The Prosper Riley-Smith Effectiveness Award

The Prosper Riley-Smith Research Effectiveness Award for 2008, after much deliberation by the judges, was won by Dr Nancy Macdonald of 2CV and Krishan Lathigra of the Central Office of Information (COI) for their work on a Financial Services Authority project called "On The Money".

Nancy MacDonald 2CV Research

Krishan Lathigra COI

The aim was to understand young people’s financial needs and challenges in order to create an engaging online resource. This entry, as did many of the others, impressed the judges by its collaborative nature, with client and agency working hand in hand to produce an innovative and effective piece of work.

Winner 2008: On The Money, by Nancy MacDonald and Krishan Lathigra

About the award

What has always set the Prosper Riley-Smith Effectiveness Award apart (and this year was no exception) is the diversity of entries, spanning all kinds of qualitative practice. They effectively showcase the dynamism of what we do for a living and the difference they make to the success of a business.

The judges were also particularly impressed by the number of agency and client collaborative entries submitted this year. The range of methodologies showcased within the papers also demonstrates that we researchers are not resting on our laurels when it comes to developing and implementing inventive solutions to research objectives. Three papers were shortlisted for the final award:

• Chloe Fowler (Razor Research) and Kiri Hoosen (Gü Puds)
  for Gü Puds

• Lucy Green (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre)
  for British Museum

• Nancy MacDonald (2CV) and Krishan Lathigra (COI)
  for Financial Services Authority

The paper by Chloe Fowler and Kiri Hoosen demonstrated how research was used to bring a research-novice team at Gü closer to its consumers. In doing so, the research helped inspire a young and dynamic company leading to a raft of exciting (and tasty) NPD initiatives due to hit our supermarket shelves soon.

The paper by Lucy Green describes how the British Museum embraced qual to help understand how visitors engage with permanent exhibitions. This insight has resulted in the Museum moving from an object-led to an outcome-led focus when designing exhibitions.

The winning paper by Nancy MacDonald and Krishan Lathigra describes a set of innovative methodologies that were created to help teenagers get beyond surface responses to the relatively dry subject of personal finance. The paper pinpointed how research helped inspire internal teams to move beyond speculative segmentation models of this audience to a more textured and meaningful understanding. In doing so, the research proved instrumental in the development of a website by helping the web designers build an online resource which tonally presses the right buttons for its audience.

This has been a great year for the Award and the judging committee would like to thank everyone who submitted a paper.