Guest Speakers
Author/s
Tom de Ruyck
(InSites Consulting)
Photo
Biography
Tom de Ruyck is ‘Head of Research Communities’ at InSites Consulting and in charge of InSites’ global activities in terms of
‘community research’: thought leadership, steering innovation and business development. InSites has moderation teams in more
than 30 countries worldwide and builds over 150 private online research communities a year for global clients like Heinz,
Unilever, Danone, Red Bull, Heineken, IKEA, Microsoft & many more.
Butch Rice
(Pondering Panda)
Butch Rice is owner of Pondering Panda, a consumer insights company that uses the connectedness of mobile & digital
technology, to find out what people really think. He was co-founder of Research Surveys, now TNS South Africa, and co-founder
of the Conversion Model, the most widely used model of consumer commitment globally.
Sangeeta Gupta
(Pepsi Foods Private
Limited)
Sangeeta Gupta has been in the corporate world in India for two decades, working across research, advertising and brand
marketing. Prior to PepsiCo, she has led teams to deliver sharp insights from qualitative and quantitative research at Nielsen and
IMRB and planned communication strategy at FCB Ulka. Until recently, she was responsible for Consumer Insights at Pepsico
Beverages, India, and is now Senior Consultant, Strategy & Insights. A frequent presenter at international conferences, she
enjoys both - the application of insights to business problems, as well as the “R&D” of research. Her passion for the consumer
(fed by her many years in research) drives Sangeeta to persistently influence the business to keep the consumer center stage in
all initiatives.
Andrew Vincent is Managing Director at Waves in the United Kingdom, and believes passionately in the value of research in a
fast changing world. Since graduating from the University of London Andrew has spent over 20 years as a research practitioner,
much of it working on international studies and has presented his work in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland,
Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, US and UK.
Andrew Vincent
(Waves)
Cees Bruggemans
(Consulting
Economist)
Dr Cees Bruggemans is Consulting Economist to FNB, having been Chief Economist at FNB from 1985 to 2012. In 1983 Business
Times (Sunday Times) approached him for a column, which became the weekly Rex, of which he wrote some 400 up to 1990.
Since 1999 he has been running the FNB economics website.
Dan Foreman
(ESOMAR)
Dan Foreman has been in the research business for 20 years, building businesses across Europe, Asia Pacific and The Americas.
He is currently the President of ESOMAR. He specialises in emerging technologies and developing markets, having helped
organisations grow from start-up to sale. Outside research, Dan is a Non-Executive Director of a publishing business and a
precision engineering company. He lives in Royal Tunbridge Wells with his wife and two children.
Expert Q&A Session
Title
The application of
text and sentiment
analysis in market
research, social
sciences and
business
intelligence in
South Africa
Author/s
Kobus Badenhorst &
Willie Fitzgerald
Photo
Biography
Kobus Badenhorst was trained in text and sentiment analysis by Clarabridge USA, and has since
trained more than 80 people in South Africa. He has been involved in more than 50 projects using
about 500,000 consumer responses, including small ad hoc projects (typically qualitative research
based on focus group or in depth interviews), as well as large Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed
Enterprise Feedback Management projects. Kobus Badenhorst studied at the University of Pretoria
from 1997 to obtain a B. Com (Business Management) and received his Honours Degree in Marketing
Management in 2000.
Willie Fitzgerald oversees ICT responsibilities for Consulta Research, and is responsible for the
executive management and development and implementation of plans to improve organisation
communication, access to information and efficiency. Willie oversaw the bringing in of Text Analytics
into South Africa. Willie owned his own ICT consultancy, specialising in ICT turnaround strategies, and
has held several technical and managerial positions for a number of companies in South Africa. With
an Electronic Engineering background, Willie further has an Executive Masters Degree in Business
Administration (MBA) from Henley Management College (United Kingdom) specialising in Corporate
Governance, Corporate Strategy Development and Creative Problem Solving.
Research Paper Presenters
Title
Operations versus
communications:
how to help
marketers
prioritise resource
to ensure growth
in equity
Author/s
Catherine Burton &
Claudette Visser
(Insight Out Support
Manager)
Remembering the
past to create the
future - What is
the value of
research in brain
based marketing?
Philip Collier (Head of
Research and
Consulting) & Kirsty
Smit (Associate
Managing Consultant)
Photo
Biography
Cathy Burton joined the specialist Ipsos Laboratories team in January 2011 and has supported their
proprietary research models as an advanced consultant in her role there. She brings with her both
research and client experience from a branding and strategy perspective. Cathy was the Global Brand
Manager for red espresso (a healthy, delicious espresso made from Rooibos tea!) for 5 years; account
manager at TNS Research Surveys prior to that for 5.5 years working on a variety of accounts
including alcohol, FMCG and services. Cathy has a keen interest in people, brands and marketing, and
completed her Bachelor of Business Science degree at the University of Cape Town in 2001.
Claudette Visser joined the Ipsos Laboratories team in 2010, and is currently the Insight Out reporting
platform support manager. In this role, she ensures that the data transformation process from
numbers to visual outputs, as seen on the platform, is accurate and efficient. Claudette began her
career in research at TNS in 1997, where she stayed for 10 years, working with Conversion ModelTM
as a senior data analyst. Working on major client accounts across categories including FMCG, fast
foods, beverages and business to business, Claudette found her passion for numbers.
She then joined Synovate to manage the data for the world’s largest beverage company and, from
there, went on to work with the specialist Laboratories team in Cape Town. Claudette is the mother
of 4 boys and as a hobby, breeds ball pythons with her partner.
Philip Collier holds a Masters degree in Research Psychology. He is an experienced marketing
research professional with over 15 years in academic and marketing research. Philip worked as a
consulting research psychologist both within academia and in private practice before moving into
marketing research. He is currently the Head of the Research and Consulting Division at the TNS
Global Brand Equity Centre. His business experience includes people management, international
training and conference presentation, and strategic planning and implementation. Philip specialises in
brand and communications research and consulting, and pursues his interests in cognitive
neuroscience, positive psychology, coaching and mentoring.
Kirsty Smit is an Associate Managing Consultant at the TNS Global Brand Equity Centre. She consults
on key global accounts and has worked with some of the most successful and well-known brands in
the world to deliver insights into consumer relationships that inform business growth. Kirsty has
presented research papers at several conferences on topics like gamification and crowdsourcing, and
has contributed to multiple publications in industry journals and magazines.
Title
Going deeper:
Evaluating brand
equity at a more
detailed level
Author/s
Alistair Davidse
(Statistician) &
Dieudonne Kantu
Should traditional
market research
bounce?
Gillian Drewett
(General Manager),
Zarif Kahn (Consulting
and Insights Manager)
& Gouwa Orrie (Data
Processing)
Photo
Biography
Alistair Davidse is a statistician at Ipsos Laboratories. He graduated from the University of Cape Town
with a Masters in Mathematical Statistics in 2004, and before joining Ipsos Laboratories worked in
UCT’s Pharmacology Department.
Gillian Drewett is General Manager at Ipsos Laboratories. With training in Social Anthropology,
market research now seems like a good fit, but then, it was not so obvious! Gillian has fourteen years
of market research experience behind her and has been with Ipsos Laboratories (previously Synovate)
since it was established in 2006. Prior to Ipsos Gillian worked at TNS Research Surveys, The Customer
Equity Company and Millward Brown. Ipsos Laboratories is a team of high performing people
responsible for taking to market and supporting new products, solutions and intellectual property for
Ipsos globally.
Zarif Kahn joined Synovate Laboratories since its inception in May 2006. He has been with
Synovate/Ipsos for the past six and a half years. He was part of the development team that launched
Ipsos’s brand equity solution, Brand Value Creator, and is currently managing the equity insights and
consultation team. He graduated with an Honours degree in information systems and completed his
post grad in Marketing Management.
Gouwa Orrie is currently part of the Data Execution team at Ipsos Laboratories based in Constantia,
Cape Town. She is new to the research industry, having only joined Synovate in October 2011. Gouwa
started off studying a Business Science degree in Chartered Accounting at UCT after matriculating in
2005. She then chose to join the family business and continued to study a B.Com. Accounting degree
part-time through UNISA. Having always had an interest in Marketing and the Market Research
industry, she took on the position at Synovate with excitement. She then left the corporate world to
start a family and after her son’s birth in March 2012 again joined Synovate (now Ipsos Laboratories)
team in October 2012. Gouwa is currently involved in data processing and support but would like to
go into the consulting and insights aspect of marketing in the near future.
Title
The Importance of
Rank: Evaluating
Market Research
Metrics in light of
How the Brain
Works
Author/s
Kyle Findlay (Senior
R&D Executive)
Identifying the
difference in
values between
parents and their
school leaving
children
Bernardt Gerber
(Client Director) &
Emile van der Ryst
(Client Director)
Photo
Biography
Kyle Findlay is a Senior R&D Executive at the TNS Global Brand Equity Centre (GBEC) in Cape Town,
South Africa. The GBEC is a centre for thought leadership within TNS. In addition, the GBEC develops
and supports brand and communications thinking and solutions within TNS. Kyle has been intimately
involved in the development of solutions such as the ConversionModel and models of consumer
influence. Kyle’s passion is uncovering what makes people tick and sharing it with others. He has a
strong desire to bring the hard sciences to bear on the question of why people do what they do. This
passion has encouraged him to delve into specific scientific areas such as neuroscience, network
theory and big data techniques, producing award-winning papers in the process. Kyle is published in a
variety of industry magazines and has presented papers and hosted expert Q&As at many
conferences around the world. He is also the recipient of several awards, including the WPP Atticus
Award and both the Gold and Silver Awards for Best Paper at the South African Marketing Research
Association's (SAMRA) 2010 and 2012 conferences.
Bernardt Gerber is currently a Client Director at Consulta Research and has five years of Marketing
Research experience. His expertise includes Customer Experience Measurement, Qualitative Analysis,
Conjoint Analysis and Cultural Climate Studies. Bernardt has a passion for youth and schools research
and believes that there is great need for more youth research in order to understand and better
address issues surrounding religion, norms and values, alcohol and drug abuse, sex and other such
pressing issues in our schools. Bernardt holds a B.Com (Hons) degree in Marketing Management from
the University of Pretoria. His hobbies include reading, music, playing guitar and socialising with
friends.
Emile van der Ryst has been a researcher at Consulta Research since the beginning of 2009. He joined
as a Research Assistant and learned the necessary skills to become a fully-fledged researcher. This
culminated in his promotion to Client Director at the end of 2012. As a Client Director, he is
responsible for the management and execution of his own accounts. At Consulta, he forms part of a
research unit that executes all new and medium range corporate accounts. He has experience in
customer satisfaction, brand equity, perception audits and social research. This experienced was
obtained through research in the banking, medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industries, as well
as government issued research projects. He has a particular interest in qualitative research and hopes
to continue developing in this field in the feature.
Title
Do we have an
effect? Improving
the value of the
research
contribution by
marrying relevant
measures of effect
size with
traditional
significance testing
Author/s
Neil Higgs (Senior
Advisor and Head of
Innovation)
“How much does
this colour
contribute to my
sales?” Measuring
photolytic effect in
sales using Zipf
distribution
Siviwe Trevor Kandisa
(Analyst), Tinsahe
Mangoro (Junior
Statistician) & Shana
Press (Junior Data
Processing Executive)
Early warning
systems for
detecting changes
in marketing
metrics over time
Gareth Lloyd
(Research and Insights
Manager: R&D
Consulting), Ian
Durbach (Statistician,
Photo
Biography
Neil Higgs is Senior Advisor and Head of Innovation at TNS South Africa. He has a B.Sc (Mathematics
and Mathematical Statistics) from Wits. He has been in research for 38 years and at TNS for 27 years.
His roles are technical consulting, innovation and troubleshooting. He has presented twelve papers at
the annual SAMRA convention (winning eight awards) and has presented overseas to The Institute of
Statisticians, the Market Research Society in the UK, and the US Academy of Marketing Science. He
has been published in The Statistician and The Journal of Social Indicators and was an invited speaker
at the 57th Session of the International Statistical Institute, 2009 as well as a keynote speaker at the
2011 Southern African Marketing Research Association (SAMRA) Conference. He is a past Chairman
and Honorary member of the Southern African Marketing Research Association (SAMRA), has been a
convenor of judges of the annual SAMRA conference awards for several years and has served on
several industry bodies. He is a SAMRA Accredited Researcher (SAR).
Siviwe Trevor Kandisa trained as a chemical engineer and is passionate about mathematical
modelling. He is an analyst at Ipsos Laboratories working with data from all over the world on a day to
day basis. He has been in water and scientific research for 2 years and worked with data required in
the investment environment for one year.
Tinsahe Mangoro was born 28 years ago. He studied Mathematics and Statistical Sciences at the
University of Zimbabwe and graduated in 2006 with a B.Sc. Mathematics and Statistics. He worked in
the financial industry for about 3 years before joining the Market Research industry 2 years ago in the
Research & Development department for Ipsos. His interests and hobbies include travelling, hiking,
sport and the internet.
Shana Press started studying a LLB at the University of the Western Cape and realised it was not the
direction she wanted to pursue. She recently entered the market research industry. She has been
working at Ipsos Laboratories since May 2012.
Gareth Lloyd heads up the R&D team at Ipsos Laboratories which primarily focuses on developing and
advising on brand equity research. He is also closely involved with supporting Ipsos’ Brand Value
Creator product, and works with account teams across the globe in implementing the tool to best
effect. Previously, Gareth worked for GfK NOP in London in the Business and Technology division.
Title
Author/s
Senior Lecturer of
Statistical Sciences) &
Dieudonné Kantu
(Statistician)
The Effect of Order
on Brand Attribute
Association Results
Gareth Lloyd
(Research and Insights
Manager: R&D
Consulting), Ian
Durbach (Statistician,
Senior Lecturer of
Statistical Sciences) &
Laa-Iqah Salie (Data
Processor)
Vanessa Maritz (Story
Creator: Marketing
Research)
Actionable
quantitative
reporting: the use
of data
visualisation and
storytelling by
South African
market research
firms
Photo
Biography
Ian Durbach currently works at Ipsos Laboratories where he consults on, and develops models that
measure brand equity. This involves refining Ipsos’ chief brand equity measurement tool, Brand Value
Creator. Ian is also a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town, and member of the Operational
Research Society of South Africa (ORSSA) where he currently sit on the executive committee. He
received his PhD in 2006 for his thesis entitled “Simplified models for multi-criteria decision analysis
under uncertainty”. In his academic work, Ian is also involved in applied statistical problems, mostly in
the fields of energy and marketing/consumer behaviour.
Dieudonné Kantu joined Ipsos Laboratories in Cape Town in 2009 where she is now Statistician,
working in the Research and Development team. She was a part-time Lecturer in Statistics at the
University of Cape Town from 2007 to 2009, and obtained her MSc in Operational Research at the
University of Cape Town in 2006.
Laa-Iqah Salie is currently part of the Data Execution team at Ipsos Laboratories based in Constantia,
Cape Town. She is new to the research industry, having joined Ipsos (Synovate at the time) in January
2011 as a database temp. Laa-iqah started off studying a Business Management course at Rosebank
College after matriculating from Norman Henshilwood High School in 2005. She then chose to join the
family business in Construction on a part time basis while pursuing a career in Marketing Research.
Having always had an interest in the Market Research industry, she took on a permanent position at
Ipsos (Synovate at the time) with excitement. Laa-iqah is currently involved in data processing and
client support but would like to go into the consulting and insights aspect of marketing in the near
future.
Learner and people watcher… Vanessa Maritz’s essence thrives on learning more about her own and
unknown people – which is probably why she developed such a passion for marketing research!
Dreaming of becoming a creative billboard designer, Vanessa enrolled for B.Com Marketing
Management (UJ) and completed her Honours just to discover a road less travelled. In 2007 she
started her career as an intern at TNS Research Surveys and has built experience in retail, fast food,
personal care and FMCG industries. She soon discovered a love and feel for data visualization and
storytelling which encouraged her to write a piece on that – this lead to the completion of her M.Com
in 2012. She’s been a freelance “storyteller” and moderator since 2010 and is fiddling with a few
business ideas currently. Vanessa believes in building bright futures and believes in having the
courage to take initiative. She also loves orchids.
Title
Real time
measurement in
market research;
Functional
methodology, Fad
or Fallacy
Author/s
Andries Noeth (Chief
Marketing Officer)
Designing office
space to improve
the well-being of
employees: Why
bother?
Elsa Thirion-Venter
(Director)
Teaching an old
dog new tricks How data
visualisation can
be used by
everyone
Sarah Wocknitz
(Graphic Designer) &
Cara Morris (Thought
Leadership Associate)
Photo
Biography
Andries Noeth started his Market Research career in 1995 as the Operations Manager of a marketing
company. This was followed by a position as Marketing Manager of an IT company that supplied
software solutions to the financial industry. In 2001 he enrolled in a Masters degree in Research
Psychology, which was completed with distinction in 2002. After working on a contract basis at the
BMR, he started working at Consulta Research as a Client Director in 2004. He currently holds the
position of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Consulta Research focussing on new business
development and client relationship building. Andries has vast amount of experience in various types
of research and methodologies specialising in Customer Experience Measurement; Brand equity and
brand positioning; Corporate identity and reputation; Market segmentation and positioning; New
product development; Strategy facilitation and implementation of research results.
Elsa Thirion-Venter, one of the directors of MarkData, has been involved in research since 1984. Elsa
Thirion-Venter has 28 years research experience in various fields of research such as psychological
evaluation of drivers, test construction, survey methodology and media and communication research.
She started her career at the Human Sciences Research Council as a researcher in the Human
Resources group. She later moved to MarkData as a Survey Manager. In 1993 she was appointed as a
Research Manager: Television and later on Research Manager: Special Projects at the SABC. In 1996
she moved back to MarkData as a director. She has a MA (Psychology) from the University of Pretoria,
a MBL from UNISA and a D Litt et Phil (Consulting Psychology) from UNISA. She is author and coauthor of in excess of 120 research reports. She is a registered research psychologist at the Health
Professions Council and a SAMRA Accredited Researcher. She lectured in Marketing Research at the
Graduate School of Business in 2002 and was a facilitator for the University of North West’s MBA
course in Statistics and Economics in Pretoria from 2003-2006. She also lectured statistics in 2010,
design psychology since 2011 and media research for the Masters in Research Psychology at the
University of Pretoria.
Sarah Wocknitz is a Graphic Designer, born and raised in Hamburg, Germany. I studied at the
“Technical Art School Hamburg” (HTK) for three years including three months at a design college in
Cape Town, called “Friends of Design” (FOD). Due to this exchange program I fell in love with Cape
Town and decided to come back. I finished my studies in Germany and moved down, leaving friends
and family behind. I started at the Global Brand Equity Centre in May 2011 as an intern and am happy
to call myself a part of their team now. Mainly I have been working on optimising and redesigning
Power Point presentations for clients and big presentations like SAMRA and ESOMAR, Infographics
and the new ConversionModel look and feel. For the future I will focus more on Infographics and Data
Visualisation, helping my colleagues to generate a better work flow using visuals in their client
presentations.
Title
Author/s
Photo
Biography
Cara Morris started out as a member of the Research and Consulting team at the TNS Global Brand
Equity Centre, where she supported the exec team with charting and reporting, working on studies
for some of the biggest brands from around the world, as well as helping to introduce efficient and
automated systems for reporting structures. In mid-2011, she joined the Thought Leadership team
where she provides global support for both the ConversionModel and a company-wide reporting
system and is able to explore her many different interests including data visualisation and the
introduction of ways to simplify reporting processes in order to enable more time spent on adding
value for clients.