Current Work

Almost all of you do know that I have taken the semester off and will be working until May/June and that I have kept my options between the following two; GRC (Gulf Research Centre) and AC Nielsen. Well without going into much detail, based on the work, time, payment and need, AC Nielsen was the final choice.

What is AC Nielsen? Well it is a marketing research company, its headquarters are located in the States, but it has branches in all parts of the world, which makes it a global marketing research company, they have branches in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

So what is “marketing research”? Basically any company, organization or firm that sells a product or a service or would like to introduce a new product or service, would first conduct a market research to obtain a better understanding of the consumers wants, needs, tastes/ preferences and the like. In order to go ahead with the research, the company would go to a marketing research company that would study the project and the needs of the client and accordingly propose a concept and methodology for the research. For example, should it be focus groups, in home interviews, individual in-depth discussions, the age group, nationality, males/females, do you need competition consumers and the like. And so that is what Nielsen does.

Now I already have been doing part time work for Nielsen last semester. I translated recorded interviews, from Arabic to English, in the form of transcripts. Usually when the research is in the Middle East and the clients are English speakers, translation of what has been said during the focus group discussions is required. Translation is needed in two forms, the first is spontaneous translation and that is when the discussion is taking place the client would be present in another room, and spontaneous translation is needed for the client to understand. The second is in the form of transcripts, as I explained above.

The Nielsen in U.A.E. and Egypt are the main branches for the Middle East, meaning if research was done in let’s say KSA, it would be sent to U.A.E. for the final stages of analysis and presentation. So Nielsen is constantly busy and has several projects taking place in a month. Different people take care of different projects, thus they are in constant need of free lancers/part-timers/interns to assist. I usually translate transcripts for Badri and Hisham whom work in one department. As work comes and on my availability I do it, sometimes it is instant translation, sometimes it is just transcripts which I can do at home and get paid for per group translation. I am still doing this work with them.

The stable monthly paid job I got there until May is with a very sweet lady called Yomna. She is the research manager; I am working with her as an intern. She mainly takes care of the last two stages after the field work is done, which is the translations, interviews etc. she does the analysis and the presentations which are to be presented to the clients. She mainly takes care of Nestle projects, as you are aware Nestle has many products all around the world. The current one I am working on is for MILO, which is a chocolate energy drink by Nestle. Their research is on how they can improve the image of MILO with a distinguishable character. Now for whoever knows, MILO in Syria and apparently in KSA has become the generic name for any chocolate drink and this has led to it not having competition. So they want to find out what is the best way to promote the drink with a new image. So now after the interviews in KSA and Syria have been done, I need to listen to the audio recordings and create an analysis sheet after which a presentation would be put together.

Hmm last week, I got asked to do work with another person in the company, Mutaz, on a project for Al Jazeera, the Arabic one. Al Jazeera wanted to conduct research on its viewers and competitors’ viewers. Research was done in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and KSA. So apart from the work I do with Yomna, any other work , such as the one with Badri and Hisham, gets paid for separately as well, per group or task. Everyone there is really friendly, so it is great working with them and the extra money never hurts :p ah so remember the new skill I learnt last semester, part of my Soliya course, well I knew it would come in handy ;) part of the work I did with Mutaz was editing videos and adding subtitles, basically making short clips. That work was a killer though, he just received the videos from KSA and was on a short deadline, meaning I had to first watch 15 groups and make 40 clips, within two days. Thankfully that is over and done with :)

Although much of this work is marketing, it is rather interesting and oh it is amusing when you hear the interviews and what people say, although some can be boring.

Hmm so that must have filled you in with all that I am currently busy with, which is why this post is late…I started working two weeks ago. This work does take time but is worth it and a lot is learnt. Plus I need the money and it is good being busy. The variety in projects and type of work helps in making it less tedious.