Axe Twist – An Entirely Co-Created Product (By FaceGroup)

It’s with great pride that the Face team would like to announce that Axe’s latest deodorant, Twist, is an entirely co-created product! Using our online communities and co-creation process, Axe worked alongside consumers at every step of the marketing journey.

The Twist project began in early 2008, the initial steps of the process involved around 50 members of Headbox taking part in an online community. A smaller crack team of Headboxers from the US, the UK and South America were then selected to take part in a co-creation workshop. The agenda for the workshop, which took place in the Summer of 2008 in a very sunny New York City, was to co-create a new Axe variant that had ‘freshness’ as the key characteristic. The Headbox consumers worked for alongside members of the Axe team, the fragrance house, perfumers, Axe’s creative agencies and Face on various different concepts.

At the end of the 2 days the outcome was Twist – a fragrance that changes throughout the day.

David Cousino, Unilever Consumer Marketing Insight (CMI) director, explains, “The Twist concept was born from the insight provided by our consumers that girls get bored easily and the real challenge is to keep them interested, or ‘hooked’. Using co-creation at such an early stage enabled us to engage with our target audience in a meaningful way, and deliver a new product suited to their needs and wishes.”

“In addition to invaluable consumer insight, this methodology gave us the added benefit of a much more efficient development process. By engaging key functions all at once, we were able to develop within only ten weeks a concept that had collaborative input from the fragrance experts, marketing team and creative agency,” adds Cousino

The Twist concept was then taken back online and fed into Headbox for testing and refinement. The completely collaborative approach meant that Unilever knew it would be well-received by consumers – something borne out by exceptional test scores and good initial response in its first launch market. The product has been launched in the UK and is being rolled out to the US, other European countries and Latin America.

Client View - Why Co-Creation Delivers Better Results from Face Group on Vimeo.

The Most Influential People in Twitter Tagged with #MR and #marketresearch

The Most Influential People in Twitter Tagged with #marketresearch
Click here to update the #marketresearch list

The Most Influential People in Twitter Tagged with #mr
Click here to update the #MR list 

Twitalyzer's Benchmark report allows you to generate ranked lists of Twitter users based on their stated location and the tags that have been applied to their profile. By default the report lists the most influential people using Twitter based on their scores collected in the last 30 days.

Influence is the likelihood that a Twitter user will either A) retweet something the user has written or B) reference the user.

Impact, as defined by Twitalyzer, is a combination of the following factors:

• The number of followers a user has
• The number of unique references and citations of the user in Twitter
• The frequency at which the user is uniquely retweeted
• The frequency at which the user is uniquely retweeting other people
• The relative frequency at which the user posts updates

Generosity, as defined by Twitalyzer, is the percentage of updates in which a user retweets other people.

Clout, as defined by Twitalyzer, is the relative likelihood that an individual's Twitter username will appear when searched for in Twitter. 

Lists reports the number of Twitter lists the user was a member of when the last analysis was conducted. If the number of lists looks wrong to you, update the user's profile.

Brand Mapping As A Consumer Insights Tool

The brands we choose arguably say something about our identity – what we value in the products we use, how we perceive ourselves, and how we want to be perceived. In order to paint a more holistic picture of the choice of brands one uses throughout their day, Storm Brand DNA – a brand and design strategy agency out of Melbourne, Australia – uses ‘Brand Mapping’ within their Insights process on commercial projects.

As a standalone visual, the information contained in this infographic might give you a limited perspective into the multitude of brands that this individual chooses when he’s having breakfast, getting ready for work in the morning, getting his news for the day, etc. But it would be interesting to see, from a consumer insights perspective, how this might change over the course of a few months, how the brand map compares and differs across men of a similar demographic – and to ultimately engage in a discussion of why they selected particular brands.

How did their choice – or perception of – Bose differ from that of Apple, for instance? What attributes were valued in their choice of athletic gear, vs. automobile, vs. mobile phone? Is their choice of brand across multiple categories ultimately trying to paint a picture of them as an individual, or does it differ across product category? An insightful tool if used effectively.

 

by Paloma Vazquez via PSFK 

Investigación sobre espectadores online de TV en España - 2010

Uno de cada cuatro internautas en España actualmente [2010] ve contenidos de televisión a través de los canales que las cadenas tienen online. La presentación se basa en un estudio de mercado realizado por Elogia Ipsofacto para el 26º Seminario de TV de AEDEMO.

Investigación sobre espectadores online de TV en España - 2010

View more presentations from Elogia.

Can Big Research Companies Really Compete in Qualitative?

By Alastair Gordon

Many larger Market Research companies struggle with their Qualitative offerings. Yes, they offer strategic entry points to key decision-making moments in the marketing process and are high margin (at least when working properly). Yet Qualitative in its traditional form is hard to scale up, very “ad hoc” in its approach, dependent on a few talented individuals and difficult to integrate into the overall mix of larger Quantitative based business.

This leaves senior managers struggling to find ways to extract sufficient value from their investment in the units, and often results in Qualis in bigger businesses feeling left out and under-appreciated. Consequently, there is a widespread belief among many Qualis, clients, and even some senior MR managers that Qualitative is better handled by boutiques. Yet times are changing, and there exists a window where larger companies could regain the initiative and change the way Qualitative is understood and utilised by clients. They’ll need to take some risks and will have to forcibly confront the mythic characterisation of Qualitative research as some sort of free-form performance art. The effort though, will be worthwhile.

Three trends convince me that the time is ripe for bigger companies to rethink the way they approach Qualitative.

1. Online Qualitative. For bigger companies the key benefits of this are not the usually touted ones of speed, graphical capabilities, and cost (although these are useful) but operational implications. The advent of good Online Qualitative platforms provides scalability by making fieldwork, analysis, and recruitment easier to control and integrate into other research processes. Multi-market studies can be handled faster by a smaller team while removing the inconsistencies that have traditionally bedevilled cross-country Qualitative studies. More importantly (and this is a little understood benefit), online Qualitative substantially increases the pool of people who can undertake such research. People with good research and marketing nous, but who lack the traditional interpersonal “face-to-face” moderation skills required in a Focus Group setting can do just fine handling an online project.

2. Systemisation is Possible. Recently (at least pre-recession) various companies have put more effort into enforcing training standards, templates, output consistency, and unity of business practices on Qualitative units. Companies have set up branded international units to try and drive multi-country business and introduce syndicated services. At the same time “branded products” (e.g. Needscope, Censydiam, DeltaQual) have attempted with some success to put intellectual and analysis frameworks around the reporting of key types of “soft data”. Many of these efforts are still works in progress, but they show that with proper thought and planning, it is possible to introduce more systematic processes into Qualitative. This makes retention of experience/IP and integration with other services easier, a necessity for bigger companies.

3. Increasing Client Emphasis on Data Triangulation. Clients increasingly want rich “why data” that integrates with quantitative trend and usage information to tell a complete story. Some of the MR work I’m most proud to have been involved with combined data that was hugely quantitative (from household panels and retail scanning) with in-depth qualitative work specifically designed to uncover the meaning of trends and brand issues. Bigger companies are well placed to take advantage of this trend to design frameworks that integrate Qualitative insights into their regular work.

So if these three trends offer hope to bigger companies that they can get more out of Qualitative, what do they need to do? Firstly they need to make a real commitment to online Qualitative platforms and think about the training and structures required to make these work. Secondly they need to invest in development and thought on what sort of applications and services are best delivered via Online Qualitative (it is an area that is begging for a “killer app” in my view) and on how they can integrate all their Qualitative services into more cohesive overall offerings.

Almost as importantly though, they need to take leadership in confronting the Guru Mentality that bedevils Qualitative research in our industry. Look, good moderation is important - but it is basically high-level fieldwork, it is not the endpoint for good qualitative. It sometimes seems that the quality of a focus group is judged by the exuberance of the moderator and quantity of comments extracted from participants. Qualitative is reduced to a form of performance art where what you see is what you get and a great group is one in which a “Quali guru” puts on a great show and later tells a fine story about what he/she observed. It is like judging great opera by how catchy the ‘tunes’ were. I exaggerate of course, and many good Qualis successfully combine the “moderation craft” with design and analysis talents. But in general the emphasis is on the wrong part of the research process, undermining the value of careful analysis and reporting. This leads to quite a few reports that are little more than superficial and subjective “toplines” and causes enormous inconsistency in studies that cross time and markets. Not only is this bad practice from any half-decent theoretical perspective, but it focuses clients eyes on the rare “performance talent” of specific senior practitioners over the training systems, frameworks, and analytical consistency that are (or could be) the strengths of bigger firms. It’s in the interest of bigger companies to reposition this emphasis.

But if they did do all this, and revolutionised their approach, would this mean the demise of the smaller operator/independent expert? Actually no, in fact it would revitalise the whole Qualitative industry and open up whole new areas for the boutiques and free-lancers. But that’s another post!

Online Eyetracking - Caso Supermercado

Esta herramienta combina el Eye Tracking (test de retina) con el Shelf Test (lineal de supermercado virtual) para evaluar conjuntamente la parte objetiva de selección de productos con los lugares donde se fija el usuario.

Nota: la línea y círculos rojos son los movimientos de la retina. El eye tracking permite medir el lugar, tiempo y recorrido del ojo humano en una pantalla.

Diseño del lineal virtual by Netquest www.solucionesnetquest.com

Tecnología de eye tracking: Alt64 www.alt64.com

iQ 2.0 - Dos años haciendo networking y blogueando

Insights Qualitativos 2.0 surgió como un grupo en Facebook destinado a facilitar la conexión y colaboración de profesionales relacionados con la investigación de mercados etnográfica-cualitativa. El grupo se expandió rápidamente, llegando en la actualidad a reunir más de 2.000 profesionales en alrededor de 50 países el mundo (si se incluye a la página en Facebook y el grupo en LinkedIn).

De manera paralela, se creó el blog iQ 2.0, con el fin de facilitar el acceso a  contenidos  plurales, de más de 30 fuentes y redactados principalmente en Español, Inglés y Portugués, sirviendo de espacio para la exploración y difusión de innovaciones metodológicas. 

Más de 50.000 visitas en dos años dan cuenta de que iQ 2.0 está cumpliendo su misión. 

Se han publicado más de 500 entradas en el blog, siendo éstas las 10 más visitadas el último año:

1. USING THE POWER OF ARCHETYPES AS A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH TOOL
2. "El Código Cultural" - El enfoque de Clotaire Rapaille
3. New Book: Netnography - Doing Ethnographic Research Online
4. Netnography, virtual ethnography, online ethnography, remote ethnography, digital ethnography?
5. Una definición colectiva de "ETNOGRAFÍA"
6. Living Brands: Collaboration + Innovation = Customer Fascination
7. Clotaire Rapaille: el reptil siempre gana
8. Focus group numbers on the up, says FocusVision
9. Market Research: Ten Trends for 2010
10. iPhone App for ethnographic research

A mediados del 2009 expandimos la comunidad a través de Twitter y en corto tiempo, con alrededor de 500 followers, se ha convertido una de las tres principales fuentes de acceso a los contenidos publicados. 

La comunidad iQ 2.0 se mantiene viva gracias a la participación de cientos de seguidores, entre quienes queremos destacar y agradecer por sus contribuciones (inspiración, contenidos, difusión, comentarios) a:

Clarisa Herrera - Argentina
Cristina Quiñones - Peru
Daniel Mejía - Colombia
Daniella Saldivia - Chile
David Rojas - Bolivia
Eduardo Sebriano - Argentina
 Gustavo Coronado - Costa Rica
Gonzalo Jimenez - Chile
 Isabel Garnica - España
Jim Longo - Canada
John Kearon - UK
Jorge Osuna - Mexico
Jorge Rodriguez - España
José Miguel Muga - Chile
Ken Erickson - USA
Lee Ryan - Singapore
Matt Foley - USA
Mónica Burzstyn - Colombia
Ray Poynter - UK
Brian Tarran - UK
Robert Kozinets - Canada
Sergio Poblete - Chile
 Siamack Salari - Belgium

Steffen Hück - Germany
Tatiana Tosi - Brazil
Tom De Ruyck - Belgium
Victor Gil - España

Esperamos seguir aportando valor.

Pablo Sánchez Kohn
iQ 2.0 - The Wikonsumer & Netizen Culture

Market Research 3.0 Is Here (via @FastCompany)

 

By Kevin Randall  

This is the marketer's and researcher's dream. Reconciling the natural tensions that challenge and befuddle brand planning:

• Feelings & Facts
• Sentiments & Statistics
• Qualitative & Quantitative
• Focus Groups & Surveys
• Subjective & Objective
• Why & What
• Art & Science

I'll admit, when I first heard about Google, Facebook, and Nielsen studying, decoding and monitoring language and chatter on the Web and "listening to conversations," the consumer part of me got a little bit of the creeps (Big Brother idea).

On the other hand, the market researcher part of me was excited about all of the possibilities. Market research has been stale for a while. Everyone knows about the limitations of the traditional focus group and survey. Do group respondents even tell the truth in an artificial setting where they are served finger sandwiches and paid $100? How can the group think be weeded out to get a real picture of the market? Are the right people answering online surveys? Are panelists professional survey respondents or representative customers?

The explosion of social media channels has the potential to revolutionize market research. New social media-based studies can be conducted more cheaply and efficiently, in real-time and may more accurately capture individual and group opinions. Companies are already mining the words, tones, streams and demographics of social media consumers for their own purposes. User data is deconstructed and then constructed into a picture on brand attitudes, market needs and social habits.

This field is in the early stages of development and there appears to be an overlap and competing terminology among: Sentiment Analysis, Social Media Analysis & Monitoring, Listening, Opinion Mining and Brand Monitoring, to name some.

Sentiment Analysis uses natural language processing (see Google Wave), computational linguistics and text mining to identify the attitudes among writer(s)/speaker(s) on a particular topic.

Companies and brands are interested in using the data to understand how they and their products are perceived and to help predict future developments and market trends.

Bo Pang, a Yahoo researcher and Sentiment Analysis pioneer, identifies three areas for measurement: polarity (positive/negative feelings); intensity; and subjectivity.

More sophisticated service providers include Newssift (Financial Times), Scout Labs, Nielsen Buzz Metrics and Jodange. Twitter and Twitter-based offerings also play in the field.

Sentiment Analysis has the potential to transform not only marketing research but also areas from search to public relations to product development.

But the practice is far from a perfect science.

Computer deciphering of word meaning is not always accurate and tone can be completely missed. Even the leading vendors acknowledge that the data is 70-80% reliable. For example, we may know that the phrase "quite interesting" means one thing in America, another in Britain, but the computer would see the same meaning. Note some of the long-standing issues with voice recognition technology.

There are questions about how robust or representative the data is. Are a brand's tweeters the key WOM influencers or are they just a small vocal segment?

Some brands and products may be under the radar for this technology. Yes we love to chat about Apple but are we prolific, public and passionate, blogging and tweeting away about Charmin or business insurance?

There are conflicting approaches, metrics and offerings; over time a common Microsoft, Google, Nielsen type platform may emerge.

We also need to look at social media as just a channel in the consumer experience mix, and Sentiment Analysis as just a market research tool that is part of a bigger research mix; in-person research and surveys for all their shortcomings offer benefits that social media research cannot duplicate. (even aside from the M&Ms and two-way mirrors!)

72 % of online Hispanics visit product rating sites

by Idil Cakim

The Hispanic Cyberstudy, conducted for AOL by Cheskin Research, has eye-opening findings on how to best communicate with the Web’s most rapidly growing population segment. As demography experts point to the rise of an increasingly diverse US household population, it behooves marketers to understand the nuances in Hispanics’ online behaviors and attitudes towards new technologies. 

Hispanic Cyber Study 2010

View more presentations from LaNettaNet.

The online Hispanic population is mostly US-born and English speaking (41 percent). An additional one third (31 percent) are bicultural, speaking both English and Spanish at home. The study indicates that the online Hispanic is much younger than the typical Internet user (37 vs. 46 years old) and they are more enthusiastic about the benefits of the Internet:

o 72 percent of online Hispanics visit product rating sites
o 64 percent consider the Web the best place to keep up with current events
o 57 percent always go to the Web to find deals
o 28 percent turn to the Web for friends’ opinions

As these numbers suggest, the Internet influences Hispanic consumers’ purchasing habits a great deal. While many consumers shop for information online, Hispanic consumers are more likely than the general Internet population to learn about where to buy a product, compare prices and make a final purchasing decision. 
 
How to best approach Hispanic consumers online? Word of mouth marketing tactics that let users read reviews and converse about experiences would be the first step. But here’s the twist: When it comes to tech-based communications, acculturation levels may not matter in the way traditional marketers may think. In fact, Hispanic customers are universally open to new technologies regardless of their acculturation level. In fact, those who are Spanish-speaking (41 percent) or bi-cultural (40 percent) are more likely than US-born, English speaking Hispanics (31 percent) to indicate that they are considered tech experts in their social circles. All the more reason to make sure Spanish versions of Web sites are culturally relevant and are en par with their English counterparts and are not mere translations. 
 

Who is most likely to spread your news among the Hispanic online audience? The power user is male in his mid-thirties who’s married with young children. He often goes online through his phone and other devices. He e-mails (79 percent), remains active on social networks (68 percent), pings friends and family on IM (64 percent) and keeps a blog (59 percent). Sounds like a no brainer for the likes of Best Buy, RIM, iPhone and automotive companies.

Six marketing research wake-up calls (by Joel Rubinson - ARF)

2009 was a year where the marketing research profession got six big wakeup calls. For each challenge, I describe how marketing research must respond to remain relevant.

Online research panels proven to produce different results

The ARF foundations of quality research compared results from the exact same questionnaire across 17 online research panels (including all of the big ones) fielded at two different points in time (2 weeks apart). We found that the test retest reliability of each panel was high but that results differed across panels by more than you would think based on sample sizes (n=2,000 per panel per wave). This insight led to the ARF Quality Enhancement Process, a series of metrics, planning, and reporting templates intended to control for this effect.

Cell phones are primary for close to 40% of US households

The most recent CDC NHIS survey found that 23% of all US households are cell phone only (46% of those aged 25-29) and another 15% have landlines but are cell phone primary. We are changing the way we connect. Landlines have become less important than cell phones and for many, talk is becoming a less important method of communication than text and social media updates. 

 

The Media Ratings council has said that media research must have a solution for this, implying that landline-only research can no longer be equated with probability sampling. Nielsen, Arbitron, and Knowledge Networks have all switched to addressed-based sampling methods to restore probability sampling properties.

Listening becomes a source of insights and marketing intelligence that anyone can access

Listening is a way of hearing in real time what people WANT to talk about, rather than what marketing wants to talk about. People express themselves in their own words rather than the interviewer’s vocabulary. Google’s team of economists proved that what people are searching for predicts many things from the geographic spread of the flu to auto sales right down to the brand.

Marketing research is no longer a gatekeeper to rich consumer insights as marketing, customer care, corporate communications, agency of record planners can now can tap into Twitter, forums, etc. directly. Only by listening would J&J have known they needed to pull the Motrin campaign. One of the Ogilvy Award winners, the NBA, needed listening to find the way fans’ express and share their passion. The research team must embrace listening as well as asking (i.e. surveys) to remain relevant and get to the front-end of marketing innovation.

Marketing research still struggling to be recognized as having significant impact

The ARF research transformation initiative has brought many leaders together and conducted executive interviewing in 2009 among 20 research leaders. The consensus is that the research team is often brought in too late in the process, viewed by many below the C-suite as an expense rather than an investment, and as an impediment rather than an enabler. We must prove that research creates an indispensible runway between the consumer and the boardroom that leads to making the right calls on big, future-focused issues that result in business growth.

Media companies and advertisers form CIMM

The leading media companies and advertisers came together to create the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, making a clear statement to the industry that they intend to turbo-charge innovation in media measurement. Why? They believe existing media metrics are not keeping up with the fast-paced evolution towards the multi-tasking, multi-platform, long-tail way that people consume media.

Shopper research takes center stage at understanding the effects of the recession

Numerous studies about the effect of the recession focused on changes in shopping patterns and increases in buying store brands. In other words, shopper research became as important as consumer research this year, especially on the big issue that was keeping marketers up at night. Marc Pritchard (leading marketer at P&G) has been emphasizing “store back” marketing. The ARF formed a shopper insights council to inform media planning and the new era of winning at retail. We foresee a powerful convergence of mobile and shopper marketing.

Marketers have always been more focused on brand-building than what happens at retail. Marketing research has always been more comfortable with consumer research than shopper insights. This must change.

Six big wakeup calls in 2009 are doing our profession a favor; refocusing us on what it will take to conduct trustworthy research, find unexpected feedback, provide anticipatory insights, measure media in a way that people now choose to experience it, and properly rebalance our understanding of how people choose brands by placing more emphasis on understanding the shopper.

El entorno define decisión de compra (según Mike Earls)

Mark Earls asegura que el ser humano copia todo lo que sus semejantes hacen. Pero ¿qué factores afecta la decisión de compra?

Mark Earls: Copy, Copy, Copy from brainjuicer on Vimeo.

"Hay 70% de posibilidades de ser obeso si conoces a personas en esta situación o conoces a alguien que conoce a un obeso", reveló un análisis sobre sanidad en Estados Unidos (EU). De este ejemplo nace la premisa del ex publicista británico Mark Earls, el que asegura que el marketing no impone a las personas, ya que "el hombre es un animal social que copia lo que hace el resto".

Su teoría viene a confirmar la idea de que el consumidor está más influido por la conducta de otras personas y no por el marketing por sí mismo.

En pocas palabras, Earls propone que las personas eligen sus productos o servicios, según lo que hacen sus conocidos, amigos, compañeros de estudios o trabajo.

Esta tesis revolucionaría completamente la visión del marketing, que siempre ha creído que impone ideas, las que son seguidas por los consumidores.

"Todo lo bueno y lo malo se transmite a través de la conexión de la gente, porque somos criaturas sociales y no individuos como se ha intentado transmitir hasta ahora”, propone el autor inglés.

Cambios en el mercado

Según Earls existen cuatro cambios en el mercado actual referente al consumidor. Éstos serían la raíz de sus objeciones con el marketing actual:

Sobre oferta de productos

El hecho de que existan tantos productos en el mercado, fomenta su teoría. Hay mucho más de lo que necesita la gente.

Demasiadas opciones para los consumidores, cuando no las necesitan

Los consumidores están conscientes de que existen variados productos y líneas de una marca, lo que en realidad no mejora sus expectativas de compra, al contrario, las hace menos provechosas.

Los consumidores exigen más

Al haber tantos productos y servicios con publicidad engañosa, que no cumplen lo que prometen, la gente pide más y con mejor calidad.

Esta teoría se refiere a que los consumidores perdieron la confianza en el marketing.

De esta forma, Earls propone que se considere el comportamiento del consumidor como criatura social, por lo que el marketing debe trabajar mucho más hoy en día, ya que según su experiencia, aplicar esta teoría asegurará el éxito de su negocio.

Fuente: Altonivel

MROC Platform from PluggedIN Now at Version 2.0

 Instant community deployment and integration with third-party applications among the latest improvements to the market research online community (MROC) platform.

PluggedIN, a provider of software and services for managing market research online communities (MROCs), today released Version 2.0 of their MROC software. The PluggedIN Platform is a customized social networking and online community platform for powering market research online communities and online qualitative research studies.

PluggedIN Platform V2.0 represents a significant shift in the development of the platform, with a complete re-architecture to better position the application for frequent upgrades and new feature releases. With V2.0, new communities can now be deployed instantly, allowing researchers to setup and launch new MROCs faster than ever before. The release also allows for a tighter integration with third-party applications and systems, allowing it to become a hub for market research exercises beyond those typically available in a MROC. In addition, the re-architecture creates opportunities for scaling communities to many thousands of members.

Commenting on the platform release, VP of Design and Technology Lail Brown said, "Version 2.0 of the PluggedIN Platform represents our best thinking as to where MROC platforms are going, and puts the PluggedIN Platform in a position to be the standard global platform for building and deploying market research online communities."

In addition to the re-architecture, numerous usability enhancements were made as part of the 2.0 release. These enhancements are part of ongoing research into optimizing the community member experience and ensuring that people of all ages and backgrounds find the platform to be highly usable and user friendly.

Matt Foley, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, added on the V2.0 release, "This version is going to help us deliver new features faster than ever before, and quickly adapt to the needs of our platform customers. It's part of our focus on making the most valuable social media tools available to market researchers, and allowing them to easily integrate these tools into their repertoire."

For additional information on the PluggedIN Platform, or for a demo of PluggedIN's approach to market research online communities, visit http://www.pluggedinco.com.

Research departments 'uncertain' of social media role

A new study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) warns of the potential for confusion over the role of research departments in managing social media.

The survey of marketers, conducted for the IAB by research agency Opinion Matters, found that the most common use of social media was to drive awareness and consideration of a brand, as well as engagement and advocacy.

60% of the firms surveyed said they were using social media for research purposes, but when asked where social media fits in their organisation (selecting all answers that applied from a total of six), only 12% chose research, compared to 73% who chose marketing, 33% who chose PR/communications and 20% who chose ‘other’.

The IAB said: “The results confirm that there is still a level of uncertainty surrounding where social media should fit within a business, suggesting that a range of skillsets are required internally for advertisers to make the best use of the discipline.”

It recommends that organisations establish teams to incorporate social media into communications plans, spanning a number of departments.

The study also highlighted that measurement and proving ROI continue to be the biggest challenges faced by marketers seeking to harness social media.

 

By Robert Bain

Research 1.0 vs. Research 2.0: Losing Control In Qualitative Research

By Dianne Gardiner - Director, Latitude Research

Everyone’s talking about getting to know the consumer better. If we’re serious about it, we need to recognise how they’re communicating, what they’re saying and give them more of our attention. The new way in research is a reflection of broader societal changes, especially in the way we communicate. 

Our proposition: Giving over control to the consumer makes us better listeners. 

 

“The researcher of the future will need to master traditional research skills, but they will also need to be able to cede control to customers and respondents, and to work in collaboration with the forces of the marketplace. In terms of a sporting metaphor the future will be less like speed boat racing and more like surfing, less like flying a jet and more like flying a glider.” (Ray Poynter, The Future Place, 2006) 

Losing Control In Qualitative Research

View more presentations from Latitude Research.

+10 Facebook Groups targeting (Online) Consumer Researchers / End-Users (English & Spanish)

Facebook (as well as Twitter & LinkedIn) is a social networking platform widely used by market researchers and end-users. 

Take a look at some of the most popular or interesting Facebook groups related to (online) market research.

• I work in Market Research & no I don't stand in the street with a clipboard +2400 members
• The Big List of Market Researchers +1650 members
• Insights Qualitativos 2.0 - Social Media & Research Online + 1400 members
• Qualitative Research + 1400 members
• Research 2.0 + 950 members
• Coolhunting Barcelona +690 members
•  Job Vacancies in Market Research + 450 members
• The Research Magazine Forum + 450 members
• Association for Consumer Research + 340 members
• NETNOGRAPHY: Wikonsumer and Netizen Culture + 300 members 
• EPIC [Ethnographic Praxis In Industry Conference] + 240 members
• Coolhunting en Latinoamérica + 200 members
• Social Media Research +170 members
• The MRGA (Market Research Global Alliance) + 160 members
• Centre for Consumption Studies + 130 members
• WEB Coolhunting + 130 members
• Gente Cualitativa +120 members 
• MR Conferences and Courses + 110 members
• Consumer Insights + 90 members
• QRCA - Qualitative Research Consultants Association +70 members
• Consumer Behavior/ Comportamiento del consumidor + 70 members
• Online MR + 70 members

 

Which pros and cons do think Facebook groups have as  networking spaces?

Shortly we will publish a list of Facebook Fan Pages related to Consumer research 

Hungry for Insights? Smartees are a new smart food for clever researchers (via @InSites)

Hungry for insights? Try Smartees! Smartees are a new smart food for clever researchers. They’re a series of free half-day workshops at InSites Consulting and they’re about learning and sharing knowledge. Each session promises a different flavour, and you’ll be sure to take away ideas and practical techniques for better marketing.

So why should you attend our Smartees?

• Where else do you get to meet like-minded experts working on the same questions and topics as you, and interact with them in a relaxed atmosphere?
• The Smartees format suits busy people: it’s practical, our new offices are easy to reach, and it will take you away from work for only half a day.
• Smartees are the ideal way to get up to date fast on the newest insights and trends in research and marketing.
• The workshop sessions are led by some of the sharpest minds in marketing research – experts with an international reputation and years of experience in the field.
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Qualitative Research in Web 2.0 International Conference - #QRWEB - Confirmed Attendees & Speakers

Qualitative Research in Web 2.0: The Next Leap!

Tackling issues and opportunities of integrating Web 2.0/3.0 into qualitative research 
25-26 March 2010, Berlin
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About the conference:

The qualitative research landscape has evolved dramatically since the inception of Web 2.0/3.0. Researchers can now perform qualitative research using online communities, focus groups, blogs, ethnographies as well as on social networking platforms.

The international conference on Qualitative Research in Web 2.0(Twitter hashtag #QRWEB) will be held on the 25 & 26 March 2010 in Berlin. This unique and highly interactive event will bring together top academics and industry practitioners to discuss and brainstorm the latest online methodologies for qualitative research.

• Ray Poynter (Keynote speaker), Thought Leader in Web 2.0 & Managing Director - The Future Place (UK)
• Silvana di Gregorio*, Online Qualitative Research Expert - SdG Associates (UK)
• Margaret Conley, Director of Consumer Insights - LEGO Group (US)
• Yasmina Amara, Market Research Manager - Yahoo! Middle-East (JO)
• Carli Lessof, Director of Innovation and Development - National Centre for Social Research (UK)
• Ilka Kuhagen*, Principal of IKM & Board Member of QRCA (DE)
• Jeff Walkowski*, President & Member of QRCA - Qualcore (US)
• Jim Longo*, Vice President Client Development - Itracks (CA)
• Frank-Thomas Naether*, Managing Director - Naether Marktforschung NMRC (DE)
• Helena Bukvova, Chair of Business Informatics, Technical University Dresden (DE)
• Guendalina Graffigna*, Postdoc, Faculty of Psychology - Catholic University of Milan (IT)
• Emma Ciceri - University of Rome, Sapienza (IT)
• Simona Marchi - University of Rome, Sapienza (IT)
• Roddy Glen, Principal - Roddy Glen Associates (UK)
• Neil Coulson, Associate Professor - University of Nottingham (UK)
• Sue van Meeteren, Executive Director - Jigsaw Research Ltd (UK)
• Nicole Reinhold*, Head of Online Research - Point Blank International (DE)
• Dee Britton, Assistant Professor - Empire State College (US)
• Bob Jeffery*, Senior Research fellow - The Open University (UK)
• Matthew Barnard, Research Director - National Centre for Social Research (UK)
• Brit Helle Aarskog*, Chief Scientific Officer - TextUrgy & University of Bergen (NO)
• Valentina Tua, PhD Candidate - Univesrit degli Studi di Milano (IT)
• Petra Alwén, Qualitative Research Consultant & Founder - Connect With Consumers (SE)
• Kristina Thor, Senior Research Consultant - Connect With Consumers (SE)
• Uwe Ewald, Director - International Justice Analysis Forum (BE)
• Simona Napotnik, Project Manager - Aragon (SI)
• Laura Arata, Marketing Researcher - Laura Arata (IT)
• Christoph Welter, Project Director - Point Blank International (DE)
• Jose Azevedo, Professor, Department of Sociology - University of Porto (PT)
• Mary Evans Kasala, Scientific Merit Reviewer and Research Methods Faculty - Capella University (US)
• Christine Hänel, Research Executive - Meinecke & Rosengarten GmbH (Germany).
• Andrius Suminas*, PhD student in Political Communication - University of Vilnius (LT).
• Ximena Alarcón*, Research Fellow, Institute of Creative Technologies - De Montfort University (UK).
• Bryan Mark Urbsaitis*, Assistant Director Study Abroad & Consultant - Pace University & Talka (US).
• Steffen Hück, Chief Netnographer - Hyve AG (DE)

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