Research Trends Roundup
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Sat, Mar 13, 2010
Mobile research, access panels, online qualitative, social media research. What's driving these markets? What do bloggers see when they look in their crystal ball?
- Mobile research (from Reg Baker's series of posts, especially Mobile Research Conference 2010 - Final Thoughts)
- Accelerators
- Ethnographic research
- Research at the "point of impulse"
- Decline of CATI
- Linking online and offline advertising campaigns
- Inhibitors
- Limited ease of use as an interviewing platform
- Penetration of Web-enabled mobile phones similar to U.S. Internet penetration 15 years ago
- Diversity of platforms to optimize for (from Blackberry, to iPhone, to Android, etc.)
- Obsession with the technology
- Online access panels (summary of Ray Poynter's post, What is the future for Online Access Panels?)
- Accelerators
- Shift from telephone and face-to-face surveys
- Integration with Do-It-Yourself survey tools
- Inhibitors
- Rise of proprietary panels and community panels
- Shift to mobile research and social media research
- Small loss to MROCs
- Market Research Online Communities (from Ray Poynter's post, How big is online Qual?)
- Ray estimates only 4% of current qualitative research globally is online
- Since only 14% of research is qual, that is just 0.6% of the overall MR market
- Online qual research is disproportionately U.S. (50-66% compared to U.S. research being 30% of the global pie)
- MROCs have surpassed "traditional" online qualitative techniques such as online focus groups
- Social media research (from Zachariah Hofer-Shall's post, What Is Social Intelligence?) - Applications:
- Rich qualitative insights from blogs and microblogs
- New quantitative metrics such as brand mentions and share of voice
- Assess success rate of interactive marketing campaigns
- Identify individuals needing customer service assistance
- Collect suggestions to improve products and services
In
Perfect Tango: Social Media and Smart Phones, Harish Kotadia, Ph.D., discusses potential synergies that will fuel mobile research and social media research.
- Only 13.4% of the 650 million mobile subscribers worldwide have accessed a web page from the device in the past month. This usage will "skyrocket" in the coming years.
- When they do check the Web, the most popular type of site is social networking. Individuals will be providing feedback to their friends at the "point of impulse".
- Two thirds of mobile users are interested in receiving data tailored by their geographic location and social network.
Abundantly clear from all these discussions in the past two weeks: market research is undergoing as much change as it has anytime in the past 10 years. We'll need to keep the crystal ball handy.