Arlington Research has partnered with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) to conduct a global study of 4,000 employees (including 1,000 decision makers) into why business leaders are not using data before developing strategies and implementing tactics. We found that nearly half of decision makers (49%) do not believe their company has a strategic vision. With the world finding itself in a global pandemic and with rising unemployment figures, many employees are looking to their boards for strong leadership, but the research shows a worrying level of neglect when it comes to strategic vis ..read more

A new global study of employees at enterprises by Arlington Research has found just under a third (32%) didn’t believe their company was being authentic when it spoke about the Black Lives Matters (BLM) movement earlier this year. This number rose to 45% in the UK compared to a quarter of employees in both the US and Australia. When asked if the respondents felt embarrassed by the way the company, they worked for spoke about the BLM movement, 38% of Brits agreed. This fell to 23% in the US and 21% in Australia. This was especially true for employees who worked at companies with between 5,000 a ..read more

We were commissioned by storytelling PR agency, Berkeley Communications, to look at the credibility of the two candidates in the US election, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. We asked respondents to score each candidate out of ten for credibility, with 1 being ‘not credible at all’ and 10 being ‘very credible’. With offices in the UK, Germany and locally in the US, Berkeley Communications wanted to see if there was any difference in opinions in each of its local markets. The insight gleamed from surveying 6,000 consumers (2,000 respondents per country) paints a picture of a closer race than many Eu ..read more

Arlington Research is proud to announce that it has joined the GlobalCom PR Network, supporting all partners with insight and evidence to make their client’s stories come to life. GlobalCom PR Network is a worldwide group of like-minded PR and marketing communications consultancies with 80+ partners and affiliated agencies working across 60 countries worldwide in Europe, North America, South America, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The network is now able to call upon Arlington Research’s expertise as a international full service market research agency to create memorable PR campaigns or ..read more

In the midst of the global pandemic Arlington Research conducted a global piece of market research studying 13,000 consumers from 14 countries to better understand perception surrounding company communications during this unprecedented time. We found that just under a third (31%) worry that the businesses who have gone quiet (with no news or content being shared) during the Covid-19 pandemic are in financial trouble. This number rises to 39% in Italy and Spain, while 33% of the US and 27% of the UK agree. Another perception consumers have is when their employer goes quiet; they worry is it is ..read more

Strategic PR is about so much more than just getting media coverage for your brand or organisation. A strategic approach to PR looks at all communications with all of your stakeholders – customers, prospects, shareholders, employees, suppliers, the local community and the wider public. For PR to be truly strategic you need to ensure that you understand who all of the stakeholders are, how they view your brand, what interests them and engages them and how to communicate with them. It isn’t about individual campaigns, or promoting particular products, or events. It is an ongoing approach, workin ..read more

If you have worked in marketing and PR for some time, you will no doubt have developed a great deal of valuable experience, and learned to rely on your instincts to guide you in making decisions. You can read a press release and just know that it isn’t quite right, or pick the best headline from a range of alternatives, based on your gut reaction. However, there are many situations where it can be misleading to rely on our instincts. When you work with a brand, within an industry, or with an issue, you have insider knowledge, and you are immersed in the detail of your campaign. This can make i ..read more

When you are putting together a PR campaign, one of the first things you need to do is ask yourself if you understand your publics. This sounds like a simple question, but it might not have a simple answer. Firstly, how do you know who is likely to be interested in your issue? Common sense? Past experience? Gut feel? These are all valid ways of putting together a hypothesis about who may be interested but market research can help you to validate your instincts and bring a clearer definition to your target audience.  You may be working with a product, category or issue that has what appear ..read more

Market research is important at various stages in the PR process. Firstly, – and a stage that is often neglected – there is great value in conducting market research before the start of any project, to inform the development of the PR brief. Market research can help you to understand your target audience, the competitive landscape, and the dynamics of the industry that you operate within. It will also help you to build credibility with stakeholders and may help to get the project signed off, if you can demonstrate that your plan is fact based, and built on a rigorous evaluation of the industry ..read more

These days, it is pretty common for research participants to be incentivised to take part. It used to be the case that people would take part purely for the reward of giving their opinions, but as market research has become more widespread, response rates have fallen, and the industry has responded by building financial incentives into the process. The type of research you are conducting has an impact on whether or not you should pay respondents. Often participants in qualitative research, such as focus groups, have to give up considerable amounts of time and also have to travel to a venue in ..read more