The GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Study is Now Available

October 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Greenbook Research Industry Trends ReportGood news! The Fall 2011 GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) study is now available.

In addition to key issues that have been trended since the initial 2003 study, new questions on research technology, anticipated staffing characteristics and skill sets, and anticipated changes to marketing research methodologies and business models were asked. Specific probes on influential and/or authoritative industry organizations were also included. The GreenBook staff also investigated spending levels, the overall levels of optimism vs. trepidation, and how the industry perceives and is reacting to change.  Even the moniker “marketing research” itself was a subject of this most recent wave, along with the standard complement of annual GRIT tracking questions.

So go grab your copy. And be sure to share your thoughts and opinions with us on the latest trends. You can add your comments to this post, or find us on Twitter (@researchaccess).

The Fall 2011 GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Study

EXECUTIVE version (32 pages)

FULL version (50 pages)

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

What We’re Reading: GameAccess, Mobility & Market Research Myopia

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Happy Monday, and Happy August as well. Despite the summer lull, filled with vacations, longer lunches, and generally slower-moving business, there’s still plenty to talk about in the world of market research. Here are some of the articles and news items that have our attention this morning:

  • GameAccess is Launched! – We’re very excited to share the news of the launch of our sister site, GameAccess. At the helm is gamification expert Betty Adamou (who you may recall as a past ResearchAccess contributor). Betty is the founder and CEO of Research Through Gaming (R.T.G), and through her efforts heading GameAccess.com, we’ll all benefit from the wealth of knowledge she has about game theory, game mechanics, and how gaming can be used not only in market research, but in advertising, marketing, concept testing and more. Read more about Betty and GameAccess in her introductory note as Editor-in-Chief. Welcome aboard, Betty!
  • “Must Read” List from the Market Research in the Mobile World Conference – We’ve talked a lot about the impact of mobility and mobile data collection on market research. There’s a slew of interesting thought leadership happening in that space right now. Fortunately, our friends over at the GreenBook Blog have put together a terrific list of articles, videos and presentations coming out of last week’s Market Research in the Mobile World conference in Atlanta. Examples include “Using mobile qualitatively to transform insight generation,” “The new era of expressive research: using technology for cultivating insights,” and “Mobile vs. online: modality considerations for data quality.” Go take a look!
  • Market Research Myopia: What the industry isn’t seeing in its own research – Kathryn Korostoff over at ResearchRocks.com has a great piece this week about a somewhat narrow field of vision that occurs when the market research industry looks inward. Specifically, that when the market research industry surveys itself, it tends to leave out a key segment of the audience: technology providers and platforms. Consequently, is the resulting research skewed?
  • The Real Cost of Social Media – Most especially because I enjoy infographics, I wanted to include this piece from MediaBistro on calculating the real cost of social media. As the author points out, the benefits of social media are often well understood, but the true underlying costs aren’t always fully considered.
What are you reading this week? Be sure to share your favorite articles/blog posts/chat discussions/etc with us, here in the comments or via Twitter (@researchaccess).
Filed Under: Gamification, Market Research, News Tagged With: , , , , ,

Does Influence Really Matter?

July 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Author’s Note: This article originally appeared on the AMEX Open Forum blog —  I wrote it to get people to seriously think about authority and influence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about influence lately.  It seems that I’m not the only one.  Influence isn’t just for celebrities any more.  Small business has gotten into the game as well.  Mike Michalowicz wrote an article that talked about how you can grow your business by connecting with influencers.  And Guy Kawasaki gives us a real life example of  how you can create a path for influencing behavior by setting up an environment for easy compliance.

Why Influencers Matter to Small Business?

Influencers matter to your small business in the same way that segmentation matters to your marketing message – they simplify and cut the cost of communicating to large groups of people.

We’ve been conditioned to think of celebrities as influencers because a single mention from them can set product sales soaring.  During the times of network media domination, small businesses rarely got to participate in this kind of promotion.  But the advent of new media with its wide reaching social networks has suddenly made it possible (even easy) for small businesses to reach their target audience by investing their time rather than money.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

In Praise of Progressive Government Policy

July 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Gentle reader on the right (or left) – please don’t get turned off by the title of this post. This is not meant to be a discussion on the value of liberal or conservative government policies at large.

I refer instead to the forward thinking work that some local government bodies are doing in adopting technology toward public good. One case in point is the work that we’re doing with the City of Redmond, WA as they roll out solutions that help reach their mobile citizens in an effort to manage people’s commutes better and reduce carbon footprints.

I run a digital marketing agency that focuses on combining rich creative with smart technology solutions for our customers. We partner closely with Microsoft on several fronts including with the Microsoft Tag team. Nayamode has powered some of the largest 2D barcode scanning based campaigns worldwide over the last year or so including for customers such as Conde-Nast and Compass Group. However, when we got a chance to work with the City of Redmond to power a local program to educate, inform and influence behavior of citizens as relates to commuting options, we jumped at it.
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Filed Under: Essay, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

The Dilemma of Social Media Measurement

July 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

[Editor's Note: The  following post by Michael Wolfe was originally published by and is syndicated with permission by The GreenBook Blog.]

Everyone with any sense of what is going on in the field of marketing right now knows that there is almost a mad frenzy about social media, the likes of which we have seldom seen. In fact, this frenzy has become so strong that it has spawned almost a gazillion self-proclaimed experts and gurus. It almost feels like the American Wild West, with the itinerant snake-oil salesman coming to town to sell us a bottle of his miracle cures.

As I have reviewed the literature on this subject, there appears to be three camps or approaches towards social media measurement. These are as follows:
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Filed Under: Market Research, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How Social Media and Mobile Devices Have Changed the Way We Segment

July 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

About six years ago I saw a demographer speak at a conference for natural food retailers and producers. He was trying to explain how traditional demographics did very little to explain actual buying and spending behavior.

Instead, he posited the idea that people participate in “worlds” or interest areas — one of which might include “natural or organic food” or “cycling” or “hiking” for that matter.

He wasn’t saying that interest areas weren’t around before, he was saying that there were better ways of grouping people on the horizon.  Well, the horizon he was talking about is here and in full swing.
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Filed Under: Market Research, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

What We’re Reading – Mobile Research Galore

June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We’re back this week with a round-up of what we’re reading. Our focus today is on a number of articles tackling the topic of mobile market research, including the impact of the smartphone, current limitations of mobile market research, and where we go from here.

  • What Smartphones Mean to Researchers – Mobility is creating a sea change in the market research industry, and at the center of that change is the smartphone. By enabling consumers and business to have constant, mobile access to data, smartphones have opened up new frontiers for how we communicate, share and connect with those around us, including our customers. In this article, author and Research Access contributor Vivek Bhaskaran analyzes the impact of the smartphone on our industry, and charges us to seize the opportunity that smartphones provides to deepen interaction with consumers.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Gamification, Market Research, News, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Are Market Research Tools an Alternative for Social Media Haters?

June 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Social Media has been around for a number of  years now, yet many CEOs just don’t see the point.  Most of them leave the social media activities to the marketing folks in their organization.

In a post on DIYMarketers, we explore the idea the some of today’s newest, coolest market research methods can actually be a great alternative for CEOs who hate all the hassle of social media, but want all the results.

Here is a summary of the alternatives:

  • If you hate the idea of losing control of your message, then create your own customer community.  You can create a customer or user panel with whom you are in regular conversation.  Ask the panel questions, via survey, they will give you answers.
  • Still question the ROI of social media?  Create a crowdsourcing space on your site where your customers can tell you their ideas for improvements and new products and you can respond.  Create a real-live brain trust and conversation that gets your customer involved in creating a product they will love and talk about.
  • Sick of people’s stupid updates?  Run surveys and polls on a mobile platform like SurveySwipe.  You can blast out a question to their existing community or upload a list of your own. You’ll get feedback in less than 2 hours!
I was one of the first people in line to criticize CEOs who weren’t taking advantage of the power of social media.  But as I got to really listening to their complaints — I really GOT IT.
The alternatives I’ve described here use the social media platforms, technologies and elements of fun and then target them toward ROI rich, time saving and customer engaging results.
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Filed Under: Market Research, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

What We’re Reading: Mobility, Asking Why, Social Media Research

May 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Normally, we’d be going through our reading list on Monday mornings, but given the glorious (and extended) Memorial Day weekend here in the US, we decided to postpone our reading to Tuesday. So without further adieu, here are some highlights from our reading list this week:

  • Mobilizing Market Research, Part 3 – In this third part of a nine-part series leading up to the Market Research in the Mobile World Conference, Carrie Robbins at the GreenBook Blog details the current uses and benefits of mobile market research. If you need to catch up, be sure to take a look at Part 1: Why Go Mobile? and Part 2: Industry Insights.
  • The Insight of Why - This excellent essay by Matt Ridings of techguerilla challenges the value of simple data in the absence of critical thought – specifically, in the absence of real people asking “Why?”  As Matt says, “…if you simply take data alone, and try to parse it in different ways all you really get is ‘filtered data’.  Useful?  Sure.  Interesting? You bet.  Insightful and/or Meaningful?  That remains to be seen and is arrived at only by human investigation *and* the context of the objective.” This piece is a thought-provoking, quick read. Be sure to add it to your list.
  • What is Social Media Research? – Ray Poynter over at the Future Place blog is in the process of writing a journal piece on the current state of social media research. As part of the process, he’s broken social media research down into 3 major “buckets” and he’s looking for your help and ideas to fill them. Go help him out.

What are you reading this week? Be sure to share your favorite articles/blog posts/chat discussions/etc with us, here in the comments or via Twitter (@researchaccess).

    Filed Under: Market Research, Mobile, News, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

    Can You Crowdsource Social Good?

    May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    Why not end the work week on an up-beat note?

    Mashable has an article this morning entitled, “Can Crowdsourcing Make Any Dream Come True?” In it, they explore the idea of crowdsourcing social good with a look at the site Wish Upon a Hero.

    The site allows anybody to post a “wish,” the content of which can range from good deeds like helping families affected by the tornado in Joplin, Missouri to – this one’s real – help with paying to have a tattoo removed. The community then decides who’s wishes are most deserving of being granted. Over 78,000 have been fulfilled so far.

    We’ve talked often in the past about the value of crowdsourcing, and the knowledge that can come from the wisdom of a crowd. Does it apply here as well? Can the crowd identify the most appropriate uses of resources for matters of social good? Will they weed out those just looking to make a buck? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this interesting use of the crowdsourcing approach.

    Have a great weekend!

    Filed Under: Market Research, Social Media Tagged With: ,
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