Industry Speak – Interview with Ted Langschmidt

IndustrySpeak is an interview / discussion series with research leaders, CRIC members, who offer deeper insights on the trends, opportunities and challenges in their daily work.

Ted Langschmidt is the CEO and Founder of Q.i. Value Systems. He discusses his background and journey in research starting from the roots of his career in South Africa and as it evolved over the years and when he moved to Canada for leading suppliers and clients today pioneering cultural and behavioural models that became the centrepiece of his quest to understand cultural motivations and models. He talks about being an marketing research entrepreneur, sampling strategy, questionnaire design, the opportunity and challenges with research talent and cultural insights in Canada, the intersection of text analytics with behavioural science, applied statistics, the opportunities and limitations of qualitative research, consumer behaviour, advertising research and everything in between.

“Personality is the analogue of emotion, a predictor of behaviour. Nature’s not abstract in a meaningless way. Nature is quite pragmatic. And what we think of as emotions is our conscious awareness of what’s going on at a cellular level an indication of how the body will behave. So you can say the emotion is interest, but the behaviour is look or watch or you can say the emotion is trust but the behaviour is pay attention in certain way / follow / obey; so everyone of the emotions has behavioural consequences and everyone of the personality attributes has emotional associations, and every cognitive attitude is not dislocated from emotions! Everything we do is self-medication, because we want to feel or be perceived a certain way. These maps of language are maps of the psyche, and we can look at it with regard to brands, organizations and people. The Value of Value Study measures how those emotions and behaviours manifest in the Canadian marketplace.and those manifestations are trends – e.g., mapping the rise of chronic fatigue and tiredness, stress, and depression in Canada – we saw it coming.. and then you try and predict how people want to feel (e.g. energetic, motivated), perhaps this translates or manifests into an increased consumption of coffee, opioids, addictions, and so on. We as a research company set out to measure and map the things that matter through 50,000 codes of a dream-catcher with social media listening, and then apply statistics and use dashboards to predict!”

 

Ted Langschmidt, discussing why measurement matters and the inspiration metrics for their Values on Values Study

Insights he covers:  

  • What makes a good researcher?
  • What makes research (and researchers) in Canada  unique?
  • Common misperceptions on the competencies in research, analytics and insights
  • Improving the quality of analysis across industry
  • Looking for patterns in language and emotional expression (intangibles) and developing universal coding frames
  • The Values on Values Study launched by Q.i. Value Systems to measure Canadian values and what new knowledge and technology are they bringing to market?

Watch the full video here of Ted discussing how he quantifies intangibles in his daily work: 

 

 

About Ted Langschmidt:

An internationally acclaimed marketing researcher, strategist and presenter, Ted is a graduate of Nottingham University in England and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. To date, he has conducted over 2500 client-specific research projects. In a career spanning four decades, Teddy worked as President and Head of New Product Development at Hotspex; he was Founding Director of the Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing at the University of Cape Town, and CEO of Integrated Marketing Information Group Ltd. He has held positions as Head of Research, Strategic Planning Director, Client Service Director, and Director of Media Planning with global advertising agencies McCann Erickson and Grey Advertising; He was VP of Creative and Research Solutions at IPSOS Interactive Development; and a Research Executive with Market Research Africa (owned by A.C. Nielsen); He has lectured at several universities across the globe, and has presented at over 300 conferences, and is winner of a number of awards for his outstanding presentations. He is the author of several books and research publications including the award winning “Consumerscope” and “The Decision-Maker’s Encyclopaedia.” His specialties include: Market research, Brand strategy, Advertising, Emotional science, New Product Development, Creative Concept Development, Organizational Health and Values Studies.

 
 

If you liked this blog post, you might also enjoy reading the last segment of Industry Speak with Brian Lamar of EMI Research Solutions here.