Putting Panels Into New Perspectives

Chang’s TMRE session, “Flash in the Panels: Shedding Light on Audience Perspectives Through Multiple Online Audience Communities,” will provide a perspective on how Prudential is leveraging multiple online insights panels to enable efficient feedback from various audiences of interest. Chang’s responsibilities include identifying and filling in insights gaps to inform better decision-making in the areas of marketing, branding, strategy, product development and sales. He leads a team that gathers feedback from financial advisors, a critical B-B-C target audience for Prudential. Chang’s discussion will include the why and how Prudential developed each community in addition to the way they fit into the overall research.

“At Prudential, several years ago, we were looking at ways to get information,” he says, “primarily primary research from different audiences. Different ideas surfaced about what's the best methodology that would make sense for us and be valuable and efficient. So independently, we started thinking about developing communities or panels with specific audiences.”

Chang will shed light on how discrete sets of feedback can, in combination, provide a holistic stakeholder view to optimize decision making. He also will review the advantages of using online communities and best practices regarding their development as well as benefits of collaborative multi-audience insights initiatives.

As they moved forward with their panels initiative, the Prudential team was able to identify three different panels or communities each relating to a specific partner or audience of interest.

“Then as we developed those and really got our sea legs and how to best optimize them, we also saw the opportunity to leverage them in a more collaborative nature, really kind of design things to get perspectives from all the different audiences and hopefully – and, usually – get even deeper insights because of that,” Chang says.

The TMRE presentation will include two colleagues as well as Chang who will provide perspectives on how and why the Prudential team arrived at the decision to move forward with the three panels, as well as “the nuts and bolts of making that happen and how we're using them today. Also maybe some watch outs or lessons learned. So if anyone else is interested in either standing up a panel or trying to do multiple ones, we can help you avoid some of those headaches.”

See the video for more on Seth Adler’s conversation with Eric Chang, as they talk about the value of panels in developing relevant insights for designated purposes.