Vice President of Client Services at Interviewing Service of America (ISA), Jeff Spitzer describes himself as a market researcher by day and health crusader by night. Jeff and Sam’s chat about both sides of his interests, including:

• ISA’s timely recruiting for COVID-19 research.

• The budding cannabis industry’s many personas.

• A curiosity for how people are managing their health while sheltering in place.

Samantha Meazell: Thanks so much for your time. Jeff Spitzer is the Vice President of Client Services at Interviewing Service of America. ISA to those of us who know and love it. He's a fellow Oregonian and he is a crusader for healthy living. Go to his LinkedIn profile to learn more about that part of his life.

COVID-19 research: Rather than showing up for a focus group, you're showing up for a swab.

Zeroing in on your work with ISA, let's get started with the most important question of all, Jeff. We are in the midst of some unique times and we all want to know how market research can save the world. But seriously, how can market research lead us into any sort of new thinking? How are you going to end this thing with some market research for us?

Jeff Spitzer: I wish I had the answer to that in the big picture. I probably don't, but I can speak to what we're doing at ISA and our different divisions. One of the things we've been doing is a lot of our own research and releasing it publicly. So in all the social channels, on our SoapBoxSample, ISA websites, it's out there. We've been doing a lot of research on the current pandemic and we're just trying to gauge the sentiments, the attitudes and perceptions, and how they're changing with the consumer population, and the whole goal being promoting awareness and understanding. We just want people to make more informed decisions. That's what research is, right? So that's one of the things we're bringing, the other thing is trying to understand this new normal. What trends are here to stay? What trends are gonna die with the pandemic, and really how to focus and how to move forward long term. So, obviously trying to help clients understand that.

We're headquartered in Los Angeles, so we're also doing a lot in California. In fact, those who are in the L.A. area may have seen the Los Angeles mayor do his daily briefings and he's quoted a lot of statistics from our research in those briefings. And that's been fun and encouraging. Probably the most important thing that we're doing right now is we're working with L.A. County health officials and some experts from USC and Stanford on trying to better understand what's going on.

Let me back up a little bit. What you may have heard is that there are people with no symptoms. They're asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms, and they're potentially spreading the virus and not even knowing that they have it and yet infecting others. And so what we're trying to do is help understand the bigger picture of what's going on. Our role is we're recruiting representative samples of both sick and healthy people to be tested for COVID-19 antibodies. So the whole idea being that by looking for the antibodies, we'll have a better idea, better understanding of the actual percentage of people who have been infected and also recovered. And just to give the population a clearer picture of what's really going on.

SM: How are y'all touching that work?
JS: We're recruiting locations to receive the test.

SM: Wow. I love it. And so a firm like y'all is able to do that in this nimble way, rather than going to medical testing where they have their whole recruiting system, to be able to get to the people that they need. And rather than showing up for a focus group, you're showing up for a swab.
JS: Basically, yes. And so we have the infrastructure in place. Obviously, we have the online panel. We have consumers, we have a quality database. We have all the resources to leverage in order to reach people and pull them in for this one. That's one way that we're doing it. Research can play a role, obviously. I mean, we're trying to play ours. And it might take out-of-the-box thinking, it might take branching into non-traditional business areas. But researchers can definitely play a role in at least educating the public.

SM: Yes, absolutely. We're all in a similar space of learning right now. The whole world is in a beginner's mind, you know. The discovery phase of research, essentially. And that's really cool to hear how y'all are directly touching that with your recruiting.

The cannabis industry is still pretty entrepreneurial and they tend to rely on guts and guesses rather than research and data when launching a new product.

SM: Another thing I was wondering about is I know that you speak to all sorts of clients who presumably come to you knowing what they want from research. And I would assume there are times that what they think they need differs from what they need. I wonder about any kind of blind spots that clients might have when they're requesting market research. And how do you handle that?
JS: Take a budding industry like the cannabis industry right now, where we do a lot of work in that space. Get it, budding? So in any new business, a lot of end users don't really know what exactly they want. They know they want to get a new product out there, a new idea out there, test their messaging, whatever it is. But they don't really know specifically. So, for example, in the cannabis industry, it's still pretty entrepreneurial and they tend to rely on guts and guesses rather than research and data when launching a new product. And so one of the things that we try to help them do is to understand what it is that they need to know instead of what they want to know. What most of them want to know, and they're correct about this, is when they're new in the space they want to bring a product that is unique and that competitors aren't going to be able to match. Right? And that's great. But what we really try to help them understand is that their product may not be the best fit for every cannabis user out there.

And so we try to help them understand who's the niche audience that they need to be reaching with their marketing message and how to tailor that message to them. For example, take one of the audiences that we uncovered during some of our research. By the way, we've done a lot of this around cannabis and it's posted on our social channels as well. And one of the audiences that we uncovered is fitness buffs who use cannabis products during their workout routine for things like improved focus, better recovery. There's other benefits that they claim it has. So there's an example of an audience where a cannabis brand could tailor their product and their messaging specifically to them and it would speak directly to them rather than what a lot of them are doing, and that is putting a product out there that's very general, trying to reach a general audience and it just gets lost in the noise. And I think that's a mistake that a lot of companies make when they first launch something without a lot of experience in messaging and in research, obviously.

SM: Yep. And that makes a lot of sense. And do y'all do that? So you're conducting that research and are your deliverables sometimes in the form of sort of persona and things like that?
JS: Yeah, and a lot of those personas that we've uncovered--we've actually released on our social channels.

SM: It's so great that you do share so much of this publicly.
JS: Yeah, the idea is, obviously, we want to become a leader in this space, the cannabis space, and that's one of the reasons why we're doing it. So, yeah, so we help them uncover personas. We help them test things with their personas. You know, the messaging, the new product concepts, things like that. And it really helps them understand who it is they want to reach because they think they want to reach everyone.

What's one thing you could do right now to regain a sense of control in your life? Aside from hoarding toilet paper, obviously.

SM: So if you could design your own survey to answer your most burning questions, who would you send it to and what would be the top two questions you'd ask them?
JS: I'm going to answer this personally because we've covered the company—we did the cannabis research, the pandemic research, we even did a study on the COVID-19 impact on cannabis consumption. That's all out there.

So personally, as you mentioned at the top, I have a passion for health and fitness. I'm actually a certified health coach when I'm not working in research. And with so many people right now under stay home orders and feeling locked up and trapped. I mean, I know people who use the new year as a way to gain some momentum on their health goals and they've been doing really well. And then boom, gyms are closed up and they're locked up in their houses with their junk food and family members' junk food that's also in the house. So the biggest thing that I've heard from people is the eating and overeating that's happening right now out of stress, out of boredom. As creatures, we tend to turn to food for comfort. And that's happening for us now. And so outside of our normal routines of going to the gym and going to the office, and we're just sort of trying to figure this out, we're all just trying to figure this out.

I guess I want to understand from people how they're feeling and sort of help them navigate this new normal. Because I heard somebody make a joke recently that we're going to call the extra weight gain during this pandemic “The COVID nineteen” like the freshman fifteen. It's a real thing for a lot of us. I would want to ask people how has the current situation affected their ability to live a healthy lifestyle? And then probably follow that up with something more empowering, like what's one thing you could do right now to regain a sense of control in your life? Aside from hoarding toilet paper, obviously.

SM: I love how you're a self-help, market researcher in that your survey question has implicit, empowering messages to it. Someone is looking at what they already have to make themselves feel better.
JS: That's a blend of coach training and research.

SM: Thank you so much for your time, Jeff. Have a great day!

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