marketing Directors and CEOs trying to navigate and connect within this new paradigm”.
The proprietary Truth About Street methodology was first pioneered by McCann Latin America in a 2012 study focused on the consumption of street-vendor food, followed by a study of shopping behaviors in 2013. Following this, Latin America has hit the streets each year with a new topic to continue building on these truths, with about 2,000 McCann employees in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries.
