Episode 1: Diversity in Market Research

Welcome to another episode of Talking Insights! 

Today, we are thrilled to have Marta Bierca join us to discuss the significance of diversity in market research, emphasizing the importance of considering gender identity and moving beyond traditional binary perspectives.

The conversation also touches on how Gen Z and millennials are redefining concepts of feminism and masculinity. It highlights the influence of pop culture and the role of brands in embracing a more non-binary approach. The discussion emphasises the importance of brands taking genuine action and involving non-binary individuals in the conversation.

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Subscribe to ESOMAR - http://bit.ly/2Vk6j6a

• Research World - http://bit.ly/2UQpbul

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On this channel, you will find videos about our Research World media platform, our global and regional events, our membership benefits, the correct and ethical use of data, data standards, and more! If you have any questions or comments about any of our videos, don’t hesitate to get in touch. And of course, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and make sure to hit that like button if you enjoyed the video!

#ESOMAR #ESOMARInnovation24 #MarketResearch #MRX #Innovation #Storytelling

Transcript

ESOMAR (00:02.606)
Welcome to Talking Insights. I'm your host, Antonio, and today we're diving into a very relevant topic, diversity and marketplace research. Our guest today is Marta Bierca from WiseRabbit. She will be presenting a paper during ESOMAR Congress in September on how the younger generations are challenging traditional notions of gender identity. These generations are increasingly rejecting binary labels and are instead embracing a more fluid understanding of gender identity.

one that often contradicts the long -held views of femininity and masculinity. Yet in contrast, much of the marketing world still clings to these traditional frameworks, creating a disconnect between what the young people feel versus how they are being targeted by brands. My conversation with Mark was really insightful. I hope you like it.


ESOMAR (01:00.428)
Welcome, Marta. Thanks for being here and congrats on your paper, by the way. It's brilliant. And I think it's a very crucial time to be talking about that. So thank you for being here. Thank you. Yeah, it's an honor for me. And thank you for inviting me to talk to you today. So I want to start to talk about a bit of what drew you to this topic, to the diversity and the storytelling and especially diversity in market research.

took you to that topic? Yeah, well, I think it's very important in market research to pay attention to the nuances and to the ways the society is changing in general. And we pay attention to, of course, gender roles, race, age, so to all this demographic, let's say, aspects of our targets.

But I think that the gender identity is something that's still a bit neglected in our market research work. And I wanted to focus on this non -binary perspective because what I observe in research is that we still stick to the very traditional male -female targets and all the communication is targeted towards women or men and same with

products and services. It's the capitalistic view of people and it makes us think in this very controlled and very organized way and it's easier for us to think in this binary perspective. But I think we lose quite a lot forgetting about the third gender or the other genders that exist. And your paper, it

touches on Gen Z and these new Alpha generations and everything and how are they redefining the concepts of feminism and masculinity. Can you elaborate a bit on that? Yes, of course. well, me and my colleague Milena that we are working on this topic, we found some research from recent years on gender identity of different

ESOMAR (03:24.942)
societies and what's interesting is that around 3 % of whole global population identifies themselves as non -binary. So, well, it's not a lot, but 3 % when we speak about the whole globe, it's quite a few people. And especially Gen Z and the millennials, they tend to be more open towards this

non -binary norms and especially in the countries like US or Canada there are already some studies that cover this topic. For example, in the US, I think two years ago there was a survey that revealed that Gen Z are over 20 times more likely to identify themselves as non -binary. Same with, I think, Canadian study.

So we see in some research already that it's a topic. obviously young generations are more open, they are more often questioning the traditional roles. So I think this is the good target to explore. And that's why we focused on them. But also we conducted a wider project with total populations of quite a few countries in Europe to check if...

maybe this non -binary perspective is not only attributed to the youth, but also maybe older generations also question their identity and maybe are open to this non -binary view. And do you see these new generations influencing the older generations in that way? The way that they explore their identity will eventually

influence the older generations to explore as well their identities? I think so. the young generations are posing this question about gender and they are questioning this concept of gender that's very rigid, that's binary, a bit oppressive. I think...

ESOMAR (05:47.182)
Even if we start talking about this, it's already a lot. And for the older generations, it's eye -opening. It gives perspective of a different person. So, yes. And in our study, we will talk about it on the Congress, but it's very interesting that even if we look at the whole society from 18 to 60 years old, or even at older people,

We see that, of course, on declarative level, but people already try to think about their gender and try to think that maybe it's not like identity that's one and only given for the whole life, but maybe you can question it. You can play with your gender, that the gender roles are not so strict. So, yeah, it's very, very interesting. It's very interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to see older people and a different generation just transforming or changing their opinions or the idea that they had this conceived idea of identity and gender and everything. It's really interesting. These past few years, it's really been interesting to see that. And do you see the brands also more talking about the marketing part?

Do you see the brands also evolving on that way to taking some care in their storytelling into positioning into a more non -binary approach to the market? Yes, we see that and we will be talking about some examples of such communication. And of course, it's not very, very popular, very common because of course, the dominating narrative is

very much gendered. But there are some communication, some brands that are more proactive, more open to this new narrative. And yeah, I can talk about a few examples. Like there's Coca -Cola, there's Sephora, MasterCard. So some big brands that are already like referring to this new way of thinking. And of course, the other

ESOMAR (08:12.738)
question is if they are doing it right or not, because what we did in our study is we showed some selected communication to respondents during interviews and well, they criticized some of the ads because it's very common and it's very difficult, I think, to choose the right language, the right narrative when talking about non -binary people.

Because I think in many examples of communication, the non -binary people are portrayed in a way that they are different. So the communication emphasizes the difference and then you see them as something like weird. So I think this is not the right way to show them that they are kind of third gender or something, you know, that's still a bit scary in a way.

So again, on the brands, do you think it's easier for a big brand, Coca -Cola, Nike, McDonald's, to embrace this change or is it easier for smaller brands or a startup or a brand that's starting their way into the markets to position themselves in this way? Do think it's easier for a big brand or a smaller one?

I think for big one, but well, it's my personal view. So I think the the brand managers would tell you more about it. But I think behind the big, brand, the big logo, there's there's a lot of trust, a lot of, you know, followers. So so when a big brand is starting to talk about such topic, it's it it gains more interest. It has more impact on the viewers and people trust such.

such narrative, such ad. So, yeah, it's a bit of, yeah, it's problematic, like how to talk about it and what brands should raise this topic. But I think it's important and it's very brave in a sense that brands try to start to refer to non -binary, but I think it's high time because society is changing and they should just observe and...

ESOMAR (10:39.914)
reflect on that. Yeah, the examples that you present on the paper that well in Congress, everyone will hear about it. But I think the examples that you provide there are really interesting. mean, some of these campaigns are the ways that these brands position themselves. wasn't, I mean, not fully aware. mean, it's you can not like see all of the ads everywhere. But I think

the one that you mentioned from the Coca -Cola one. I went back to see it and I think it's really interesting the way they positioned themselves, especially in such an early stage in 2018 where no one was really, I don't know, started talking about it, but I feel like they were the first ones or one of the first ones to really putting out there. I think that's interesting. And I was going to ask her, I was going to ask about the pop culture aspect of it. Do you think...

Pop culture can also influence this because nowadays we can see all these. Well, especially in the in the music business and in the cinema business and in the movies and every in the TV business. There's a difference concern about it. I mean, there's a number of actors and actresses that came out and as non binary. The same thing with musicians. Do you think this will also influence the way that people perceive?

this issue and the brands will evolve their strategies with it? Yeah, I also see that in the media, in some TV series, the fashion industry, for example, it's more and more common to see the third gender or the non -binary perspective. And I think it's very important that it's there. But I would be a bit

cautious because sometimes we portray these people as, as I mentioned, some kind of strangers or some weirdos because when you show a person that's, for example, like a male dressed as a female, well, for many people, it's like too much. It's like in a circus, you know, it's like something totally crazy and you actually can't identify with that person. I think what's

ESOMAR (13:04.972)
like closer to my way of thinking is to show non -binary people as like people like us. Well, they are just, you know, normal. I don't know. I don't like the word normal, but they are just people that just have a bit like the different maybe identification, but it's okay. And I think we can learn a lot from them because they question our way of thinking and they show us that actually

thinking outside the box and maybe reflecting on your gender and what does it mean for you. It's very like enriching your personality and it gives you lot of, I think, yeah, a lot of thought. So I agree with all that. And when I was preparing this interview, I came up with a thing that crossed my mind that was

when we're doing all these market research and when we're doing these studies and everything, we're always asking the gender if you're this or that, or if you don't want to disclose that. And I think that's a really interesting question. But I also would like to understand if the problem is asking that question, if asking the gender is really important, or if it's not important at all, like...

It doesn't matter. We're all people anyway. Like, is it that important to ask that? Yeah, I don't think so, because for now, maybe the whole world and the marketing and research is organized in this way still that we think in this male -female categories that some cosmetics are for men, some are for women. So it's very much gendered. But maybe it doesn't make sense at all to ask about gender because, yeah, in like 99 % of

studies gender question is the first one and then you just categorize people based on this and then they have different path in the questionnaire to go through. this is I think yeah, it's the kind of very traditional way of thinking and I think it doesn't give us a lot these days. So why don't we just start conducting studies without asking about gender? Let's see what comes out.

ESOMAR (15:26.572)
Do you think that brands in the future will start to promote non -gender products instead of, I don't know, when you go to a store and it's like the male section and the female section, it's just a section. I know that some brands, like one or two, are starting to do that, but do you see that happening more in the future?

I would love to see it. Well, I understand that for brands, for marketing, for sales, it's important and it's beneficial to have male and female sections because they sell more. It's like obvious. They say the same t -shirt, but yeah, when it's branded, it's like this is for men, this is for women. You can sell twice as many. But...

Yeah, it would be great to see this unisex products or yeah, so that would be great. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I agree. And in your paper, you eventually mentioned something that I figured that when brands start to touch on these topics, they can...

be seen as that and we already had this problem a couple years ago and I mean it's still happening with the greenwashing and you mentioning the non -binary washing. Do you think that the public is more aware of this now because we already passed the greenwashing or is it still the same thing? I think it's still not very very common to reflect on

this non -binary washing, whether it's washing or not. So yeah, I think it's like a red light for many companies to... Of course, it's important to address this topic, but they have to do it in a smart way because if they just do it to gain audience, to gain more clients or followers...

ESOMAR (17:41.014)
It's not maybe the best strategy because actually they need to apply some actions. They need to really reflect on it and do it in a proper way because otherwise they will be seen as green washers, non -binary washers. It's very like buzzword now, non -binary and many companies want to talk about it or I think in the future it will be even more fashionable to...

to talk about it. Only talking is not enough. So they need to do it in a smart way. Yeah, I agree. yeah, I think it's really important to have these types of discussions and these types of conversations nowadays. to, for everyone to be aware that we're having these conversations and not just to... I don't know, I think it's important to...

to talk about it, but also to do some action on it. And it's really easy to just say that you're pro this or pro that, but if you're not really doing something about it, it's, yeah, it's a washing. Yeah, and to invite the non -binary people to the discussion, because otherwise we will be seen again as people that are talking about something that actually we have no idea about, but we are just talking because it's...

It's good to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Well, thank you very much for this Martha. I yeah, I don't know if you have. Do you want to say anything else or maybe promote your paper? Your slot in Congress? I don't know.

I'm excited to come to the Congress and present more insights on this. I hope you will enjoy it, because we will be talking not only about the young generations, but also about the older ones. We will reflect on the future of society and marketing and research. I hope this paper will...

ESOMAR (19:50.466)
will make the audience think about their own identity a bit and question what they are. So let's see. Thank you very much, Marta. And yeah, I look forward as well to see you there and to see your presentation. I think it's really important and really insightful. And I think your paper is really brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for this. And that's all for today.

You can watch Marta and Milena's talk live at the ESOMAR Congress, which is less than a month away. If you don't yet have your ticket, make sure to follow the links in the description to get yours now. It's going to be a couple of fun and very insightful days in the legendary city of Athens, Greece, where we have so many activities and keynotes planned for you. Don't miss out. Thank you for listening and watching. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on social media and tell us what you think about this episode.

See you next time.