Ten ways the iPad will radically change market research

April 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

[Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on Frankie's blog, Research Arts in September 2010. It is republished here with permission. Be sure to check out researcharts.com for Frankie's continuing coverage of the impact of the tablet computing on the market research industry.]

Less than a year since its introduction, millions of iPads have been sold. It already appears to be cannibalizing sales of low-end laptops and is set to bypass sales of netbooks. And there is a lot more to come… availability of iPads in Best Buy in time for the Christmas season, a variety of Android based tablets from other manufacturers, and who knows what else. This is just the beginning of the Tablet Age

Ok, so we’ve heard all this before, about how tablet computers are going to shake up market research. But there has never been a product quite like the iPad. It’s affordability, ease of use, long battery life, scalability, and sheer beauty are truly revolutionary.

So what does this mean for market research? Here are my guesses.

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Filed Under: Innovation, Market Research Tagged With: , ,

Investing in a Quality Sample

April 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I came across an older post from @Carey_Azzara of AtHeath LLC, which Carey reposted this morning on Twitter, and I wanted to draw it back to your attention. The post, entitled “Demystifying the Temptation to Cut Corners on Sampling Costs,” makes the argument that, when developing a new survey instrument, a quality sample is worth the investment. And perhaps more importantly, that this is an area where cutting costs can come back to bite you.

Developing a quality sample is a foundational component of solid, reliable market research. A poorly developed sample will poison your results, creating bias that at best skews your results, and at worst, leads you down the wrong path altogether.
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Filed Under: Market Research Tagged With: , , ,

The Power of Asking “What if” and “So What”

April 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How many times have you run across an innovative product and service and thought “Why didn’t I think of that?!”  Or maybe you’re like me and have these “harebrained” ideas, decide that they are silly and ignore them only to see them advertised or written about as the next great innovation!

The really neat thing about this interconnected Internet and social media culture is that we all have the ability to actually reach out to those people and simply ask them how they got the idea and what they did after that.

One of my new-year’s resolutions was to do exactly that; reach out to people I thought had an amazing idea, product or service and start a conversation with them about what they were thinking and how they made that idea come to life.

And you know what?  The answers I got were not earth-shattering.  They were actually very simple and driven by two questions most typically asked by your average three-year-old: “What if….” And then “So what?”

Here are just a few snippets of interesting conversations that illustrate this point:
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Filed Under: Innovation, Market Research Tagged With: , ,

Release of the GreenBook Industry Trends Report

April 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Great News: the Spring 2011 GreenBook Industry Trends Report (GRIT) has been released.

You can view a digital magazine version or download a PDF of either the Executive Summary or the Full Report via the links below. You can also register to be a respondent in the next wave of the study and to receive updates as they become available by visiting http://www.greenbookblog.org/GRIT.

Some summary from Research Access-contributor Leondard Murphy, editor of the GreenBook Blog:

The report shows a market research industry undergoing systemic and tactical change at a pace expected to accelerate. Whether that change is welcomed as opportunity or resisted as a threat depends to a large extent on age. Younger researchers with less experience in “the old ways” are confident they can adapt, while older researchers (with some highly notable exceptions) see their professional world and some of their professional standards cast aside as irrelevant or even damaging.

Some of the highlight findings contained in the report include:

  • The major structural and systemic changes being faced by those in the marketing research industry.
  • Despite a backdrop of professional pessimism, anticipated levels of future research spending are actually favorable.
  • The Top 50 Market Research Firms Perceived to be Innovative.
  • Gaps between Suppliers and Buyers, tenure in the industry, age of respondents and geographic location exist when it comes to emerging technology adoption.
  • Social media, mobile, MROCs and text analytics are the newer techniques most likely to be used in the foreseeable future.
  • Utilizing the latest and most advanced technology is certainly important to both clients and suppliers, but the business relationship itself – personal service, responsiveness, and attentiveness – rises to the very top of the list of decision-making criteria.

Downloads

GRIT Report – Spring 2011
EXECUTIVE version (28 pages)

GRIT Report – Spring 2011
FULL version (54 pages)

GRIT Report – Spring 2011
Interactive charts

Filed Under: Market Research, News, Research Base Tagged With: , , , , ,

MR 101: Validity and Reliability in Surveys

April 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

Confession: I don’t have formal training as a market researcher. I came to market research late in life by way of my training in information technology and computer science, and it’s something I’ve had to study – and continue to study today. And trust me: I’ve studied a lot in my life, and learning about market research has been one of the greater educational challenges I’ve taken on.

Why? In order to really understand market research and do it well, you need to be well versed in math, statistics, language, sociology, psychology, neuroscience and politics. You need to be a solid writer, a strong communicator, and an analytical thinker. Market research isn’t for lightweights, which is why I’m particularly happy when I come across solid educational resources that help to unlock the topic for me.
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Filed Under: How-To, Market Research Tagged With: , , , ,

ResearchBase: NFL Lockout Perception Study

April 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Anyone who follows sports, even a little bit, is probably aware of the looming battle between the National Football League and its players union. (For those who need to catch up, you can find a great primer and some Q&A courtesy of the Washington Post.)

As part of our ongoing launch of ResearchBase, our partners at SurveyAnalytics have shared a recent short survey they conducted on perceptions around some the key issues in the NFL debate.
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Filed Under: Research Base Tagged With: , ,

Do Mobile Respondents Differ from Online Survey Respondents?

April 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A new study from market research firm Opinionology looks into behavioral differences in mobile respondents versus those responding via traditional online surveys. The study, entitled “Do Mobile Respondents Differ from Online Survey Respondents?” [PDF], just begins to scratch the surface in answering what is sure to be a frequent questions these days, but it did find some interesting results.
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Filed Under: Market Research, Research Base Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gaining Clarity in Digital Marketing

April 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I just participated in a three day conference on Digital marketing which was attended by several digital agencies and thought leaders with good vantage points into this emerging space.

Interestingly, at the end of three days it became very clear that things are not very clear.

Multiple definitions exist concerning what digital marketing is, who cares about it, how to participate in it as a client/marketer or agency and how best to profit from it.

What is abundantly clear is the opportunity – for customers and agencies alike to change how they view their existing marketing efforts, reconfigure their marketing mix, rethink expectations of how we connect with customers, engage them, create a community and stickiness and in general, engender loyalty. This is clearly not blinding insight but I do believe there is a need and opportunity to help provide a framework to guide the efforts of various participants.
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Filed Under: Digital, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Evolution of Language

April 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

[Editor's Note: A few terms in this blog may need a little explanation for our US audience. A "solicitor" is a lawyer; a "council estate" is what Americans would call "public housing"; young men who wear hooded sweat shirts are termed "hoodies" and generally the term has an association with those who are "up to no good."]

After watching Adam Deacon’s Anuvahood in the cinema the other night (Twitter users: @Anuvahood or @RealAdamDeacon – also star of Kidulthood) I joked endlessly with my cousin on the way home. The story was about a culturally diverse group of working class friends growing up on an estate (or ‘block’ as Americans would say) in East London in the present day.

We joked because of the funny things that happened in the film, but we joked more about the way the characters spoke. We mimicked their style of talking, because we found it funny. “Fruitella’s are badman sweet ya get me?!” hahahah.

So this film was hilarious for us but because we both grew up in or in uncomfortably close proximity to council estates (areas of high poverty and high crime – think E-C demographic, if that kind of social scale even exists still) this film had melancholic and politically sorrowful undertones for us both. However, what I couldn’t help but be fascinated by were these young Brits way of talking. And I know the language used to be uncannily true to life because, as I say, I grew up in these areas.
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Filed Under: Market Research Tagged With: , , ,

Interview with Vivek Bhaskaran of SurveyAnalytics

April 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

Three weeks to go until the IIR Technology Driven Market Research event in Chicago, and we’re down to the last few interviews with presenters! (You can find the others on the Green Book Blog.) Today I bring you my conversation with Vivek Bhaskaran, CEO of Survey Analytics, and it’s a doozy! Always outspoken, irreverent, and most of all smart, Vivek revels in challenging the status quo.

I have gotten to know Vivek fairly well over the past few months; for a while we were exploring working together to co-develop a new offering around the convergence of mobile and social media, but that opportunity never came to fruition. During those conversations I quickly developed a deep respect for his energy, technological savvy and business acumen. I also discovered that Vivek has a passion for harnessing technology to create innovative solutions with a low barrier to entry for small and medium sized enterprises. One example is their recent flurry of mobile research solutions such as SurveyPocket, a mobile platform for tablets. Where many other enterprise-level software firms are still struggling to deploy mobile survey solutions, Survey Analytics has already moved from smartphones to tablets, and they are targeting client-side researchers as their clients with these solutions.

This strategy has put them dead-center in the “DIY” debate, and getting his take on that issue is one of the highlights of the interview. I think you’ll find this interview lively, engaging, and very relevant to what’s happening within the market research industry today.
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Filed Under: Events, Gamification, Innovation, Market Research Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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