Key Takeaways, hosted by Murphy Research, discusses the latest market research trends influencing consumer behaviors and attitudes. Hot topics include: market assessment, brand strategy, product development, and customer loyalty and engagement. Tune in for the insights, stay for the candidness!
Why do so many research decks end up as 80-slide encyclopedias that nobody actually reads? Chuck and Maggie tackle the classic tension between wanting to show off all the hard work that went into a study and giving busy stakeholders a story they'll actually remember. They compare how different backgrounds shape that instinct, discussing how academic training pushes people to over-explain every footnote, while advertising experience trains you to grab attention in 30 seconds flat.
From there, Chuck and Maggie dive into five straightforward ways to cut through the data clutter. They talk through why locking down a single "essential question" with stakeholders before a project even starts can save weeks of misalignment later on. They also call out the bad habit of giving every single survey question its own dedicated slide, making a strong case for trimming decks down to a crisp 25 or 30 slides. Listen as they unpack how researchers can step up as true consultants, whether that's tailoring decks for specific rooms, creating a single visual "money slide," or throwing out bold recommendations just to get a good business discussion started.
4 Sept 2026
Keeping Your Tracker Relevant: Lessons from Consumer Confidence
A long-running tracker has an obvious advantage: history. But what happens when the methodology changes and the numbers move with it
Chuck and Maggie use the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers as a jumping-off point. After the study transitioned from phone to online data collection, the consumer confidence index showed a notable drop between the two approaches, even though the broader trends looked similar. That raised a difficult question: was consumer sentiment really changing that much, or was part of the movement being introduced by the methodology itself?
It's a useful case study for anyone managing a long-running tracker. Methodologies eventually need to keep pace with changes in how research is conducted, but protecting years of historical data makes those decisions complicated. Chuck and Maggie talk through how researchers can approach that tradeoff - from running parallel waves and watching for changes in sample composition to considering whether outside factors, like an election or economic uncertainty, could make the results harder to interpret.
What does it take to maintain a tracker as methodologies, consumers, and business needs change?
20 Aug 2026
Navigating Modern Qual: Recruiting, Facilities, and Hybrid Debriefs
Chuck Murphy and Maggie Bright take a close look at the mechanics of qualitative research today and why the demand for in-person work continues to surge. Rather than treating qualitative research as a nice-to-have extra, Chuck and Maggie zero in on the irreplaceable value of watching people express ideas in real time.
Maggie highlights how brand teams are returning to focus group backrooms to capture the human context, nuance, and narrative depth that quantitative metrics don’t capture on their own. But running qualitative work today requires a total refresh of the old playbooks. Facility scarcity, changing participant defense mechanisms, longer recruiting runways, and hybrid client debriefs have fundamentally shifted how projects get executed. Chuck and Maggie trade practical tips on managing fieldwork logistics, engaging smart participants, and facilitating backroom discussions.
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