Redefining for Relevance

After more than two decades working in market research agencies, I've seen us chase the same goal: a seat at the table. The relevance comes not just from being a trusted partner, but from being a valued one who needs to be in the room when decisions are made.

If we're still talking about earning a seat at the table after all these years, we should probably ask the tough question: what's holding us back?

For a while, the answer was "storytelling." Webinars, conference presentations, and entire companies were built around helping MR agencies communicate insights more effectively. And this made us all better. But we're still fighting for relevance. So the issue isn't what we're delivering. It's how we work.

Decisions that impact consumers get made every single day, all day long. Marketers, innovation leads, product teams, and leadership are constantly in motion — strategy, communications, planning, all happening at once. Market research projects are episodic. They answer questions that came up a few weeks ago, in discussions that have changed course four times since, with results expected in three weeks. MR workflows aren’t built to keep up. And agency resourcing and pricing models can’t yet accommodate the pace.

And then along comes AI. Suddenly, anyone can get answers to complex questions that at least look right. Brand-side stakeholders are asking, "Why can't we just ask ChatGPT?" — pinging enterprise AI tools with prompt after prompt, getting synthesized intelligence instantly, in the room when the question is live, and the decision is being made.

The temptation for agencies and ResTech is to layer AI on top of existing processes: automate the survey, speed up the crosstabs, and generate the first draft of the deck. Faster production. But that's not transformation.

The agencies that win will use this moment to do what AI can't: leverage technology to handle production, remove analysis friction, and free up the exceptionally smart researchers, strategists, and consultants in this industry to do what they do best — recognize the pattern, connect it to the client's business, and inform decisions with fact-based insights as they're being made.

That shift requires more than new software. It requires redesigning how work actually gets done. That's what Hillside Strategy Partners does.

I started Hillside Strategy Partners to work directly with research agencies and ResTech companies, navigating this landscape and looking to grow and thrive with a new way of working.

If this is a problem you're sitting with, let’s dig in and work together to get your talent out of a production rut and driving real impact for your clients and your business.