Avoiding Crummy Market Research

June 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I came across a great article last week that I wanted to bring to your attention. The article, entitled “Five Ways to Protect Against Crummy Market Research,” was written by Paul Gillin of The CMO Site, and being written from the perspective of an informed respondent, Paul brought up some great points.

Paul begins by pointing out some of the most offensive questions in a survey he recently received. Here’s his favorite (and mine, too):

Envision a scale with Highest Revenue at one end, and Highest Control of the Buyer Relationship on the other. Where would you put yourself on this continuum? (We don’t have the ability to draw a “dial” so please try to balance your answers on this scale.)

It’s painful just reading that question. And it’s hard to imagine that a market research professional was involved in any way in crafting that question. (If they were, they should be fired.)

Paul points out some of the other systemic flaws in this instrument, as well, and what will inevitably happen next:
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Why Size Counts (And Why Shorter is Better)

May 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Jeffrey Henning (of the renowned Voice of Vovici blog) brought two links to my attention this morning via Twitter, and I wanted to be sure you all caught them as well. The topic of both pieces was size – specifically, why the size (or length, if you rather) of surveys really matters, and equally importantly, how to do something about it.

The first link comes from Michaela Mora at Relevant Insights. (We’ve mentioned Michaela’s content before; she provides really great content on a variety of market research topics.) The article is “Why We Need to Avoid Longer Surveys,” and in it, Michaela makes (and provides supporting data) for a very important point: Long surveys often mean bad data.
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Is Social Media Killing the Survey?

March 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

A recent article in AdvertisingAge entitled, “Will Social Media Replace Surveys as a Research Tool?” caught my attention. With that title, how could it not? Of course, this isn’t a new topic. We’ve been debating the impact of social media on market research for some time now. But, through the lens of consumer products companies, this article discusses an argument - one increasing in volume almost daily – that market research needs to become more “methodology agnostic.”

The article is based on a recent presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Re:Think 2011 conference in New York. The presentation was made by Joan Lewis - global consumer and market knowledge officer of Procter & Gamble Co. (a company with $350 million in annual market-research spend). Here’s what she had to say:
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The DIY Debate: Why Self-Service is the Future, and Market Research Can’t Hide

March 17, 2011 By 6 Comments

There is a lot of debate over the future of market research as it pertains to agencies. I spoke about it with Sanja Licina of CareerBuilder  in the AMA conferences last year and have been in a couple of panels – AMA Atlanta MR SIG along with Phillip Garland from SurveyMonkey.

Let me lay out my thoughts on the subject by beginning with an example: I travel a lot for business and I recently found out about paperless self-service check in. Yes. Paperless. Using your smartphone – Blackberry, iPhone, Droid etc. It’s a unified system that the TSA has put together. Both United and Delta are a part of that program. When you check in online, you get a link to a mobile boarding pass. At the TSA security checkpoint, you simply open up the link in a browser window on your smartphone and scan. No more printing boarding passes.

At the gate, again you scan in your boarding pass by showing the phone screen and hop onto the plane.

Look at the travel industry and how self-service has it become. It started off with airline booking — when Expedia, Orbitz etc. came online and directly disrupted the full-service travel agency business, then web check-in significantly lowered the cost for airlines and now end to end electronic and self service flying. No wonder Virgin America has flights from Seattle to San Francisco for $49! It costs me more money to take a cab from my house to the SEATAC airport than to fly from Seattle to San Francisco! Virgin has scale — my cabbie does not!

The same can be said for many other industries: Banking – When is the last time we went to a teller? Investements: eTrade, Ameritrade. Even real-estate with Redfin and Zillow.

Market research is also heading that way. We see it everyday with our clients – obviously from a tool standpoint, we get called in when companies bring their research in-house. It’s not even a question of cost – it’s a question of power and effeciency. Most folks we talk with need to get data and make decisions FAST. This means having the tools and resources to execute quickly and effeciently. For the most part, that is the reason why many of our clients turn to us.
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The Continued Debate Over DIY Market Research

March 16, 2011 By 1 Comment

Earlier this week I wrote about one of the most significant debates currently taking place in the market research community: the debate over DIY research. We’ve gotten some great feedback and interesting opinions on both sides of the argument, including some really helpful resources, provided in a comment on the original post by Kathryn Korostoff of Research Rockstar. (Go check those out.)

But the debate rages on.
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Power to the People

March 14, 2011 By 5 Comments

I draw your attention this morning to an article recently written for MRWeb by our own senior contributor, Andrew Jeavons. The article, entitled “Power to the People” was written in response to Jerome Sopocko’s recent article in the same publication, “Man Up! The Trojans are at the Gate.”

The debate – a long-standing one, but taken up this past week by Andrew and Jerome – centers around the role of Do It Yourself (DIY) tools in market research. Jerome argues that DIY survey tools pose a threat to the market research industry by “dumbing down” research instruments and leading those using DIY survey tools to believe that the data they gather is equal to the results of professionally conducted market research. Andrew counters that DIY exists because there’s a demand for it, and we, as market researchers, can either reposition ourselves to offer value or be left behind.

So who is right?
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Can We Stop Arguing Over The “Best” Methodology?

February 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

arguingby Ron Sellers

Blogs and message boards are a great way to discuss research questions.  Some discussions I’ve seen recently:

  • Is it better to do one long survey or multiple shorter surveys?
  • Is qualitative research or quantitative research more likely to result in usable insights?
  • Should researchers be using CATI interviews or online panels?
  • Are focus groups superior to IDIs, or do IDIs provide greater insights?
  • Are traditional focus groups better than online qualitative, or is it the other way around?
  • Are online panels better than social media sampling, or vice versa?

The fascinating thing is that in every case, the posed question is then followed by multiple answers and discussion of which option is right.  People passionately defend their selection and denigrate the other choice.  I’ve even seen some nasty comments and arguments arise from these debates.

The funny thing is that to have a blanket debate like this on these topics is largely pointless.
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Do It (Yourself) or Die

February 4, 2011 By 2 Comments

Regular readers of the Green Book Blog know that I think a lot about the future of the market research industry. I make it my business to follow as much news as possible, network with peers, talk with thought leaders, and collect my own primary and secondary research data on the topic. I do all of this for three reasons:

  1. To protect my own business interests by anticipating trends in the industry
  2. To give back to the industry that has been so good to me
  3. Because I find it interesting and yes, even fun

I’ve written before about the tectonic shift our industry is undergoing right now driven by the forces of sociotechnological change due to the rise of social networks and mobile convergence, client demand for greater ROI from the insight function, and the rise of competitive pressure from emerging technology providers outside of the industry. We’re beginning to see these three factors coming together in the form of a rapidly evolving Do It Yourself (DIY) industry. Up until relatively recently we saw three classifications of DIY offerings that impacted MR:
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The Impact of Moving Offline Surveys Online

December 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

We’ve been talking a lot recently about alternative approaches to data collection, including the rapidly growing use of tools like social media and mobile devices. We just posted yesterday about the prediction made by Vaughn Mordecai that these alternative approaches will finely see mainstream traction in 2011. But while we’re pretty sure this is going to happen, how much have we thought about the impact that will have on the way surveys are designed, structured and executed, and on how we analyze the results?
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