10 years of Impact The decade in 10 To celebrate 10 years of Impact, we explore 10 trends that have shaped the decade for insight, and hear from industry gures on what these shifts have meant for research. By Katie McQuater and Liam Kay Covid-19 The pandemic changed the way we worked, lived and shopped. Some changes were temporary, some were longer-lasting, but what it did was emphasise the importance of staying connected to customers and gauging the mood of the public, reinforcing the role of insight. Covid-19 has had such a long-lasting eect on our planet, says Neil Mortensen, director of audiences at ITV. Millions of individual and communal stories delivered every emotion, from hope to despair. In our small corner of the world, ITV spoke to our audiences every day. We listened and gave them an open book to talk about their lives, worries and their TV viewing. We fed this back through lockdown with weekly webinars to the whole plc. Something amazing happened: our inboxes were flooded with colleagues expressing thanks for our audience insights and, more importantly, comradeship. We were holding up a mirror to ourselves, connecting to the world and realising we werent alone. Jane Ostler, executive vice-president, global thought leadership at Kantar, says: Some things have returned to normal for example, there has been a return to real-life marketing. The one thing that has shifted dramatically is that, with such rapid macroeconomic change, understanding consumers and interpreting insights for agile decision-making has never been more important; insight needs to provide clear guidance and predict outcomes in a fast-changing world. 16 Impact ISSUE 40 2022_pp16-21_10 years of Impact.indd 16 13/12/2022 11:26