I’m Martin Wootton, a Research Director at RS Consulting, where, since 2005, we’ve been working closely with Canon Europe. I’m joined today by Adam Gillbe, European Strategic Communications Director for Canon Europe.

Canon, as I’m sure you all know, is a world leader in imaging, manufacturing cameras, camcorders, printers and a whole host of specialist equipment and services. Canon is also one of the largest suppliers of products and services to the professional print industry. My role within Canon is to head up all strategic communications for our products and services aimed at business audiences.

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Here’s our agenda. We want to show you how Canon is using research not just as a source of insight, but also as a marketing and PR tool, to gain competitive advantage and differentiation.

So we’ll be talking less about the research itself, and more on how it is being used both internally and externally.

We’ll be rounding off our session today with a few pearls of wisdom: sage advice for anyone considering publishing or distributing customer research to a wider audience.

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Like most B2B markets, the professional print industry is a complex mix of equipment manufacturers, content specialists, technical experts, third parties and end customers.

Complex being the operative word here.

Like most B2B markets, customers come in all shapes and sizes – small and large, generalist and specialist, with several people typically deciding what and where to buy from.

To add even more complexity, print buyers have had to rapidly morph into becoming multi-media buyers, commissioning not just printed documents but also virtual media and advertising.

Not all print providers are geared up to deliver everything today’s print buyers want, at ever-lower prices thanks to the recent financial meltdown.

Print providers know that they need to fundamentally change to offer new services and embrace web, email, social media and mobile internet. Put simply, printing a billboard poster or sending out flyers doesn’t cut the mustard with today’s modern consumers. The problem is how you adapt and modernise, as cost-effectively as possible.

As Adam will explain, Canon recognised that there are significant business opportunities in helping its customers change for the better.

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In 2008, Canon commissioned Professor Frank Romano, a well known print industry ‘guru’, to write a series of reports on the state of the print industry. How did print providers see their future? What technical challenges are they dealing with?

Professor Romano’s research provided an interesting snapshot of professional printers at that point in time, and helped us identify what our customers needed. But, the industry was changing at such a rapid rate, that by 2011 it was time for a fresh look at the industry. In short, time for our customers to step back and see the bigger picture.

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Although keen to commission a report on the state of the professional printing industry, we decided that simply refreshing the previous research wasn’t enough. We needed to look at the industry from a completely different angle – from the point of view of the print buyer: Canon’s customers’ own customers. This had several advantages.

Firstly, it was new - nobody had researched these customers in any great detail, or if they had, they’d not made the findings public.

Secondly, our customers told us that they wanted to learn more about their own customers - the people buying professional printing services.

Thirdly, it would be interesting to compare what print providers’ own customers thoughts and opinions were with those of their own, and identify gaps.

Fourthly, given so many people buy professional printing in some capacity, the research should have considerable PR value.

Finally, and importantly, this was an approach our competitors were not taking, so it would be a major point of differentiation and help cement Canon as an intelligent, respected, thought leader in the print industry.

To ensure the research is credible and accessible, it needed to be authored independently and impartially, by a research specialist, not a print industry insider.

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This is where we at RS came in. To compile an authoritative piece of research that captured the imagination of professional print providers, we needed an in-depth yet wide-ranging approach, mixing hard stats with detailed anecdotes. It had to encompass a broad and inclusive cross-section of different types of print buyers, from small and large companies, end-users to creatives. All this meant that we had to take a qualitative approach to a quantitative-sized sample.

Very quickly we realised that a one-shot survey would prompt as many new questions as it would answer – we couldn’t realistically expect to produce an authoritative and definitive report with just one approach. Both we and Canon were keen to follow up with a selection of the most interesting participants, and create a second phase of research that picked up on key issues emerging from the first phase.

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Here’s the end result – a glossy, full colour 40-page report, authored by us, endorsed by Canon, printed on their equipment, and translated into several languages.

Since we were researching the print industry, it’s no surprise that the end result was launched as a printed document. As our respondents were eager to tell us, print is effective - it can be written on, pointed at, handed out, shared with others, put in the post and so on.

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We timed the publication of the report to coincide with the unfortunately-named DRUPA, the world’s largest print industry trade show, held last year in Dusseldorf. And it was at DRUPA that the report was officially launched by Canon, with the support of a wide range of PR and media activity. More from Adam on that shortly.

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The success of the Insight Report led to us authoring two further reports, both following the pattern of researching Canon’s customers’ own customers and then feeding back the results to Canon’s customers.

The first was the Office Insights report – effectively a research-driven buyer’s guide, identifying the needs and wants of the actual end-users of technology in workplaces, such as PCs, copiers and printers. This buyer’s guide enables decision-makers can make a more informed choice about what technology to install, and ensure their own customers – the end-users, get products that they are happy with, and that increase their productivity.

The second report was a follow-up to the original Professional Print Insight report, this time looking at the print industry in the Middle East and Africa from the point of view of the print customer, and contrasting the views of print buyers in these regions with those in Europe.

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For all three reports, we worked closely with Canon and their communications agencies to co-ordinate an action plan to broadcast the highlights of the report and generate buzz. This was truly multi-media: combining websites, Twitter, video, trade show presence, press conferences, keynote addresses…and of course high-quality, full colour printed materials!

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To ensure the findings of the research were widely broadcast, interpreted and acted upon by customers, Canon held numerous press briefings across Europe and the Middle East. This allowed the industry press and communications organisations to speak first hand to the report’s lead author, i.e. me(!), and allowed Canon to promote particular findings and insights.

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Co-ordinated tweets around events and trade shows helped generate a real buzz around the research and its implications within the print industry. Tweets from Canon, RS Consulting, industry experts, PR agencies and others helped get the Insight Reports trending. It also provided a means of gauging initial reactions of customers and other commentators – the first indication of the true ROI of the research.

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Here’s David Preskett, the head of Canon’s Professional Print Business, presenting the report to an audience of journalists and print buyers in Dubai.

On the right hand side of the slide behind him, there’s a great quote from one of Canon’s customers, a commercial print company in Belgium. It reads: “Without the Insight Report, if I started up a print shop anew and had money, I wouldn’t know how to spend it!”

Great to have first-hand proof that of the positive impact the research has had on both the print provider and on Canon.

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The Insight Reports have really captured our imagination. They have shaped Canon’s marketing activities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, from how we approach and communicate with customers, to the tools we create for our Account Managers. Here are some of the outcomes.

• More than sixteen countries are using the reports to support local action plans.

• To date, the Insight Reports have reached over ten thousand current and potential customers around the world – a significant proportion of the Professional Printing universe

• We have been able to improve the training and toolkits for our customer-facing staff across Europe, and this has led to a new customer approach, which all Account Managers are being trained on. This approach has at its heart these Insight Reports. Each country has a dedicated “champion” who manages the local roll-out of action plans. Every month, each champion reports back to Canon Europe HQ to describe the latest insight report-related activities.

• In total, 650 articles have been generated across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, all of which have been positive, and most of which quote Canon employees underlining the importance of the findings.

• And we now have external sponsors of the research, the British Printing Industries Federation, whose members are now helping us design and build a return on investment tool – something specific that the research told us that customers want.

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So what advice would I give to you, based on our experiences of commissioning and using these Insight Reports?

• The first, and perhaps the most important point, is that research can be not only a source of rich insight for us, but also can be a measurable marketing tool in its own right delivering real competitive advantage. By broadcasting the research to all those who will benefit from it, a brand can position itself as a true thought leader, someone who wants to help its customers, and be seen to be doing something different from its competitors. Good research is highly prized by business decision-makers.

• Secondly, to get the most from research, it should be done iteratively. Inevitably, the first interviews raised as many questions as they answered. Having follow-up interviews answered our questions fully. So having multiple opportunities to talk to the target audience really helps to get a well-rounded, complete view, and it’s great for collecting anecdotes and quotes too.

• Be open and honest with agencies – they should be partners, not just suppliers. The brief needs to explain what kind of approach is envisaged and how the research will be used, but it also should encourage agencies to come up with new ideas and innovative ways to permeate the insights through the organisation. I would say the seeds of the success of the Insight Reports were planted in the level of detail the research brief went into, which allowed RS to focus in on how to maximise the power and effectiveness of the research.

• Market research agencies ought to work closely with PR and communications agencies, right from the development of the first questionnaire. In partnership, both PR and research can feed off each other and create great ideas for implementing the research.

• And finally, make sure you take time to plan and consider the research, the report writing and the planning. Allow time for all parties to feed into the design and development of the study. Review and re-review what has been created – great research is about creating insight that is accurate, engaging and thought-provoking. This can only come about by allowing plenty of thinking time and careful checking time. One measure of success of our research is that Canon is still using it more than a year on. An extra week or two built in to the timetable pays dividends; resist the temptation to rush.

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Thank you very much. For further information please contact Martin Wootton on +44 (0)20 7627 7700

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