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insights 2.0

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Ask a virginJuly 17 2008

There is a short op-ed article from Abi Fuller of Acumen Fieldwork in a special insert “Fieldwork in focus” of Research Magazine.
The article is called “If you want to know, ask a virgin”. Although it was written in the context of traditional focus groups, it resonates well for quantitative (and online) because it states the obvious that is so easy to forget: “by encouraging new respondents, would there be less inclination to use serial respondents? Quality has to be caused, not controlled.”

2008 has obviously been mostly focused on getting rid of the bad apples. Can we now start talking about how to engage first time respondents? People like to give their opinion, but not for surveys anymore. Too long, too boring, too linear. Social polling and consumer-generated content are all over the place, providing great instantaneous feedback but lacking the depth, control and sampling rigor of a real survey.

So, what’s next? It is time to focus on what needs to happen to make regular people want to participate in the research process…

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Be useful or bribeJanuary 14 2008

In a recent post, I expressed my skepticism about the fad of branded social networks, where marketers expect people to “engage” into “authentic conversations” with a toothpaste or a new checking account. The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel covered the topic today. While Emily’s article is a nice introduction to the WSJ’s general business readers, I would like to add a few comments:

Social networks are not online communities (and vice versa): a community exists around a center of interest, while a social network is about connecting people who know each other already. There is no Facebook or LinkedIn community. But there are strong online communities without networks: pregnant mothers, scuba-divers, etc. Ten years ago, the Internet was a community because only a few people had access to it (the same way one can argue that the twittersphere is a community). In a community, your common interest is at the center of the discussion although it may result in other discussions. Like in the real world, you will listen to people in your online community because you can trust them. You make friends on communities, you keep in touch with offline friends in networks. The tools that support communities have been around for a long time a

What can we do about it?December 5 2007

Merrill Dubrow lists four reasons why the market research business is broken:

1. Length of questionnaire 2. Boring, repetitive, poorly written surveys 3. Declining cooperation rates 4. Great variation in quality across online sample providers

He then asks a very simple question: what can we do about it?

I think that those issues are all intertwined. #4 is a consequence of #3, which is a consequence of #1 and #2. So, we need to fix #1 and #2 to fix #3, which will allow us to fix #4.

Here is my entire comment:

There are generally two ways to fix a problem: rely on a government/industry body, or let the market speak. When it comes to respondent cooperation, my point of view is that we need to come up with industry standards to allow the market to speak.

In a way, the market already speaks: respondents vote with their feet! While I am all for education and have nothing against raising funds for a good cause, the truth is that most surveys produced by our industry are not worth fighting for. If I had to educate someone, it would be survey designers, not respondents.

Thankfully, consumers today are too smart to just believe what they hear in commercials. They think surveys are a waste of time and none of us can blame them for that. Our su

Maybe a Panel Peak, but no peak yet for survey takersOctober 6 2007

Ray points to an interesting post from Pete Comley about what he calls “Peak Panel” in reference to “Peak Oil”. Pete Comley is one of the researchers that inspires me most for his original thinking. I can’t recommend enough the reading of his paper “the game we play” from last year’s ESOMAR conference, and will listen carefully to his next presentation in Orlando at the end of the month, as I listen every time he talks about panels.

I tend to agree with Pete’s assumption that the population of panelists has reached its peak in the US, but with a caveat. I would say this: it depends what you call a panelist, or what you call an online panel. It’s not so much a matter of opinion actually (and who cares about mine anyway), but simple facts.

I have seen a clear erosion of the number of respondents each online panel is able to deliver in the past 3 three years that I have been sourcing online sample. The fresh respondents have mostly come from new entrants in the market, but most new generic gen. pop. online panels only resulted in creating more duplicates between databases, except for the rare few that used alternative recruitment methods. I also agree that there is finite universe of people for whom online panels are relevant. I don’t kn