JAY OWENS
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  • Media research
  • Home
  • About + Contact
  • Dust
  • Writing
  • Talks
  • Reading
  • Work
  • Media research
JAY OWENS
What I do
I work freelance in consumer insight, with a focus on media and technology research.
  • I explain culture and the context your brand's operating in
  • I map the needs, behaviours and mindsets of target audiences - from software developers, to Millennials, to high-end whisky drinkers.
  • I help companies act; unlike most consumer research, my work isn't reportage. It's 50% recommendation, and 50% why.
  • I can coach your teams on research methods, insight development and strategic communication to help your work do this too. 

Semi-recent projects include:
  • the Public Media Stack, building an ethical guide to public media technologies (with Storythings)
  • helping renewable energy company Bulb design & launch their Carbon Calculator tool
  • food & beverage trends and innovation for a major US FMCG. Concepts I wrote have directly translated into products on shelf now (with Black Swan)​, 
  • coaching a dating app's product & research team to create an audience segmentation and personas, by mapping the contemporary dating landscape
  • in-depth quantitative communications research for a US biotech firm
Get in touch
info@newriver.ltd
Jay Owens
Methods and background
I worked at Pulsar in London from 2010 to 2019, and before that in public policy research. I have deep expertise in working with social media research and audience intelligence tools, but at heart I'm methodologically agnostic: it's about the right method for the problem, and I also use depth interviewing, survey data, and extensive third party & desk research reviews as required.
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​ I like building teams with complementary skillsets, triangulating a problem from a few different angles, and working with both quantitative & qualitative data (the what and the why).
Conferences, talks & training workshops
Market Research Society IMPACT annual conference, annually 4x 2016-2019
  • Most recently moderating a session on 'The Futurist's Toolkit' featuring Anab Jain of Superflux, Scott Smith of Changeist, and sci fi narratives author & researcher, Paul Graham Raven 
  • 2019 writeup: Futurology: A Way to 'Bridge the gap between complex data and the decision-makers' (Research-Live.com)
  • 2018 writeup: Social Media: 'No Longer on the Lunatic Fringe of Research' (Research-Live.com)

​MRS Customers Exposed (2016)
Marketing Week Live (2015)
Insight Innovation Exchange (2014)
Training for ESOMAR (2014-2017) and Association of Qualitative Researchers (2017).