MRIA Vue Magazine - December 2013 (Part 1)

vue

the magazine of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association DECEM BER 2013

Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40033932

MOBILE RESEARCH: THE NEXT BIG THING OR NOT? ARE SURVEYS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN? THE SCIENCE OF M-COMMERCE GOODBYE MARKETING RESEARCH

WHERE ARE THE FLYING CARS?

vue DECEMBER 2013

In this month’s features: Cover: Reg Baker (L to R) Maire Kushner, Briana Brownell, Jared Cechanowicz, Carl Gutwin, Diana Lucaci, Kristof De Wulf

VUE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY THE MARKETING RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE ASSOCIATION TEN TIMES A YEAR

SPECIAL FEATURE 10

WHERE ARE THE FLYING CARS? Reg Baker

FEATURES 16 MOBILE RESEARCH: THE NEXT BIG THING OR NOT? Maire Kushner 18 ARE SURVEYS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN? Briana Brownell, Jared Cechanowicz, and Carl Gutwin 22 THE SCIENCE OF M-COMMERCE

Diana Lucaci 25 GOODBYE MARKETING RESEARCH

Kristof De Wulf

COMMENTARY 4 Editor’s Vue

ADDRESS The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association L’association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing

2600 Skymark Avenue, Bldg. 4, Unit 104 Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5B2 Tel: (905) 602-6854 Toll Free: 1-888-602-MRIA (6742) Fax: (905) 602-6855 Email: vue@mria-arim.ca Website: www.mria-arim.ca PRODUCTION: LAYOUT/DESIGN LS Graphics Tel: (905) 743-0402, Toll Free: 1-800-400-8253 Fax: (905) 728-3931 Email: info@lsgraphics.com CONTACTS CHAIR OF PUBLICATIONS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Annie Pettit PhD, Chief Research Officer, Conversition (416) 273-9395 apettit@conversition.com MANAGING EDITOR Anne Marie Gabriel, MRIA amgabriel@mria-arim.ca ASSOCIATE EDITOR Christian Mueller, PhD, CMRP christianmuellerphd@gmail.com COPY EDITOR Siegfried Betterman Interested in joining the Vue editorial team?

Contact us at vue@mria-arim.ca

6 Letter from the President 8 Message from the Interim Executive Director

INSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 28 COURSE CALENDAR FOR 2013–14

INDUSTRY NEWS 29 Research Registration System (RRS) 30 Qualitative Research Registry (QRR) 31 People and Companies in the News 34 Chapter Chat

COLUMNISTS 36 BRAVE NEW WORLD 36 INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY 36 CSRC 37 THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION 37 QUALITAS

2013 ADVERTISING RATES Frequent advertisers receive discounts. Details can be found by going to: www.mria-arim.ca/advertising/vue.asp Please email vue@mria-arim.ca to book your ad.

The deadline for notice of advertising is the first of the previous month.

All advertising material must be at the MRIA office on the 5th of the month.

Original articles and Letters to the Editor are welcome. Materials will be reviewed by the Vue Editorial Team. If accepted for publication, they may be edited for length or clarity and placed in the electronic archives on the MRIA website.

The opinions and conclusions expressed in Vue are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association.

Publishing Date: December © 2013.

All rights reserved. Copyright rests with the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association or the author.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association or the author.

All requests for permission for reproduction must be submitted to MRIA at publications@mria-arim.ca.

RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing 2600 Skymark Avenue, Bldg 4, Unit 104, Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5B2 Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40033932 ISSN 1488-7320

COMMEN TARY / CO MME NTAI R E

Editor’s Vue Annie Pettit

What a year it’s been! Over fifty authors from around the world have shared their unique skills and experiences on the pages of Vue magazine. We’ve gained a better perspective of how our colleagues in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Ireland, South Africa and, of course, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom handle our ever-changing industry. I thank each one of them for their contribution and for making us think a little differently.

I’d also like to extend sincere thanks to our associate editor Christian Mueller as he takes on new challenges, and to our columnists as they write their final pieces for Vue. Some of these columnists have contributed their thoughts to Vue magazine for more than five years, and their perspectives on marketing research in Canada have inspired us throughout the years. Be sure to read their final columns and perhaps send them a quick email to let them know how they’ve inspired you with their words.

As always, as one year comes to a close, we look forward to the next and wonder what it will bring. What does the future of marketing research hold for us? For ten years, mobile research was touted as the next big thing, and it may have finally accomplished that goal. Social media listening research was the most recent methodology that was supposed to take over the world, but that didn’t come close to happening. Is it the fate of neuroscience or big data to be the method that finally brings down online surveys?

This month’s authors take a stab at describing what 2014 and beyond might bring. I invite you to read their stories and share your thoughts with us. Email your comments about our articles and columns to the editor and you just might find them published in the next issue. Speak up! Share your point of Vue.

Quelle année ! Plus de cinquante auteurs d’un peu partout au monde ont partagé leurs expériences et compétences particulières avec nous, les lecteurs de Vue. Ils ont dégagé pour notre bénéfice de nouvelles perspectives sur la façon que les collègues de l’Australie, de la Belgique, du Brésil, de l’Irlande, des États-Unis et, bien sûr, du Canada, font face au changement pérenne qui caractérise notre secteur. Ils nous ont aidés à penser autrement et je les remercie tous de leur contribution.

Je souhaite aussi exprimer ma reconnaissance à Christian Mueller. notre ex-rédacteur adjoint, qui relève aujourd’hui de nouveaux défis, et à tous les chroniqueurs qui ont récemment rédigé leur dernier texte pour Vue. Certains d’entre eux éclairent notre lanterne depuis plus de cinq ans et leurs points de vue sur la recherche marketing au Canada nous ont souvent inspirés. Je vous invite à lire leur ultime chronique et, pourquoi pas, de leur expédier un bref courriel exprimant votre appréciation pour leur précieuse collaboration.

En cette fin d’année nous nous demandons tous ce que la prochaine année nous apportera. Quelles surprises la recherche marketing nous réserve-t-elle? Le marketing mobile, que l’on nous présente depuis dix ans comme la nouvelle merveille, a peut-être finalement fait ses preuves. Par contre, la recherche fondée sur l’écoute des médias sociaux, qui elle aussi devait tout révolutionner, n’a pas produit les résultats escomptés. Verrons-nous la neuroscience ou les avalanches de données (big data) mettre enfin un terme au règne des sondages en ligne?

Les auteurs que Vue accueille ce mois-ci cherchent à cerner ce qui pourrait se produire en 2014 et par après. Je vous invite à les lire attentivement et de nous communiquer vos réactions et opinions par courriel. Vos commentaires pourraient bien se retrouver dans la prochaine livraison de Vue. Exprimez-vous ! Partagez avec nous votre point de Vue.

Annie Pettit PhD, Chief Research Officer / Directrice de la recherche, Conversition Editor-in-Chief, Vue / Rédactrice en chef, Vue • Email: apettit@conversition.com • (416) 273-9395 • t @LoveStats

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COMMEN TARY / CO MME NTAI R E

Letter from the President Anastasia Arabia

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Bilan et coup d’oeil à l’avenir

It is December, and I can hardly believe that I am halfway through my term as president.

Déjà décembre et me voilà rendue à mi-chemin de mon mandat comme présidente de l’ARIM.

I really feel that so much has been accomplished already: The new website has been launched. MRIA has partnered with the host organizations of a number of new and exciting conferences; to reach out to new audiences as well as to bring valuable discounts to our members in order to encourage them to attend these conferences, we’ve changed our membership process to provide more information and be more welcoming.

The Special General Meeting has been completed, and we are well ahead of the curve in terms of maintaining our not-forprofit status and adhering to new federal regulations. MRIA’s new office space has been secured, and we are into renovations to make the space right for us. As well, the CSRC and chapter online focus groups have been completed.

Your MRIA staff, the volunteer board, and the portfolio chairs are a dream to work with. None of our accomplishments would have been possible without their leadership, hard work, and innovation. An unexpected dividend of volunteering with MRIA is finding that the officers are so close and talk with each other so often that we feel like family. I would truly encourage everyone to volunteer at some point; it is a wonderful experience.

It will be an exciting new year, with so much left to do: finalize the alternative pathway to CMRP; launch our new standards; finalize the new (and much more user-friendly) MRIA portal; and put a system in place so that all MRIA events, including national and chapter events, can be accessed both in person and online, making us a truly connected national organization.

Happy Holidays! Wishing you peace, joy and relaxation.

J’ai nettement l’impression que nous avons déjà beaucoup accompli : le nouveau site Web a été lancé; l’ARIM a établi des partenariats avec les organisateurs de conférences des plus intéressantes, dans le but de gagner de nouveaux auditoires et de proposer des remises qui inciteront nos membres à participer à ces conférences; nous avons aussi modifié le processus d’adhésion de façon à le rendre plus convivial et informatif. L’assemblé générale extraordinaire a eu lieu et nous devançons l’échéancier à l’égard du maintien du statut de l’ARIM comme entité sans but lucratif et de la conformité à la nouvelle réglementation canadienne. Nous avons de plus trouvé de nouveaux bureaux, que nous rénovons à l’heure actuelle, et avons conclu la consultation en ligne de groupes de réflexion de l’ARIM et de ses sections provinciales.

Sachez que travailler avec les employés de l’ARIM, son conseil d’administration et les présidents de ses comités est un pur plaisir. N’eût été de leur leadership, de leurs efforts incessants et de leur capacité d’innover, jamais nous n’aurions pu tant accomplir. J’ai eu tant de contacts et de discussions avec les responsables de l’ARIM que j’ai l’impression d’être membre d’une famille – un avantage auquel la bénévole que je suis ne s’attendait pas. Je vous encourage d’ailleurs tous à faire du bénévolat pour l’ARIM. L’expérience est vraiment enrichissante.

L’année qui approche sera à la fois intéressante et fort occupée. Nous avons encore à finaliser une voie alternative à l’obtention de l’agrément PARM, à mettre en place de nouvelles normes, à rendre le portail bien plus convivial, et à établir un système qui permette la présence en personne ou en ligne à tous les événements et activités de l’ARIM et de ses sections.

Joyeuses fêtes ! Je vous souhaite paix, bonheur et au moins quelques moments de relaxation.

Anastasia Arabia, Partner / Partenaire, Trend Research Inc. President, Marketing Research and Intelligence Association / Présidente, L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing Email: anastasia@trendresearch.ca • 780-485-6558 ext./poste 2003

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MRIA 2014 CONFERENCE

SHERATON CAVALIER AND DELTA BESSBOROUGH SASKATOON | SASKATCHEWAN

Calling All Speakers, Sponsors and Exhibitors!

We are proud to announce that the MRIA 2014 National Conference, “Dig Deeper and Discover” will be held from June 8–10, 2014 in the beautiful city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – a true “destination” in Prairie Canada. Saskatoon is Canada’s fastest-growing metropolis and with this title, has all the exciting activities that accompany a flourishing city. The city of Saskatoon is favourably positioned with the South Saskatchewan River winding through it. The conference will be held at facilities along the river, offering spectacular views and kilometers of riverside trails. We are excited to showcase this growing city and province by organizing an inspiring conference for both suppliers and buyers of market research.

Join us... as Sponsor and Exhibitor – visit the conference website for more details. Call for Speakers will be issued in December. Registration will open in February 2014.

Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and the conference website http://conference2014.mria-arim. ca/news for updates on the many opportunities that are being offered – for exhibitors, sponsors, speakers and delegates!

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COMMEN TARY / CO MME NTAI R E

Message from the Interim Executive Director John Ball, CMRP

I grew up with a healthy regard for rules and their purpose to establish boundaries and steer behaviour. Oftentimes, already good rules and standards are put to the test through their application, with the result that flaws are revealed and required improvements or clarifications are made.

In my early days of creative rule adherence, I was unwittingly drawn into an engagement that highlights how this can happen.

I attended a fairly rule-rich high school with a very formal dress code that was, for the most part, actively enforced. This was characterized by, among other things, that we all must ensure that others could see themselves in the shine of our shoes, restrict our hair growth so that it remained above the shirt collar (resulting in carefully coiffed, gravity-defying Afros for some), or even, on occasion, being sent home to change for accidentally wearing a blue dress shirt on Fridays when only white shirts were permitted.

As it happens, this intense rigour was set up as a counterbalance of relief to us all when the school introduced a “grub day” program for Fridays, allowing us to abandon the code and wear whatever we wanted while paying for the privilege – $1 at the time – with all funds going to the United Way. To explore and understand this new freedom, and as a bit of a lark, I decided to “dress up” anyhow in a brightly coloured formal jacket (wide yellow and orange vertical stripes), a fuzzy velour multi-layered tie, clashing shirt, some sort of hat, and lime green Bermuda pants (most of which, embarrassingly enough, were easily sourced from a wide selection available in my father’s personal wardrobe at the time). With some minor weekly tweaks, I moved forward, repeating this approach on successive Fridays.

However, somewhat unbeknownst to me, this caused a bit of a ruckus behind the scenes with the legislators (i.e. teachers) who, properly so, felt I was operating outside of the intent of “the rules.”

I really had no reason to believe this was happening as it was occurring. Nobody particularly seemed to care one way or the other when I was clowning through the halls, nor did any teacher approach me to suggest that I modify my wardrobe choice on grub days. However, quite unexpectedly, on a Monday following the third or fourth such occurrence, and during a regular assembly of the entire student body, an announcement was made that the grub day rules had been modified to include the provision that “no silly costumes” would be allowed. Mea culpa – I had been outed as a less than conscientious rule improver.

The point of all this is to let you know that there has been a similar “ruckus” created in our own backyard at MRIA that needs revisiting and, perhaps, for us as legislators, to take a similar tactic to address, as my teachers rightly chose to do in the example 8

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J’ai été élevé dans le respect des lois et règlements qui établissent des limites et orientent le comportement. Mais il arrive souvent que l’application de normes et de règlements révèle des faiblesses dans ceux-ci, qui doivent ensuite être modifiés et clarifiés.

Un incident survenu à l’époque où mon approche à la conformité était quelque peu créative illustre bien ce phénomène.

Je fréquentais alors une école secondaire dotée de règlements plutôt stricts, notamment un code vestimentaire appliqué à la lettre : chaussures lustrées-miroir; chemise et cravate – chemise blanche le vendredi !; cheveux courts, qui ne devaient pas dépasser le col de chemise (vous auriez dû voir les coiffures afro défiant bravement la gravité); et autres normes que nous ne pouvions flouer que sous peine de punition. Curieusement, ces balises se sont avérées bien réconfortantes le jour que l’école a décrété que le code ne serait pas appliqué le vendredi, en contrepartie d’un don individuel d’un dollar à Centraide. Cette nouvelle liberté était pour nous, étudiants, à la fois bienvenue et inquiétante. Qu’allions nous faire de ce privilège?

J’ai décidé de tester cette liberté inespérée en adoptant une tenue des plus habillées mais complètement extravagante : veston de cérémonie à rayures verticales, mais jaunes et orange vif; une chemise de couleurs aussi éclatantes que contrastantes; une épaisse cravate de velours; un short bermuda vert lime emprunté à la garde-robe estivale de mon père; et même un chapeau !

D’une semaine à l’autre je modifiais mon accoutrement, toujours dans le sens d’une plus grande originalité. Occupé que j’étais à pervertir cette nouvelle liberté, je n’ai pas remarqué que les autorités – les profs ! – avaient remarqué mon manège, qu’elles considéraient, justement, comme un détournement de l’intention derrière la libéralisation du code vestimentaire. Un beau lundi, trois ou quatre semaines après l’instauration de ce nouveau régime du vendredi, et dans le cadre d’une assemblée de tous les étudiants, la direction annonce donc un amendement à sa politique de libéralisation. Le vendredi demeurait une journée « décontractée » mais les tenues qui relevaient du costume, carrément théâtrales, étaient désormais interdites. J’avais joué la carte du « p’tit smatte » et j’avais perdu.

Tout ça pour vous dire qu’une situation semblable semble aujourd’hui exister à l’ARIM et qu’il est peut-être temps que nous, en notre qualité d’organisme de réglementation, la réexaminions comme les professeurs de mon école secondaire avaient réévalué la libéralisation du code vestimentaire à la lumière de mes extravagances. Voici ce dont il en retourne : il semble que certains intervenants du monde des affaires utilisent le processus d’examen disciplinaire pour porter plainte contre un membre de

COM M E N TARY / COM MEN TAI R E

above. Here is what is happening. It would seem that some members of the business community are using our Disciplinary Review Process to issue complaints against MRIA member firms not to hold us accountable to our own rules and standards per se or entirely so, but rather as a means to advance a particular corporate or personal position, even publicly, that draws undue attention to the validity of the particular approach taken in creating the research, and questions our standards themselves and our process, which can create unnecessary and negative focus not only to the parties involved, but also to our industry.

The possible misuse I highlight here is not the only issue at hand. Our process is lengthy, transparent only to those involved in a dispute (by design to protect confidentiality), and costly to the association. In discussion now at the board level is the possible involvement of a mediation process with professionals hired to assist in the process, the possible introduction of a fee to submit complaints to assist in cost recovery and reinforce the sincerity of the complaint, and others. Here is a précis of a report provided by our new Standards Chair, Dr. Ruth Corbin, to the board meeting held on November 2: “The increased rate and visibility of Professional Complaints are even more marked than Standards inquiries, and obviously related.

Our Professional Complaints procedure has proven dissatisfactory to those who have been involved in it for reasons that include (for different individuals): (a) the ambiguity of whether standards have been violated (b) the length of time from complaint to resolution (c) the sometimes-disorganized process of recordkeeping and communication (d) the related perception by some of lack of ‘due process’ (no relation to Senate debate) (e) the view that some complainants are using the process for advocacy…at stake is MRIA’s credibility and sustainability as a self-governing organization, as well as potential liability of its officers and directors.”

In her report, Ruth continues to explain the possible role of a new mediation-based approach with professionals trained to do so and then concludes, rightly so, that “the situation is urgent.”

We will continue to develop improvements to our approach and are even now taking steps to rewrite our Disciplinary Review Procedures to allow for mediation to play a role.

It is only to be expected that gaps in our process are illuminated through practice and application. We are obligated now, as my teachers did then, to work behind the scenes to make any necessary improvements to limit any abuse of our system, perceived or real, and deliver a positive and responsive system for enforcement in line with our expanding slate of professional standards. Enforcement through an evolved Disciplinary Review Process is arguably the most important service that the MRIA can provide to its members and now needs to evolve to become effective.

l’ARIM non pas pour le tenir responsable d’actes contraires à nos normes et réglements, du moins pas entièrement, mais plutôt pour promouvoir, parfois publiquement, un intérêt personnel ou commercial. Cette façon de faire, qui suscite un intérêt démesuré à la validité d’une approche particulière à la recherche et remet en question nos normes et procédures, risque non seulement d’attirer indûment l’attention, une attention foncièrement négative, sur les parties en cause mais aussi sur notre secteur dans son ensemble.

L’abus présumé que je viens de mentionner n’est pas le seul problème qui devrait retenir notre attention. Le processus d’examen de l’ARIM est long, onéreux (pour l’Association) et transparent exclusivement aux parties impliquées, dans le but avoué de protéger la confidentialité. Le conseil d’administration discute présentement du recours à un processus de médiation mené par un professionnel, de l’exigence de frais qui garantiraient la bonne volonté de la partie plaignante (et financeraient en partie le processus), et d’autres mesures pertinentes. Suit un extrait du rapport que Ruth Corbin, nouvelle présidente du comité des normes, a présenté au conseil d’administration le 2 novembre dernier : « Le nombre croissant et la plus grande « visibilité » des plaintes d’ordre professionnel sont clairement liés et dépassent même ceux des plaintes pour infraction aux normes. Notre processus de traitement des plaintes d’ordre professionnel n’est pas tout ce que les parties prenantes souhaitent, et ce pour des raisons qui peuvent différer d’un cas à l’autre : (a) les normes sont ambiguës – ont-elles effectivement été violées?; (b) le délai de résolution est long; (c) les communications et la tenue de dossiers sont parfois désorganisées; (d) l’application du règlement n’est pas régulière; (e) la perception que certains plaignants utilisent le processus à leurs propres fins de promotion (. . .) la crédibilité de l’ARIM et sa capacité d’agir comme organisme d’autoréglementation sont en jeu; il y a aussi toute la qurestion de la responsabilité civile des gestionnaires et administrateurs de l’ARIM. » Mme Corbin explique ensuite le rôle que pourrait jouer un médiateur indépendant et conclut en affirmant, et pour cause, que « la situation est urgente ». Nous continuerons donc d’améliorer notre approche et procédons déjà à la rédaction d’amendements à notre procédure d’examen disciplinaire qui autoriseront le recours à un médiateur.

Il n’est pas surprenant que l’application de nos procédures révèle parfois des carences chez celles-ci. Comme mes professeurs dans le temps, nous devons travailler en coulisses et ajuster le tir de façon à prévenir les abus – soient-ils réels ou simplement perçus comme tel – et à maintenir un régime d’application positif et souple qui soit conforme aux normes professionnelles de l’ARIM. Nous le devons à nos membres de voir à ce que ce service capital de l’ARIM devienne plus juste et plus efficace.

John Ball, CMRP, Interim Executive Director /Directeur général intérimaire Marketing Research and Intelligence Association / L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing Email: jball@mria-arim.ca • (905) 602-6854 ext./poste 8724

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SPECIAL FEATURE

WHERE ARE THE FLYING CARS? Reg Baker People seem to have a natural curiosity about how the evolution of technology might change our future – for example, in the products we use and the ways in which we interact with one another. When I was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, one especially popular vision of the future included flying cars (Feltman, 2013). Fast forward to 2013 and it seems fair to ask, “Where are the flying cars?” They are technically possible – although the features that make a good car tend to conflict with those that make a good airplane – and it probably is fair to assume that, in over half a century, the transportation infrastructure needed to accommodate flying cars could have been built. But it did not happen. To be fair, if you have a pilot’s licence and are willing to spend around $250,000, you can buy a flying car; but how many of us have actually seen one?

Or consider the picturephone. AT&T unveiled working systems at the 1964 world’s fair and shortly thereafter installed picturephone booths in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago. In 1970, the company launched an office-based system in Pittsburgh with great fanfare. Pete Flaherty, who was mayor at the time, called up the chairman of Alcoa, only a few blocks away, and spoke the memorable words “Here’s looking at you.” AT&T heralded it as “a historical occasion,” but it never really took off and, by 1975, the picturephone was dead (Metz, 2013).

We have picturephone-like applications today, such as FaceTime and Skype. They have their fans, but few of our telephone calls (if we can still call them that) have the other party staring back at us while we talk.

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These stories serve to remind us that, just because technology makes something possible, capability alone does not mean it will happen or, if it does, it will not necessarily happen on a broad scale.

A century ago, the U.S. economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen argued that technology is the driving force in the evolution of social institutions and human behaviour (Brette, 2003). Veblen gave us the term “technological determinism,” a concept summarized somewhat whimsically by his colleague Charles Beard, in words not unlike what we sometimes hear today from the marketing research conference podium: “Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity.” (Beard, 1927, p. 5).

But Veblen was wrong. It is a good deal more complicated than that.

“Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity.”

A fair question at this point might be “What does any of this have to do with marketing research or its future?”

A lot. We imagine our industry as being in a period of rapid and dramatic technology-driven change, producing a future that is almost unrecognizable when compared to how research has been done throughout most of its history. We are awash in new ideas about how to do what we believe to be better marketing research, and those ideas are almost always operationalized as technological innovations.

But the view here is that, for all the heat being generated by this apparent frenzy of innovation, there is precious little light.

Despite the seemingly constant flow of game-changers and disruptive technologies, little of it is attracting serious client spend – at least not yet. Some of these innovations may one day be mainstream, but picking which ones is difficult. And even then, the transition through the Gartner Hype Cycle takes longer than any of us care to admit.

S P ECIAL F EATUR E

The Innovation Dynamic Oddly enough, part of the problem may be too much innovation, or at least too many of us going about innovating in the wrong way. There are two popular theories of innovation: technology push and market pull (see, for example, Martin, 1994).

In the technology push theory, technology triggers are the primary source of improved products and processes.

New products are developed and brought to market because technology makes them possible, rather than there being a clearly articulated customer need.

With market pull, on the other hand, the expressed or at least unmet needs of customers are the driving force for innovation. Meeting that need is the primary motivator.

Adoption is driven by how well that need is met. For a comparison of the two theories, see figure 1.

Figure 1: Theories of Innovation – Technology Push vs. the Market Pull

Technology Push vs. Market Pull Technology Push Research and Development

Production

Need?

Marketing

Market Pull (Demand Pull) Research and Development

Production

Marketing

Expressed Market Need

(There is a third theory, sometimes called “push-pull,” a style of innovation in which a need and the means to resolve that need are recognized simultaneously. But such circumstances are all too rare.)

Too much of the innovation in contemporary marketing research is technology push, a style of innovation that was widely discredited in the 1960s. It is not so much that such innovations fail outright. Rather, they do not dominate in the way their advocates expect. They are slow to replace current methods and the adoption periods are way longer than imagined.

In 2006, Ray Poynter wrote an article for Research World offering some criteria for judging innovation winners and losers retrospectively. He suggested four questions: 1. I s the solution a significant improvement over current practice?

2. Does it meet an unmet need?

3. Do buyers perceive additional value?

4. Is the service available from a range of providers?

Applying those criteria, Poynter came up with four winners: online access panels, MaxDiff scaling, video-based ethnography, and word of mouth. His losers were online focus groups, SMS surveys, virtual shopping, and neuromarketing. You might disagree with Poynter’s list of winners and losers (the losers are still with us), but I find his criteria to be solid.

Questions (2) and (3), especially, hit the key point, namely, that for an innovation to succeed on a broad scale, above all else, it must be viewed by customers as meeting an important need. Or, as Clayton Christensen succinctly puts it in his oftcited book on innovation, “Customers control what companies can and cannot do.” (Christensen, 1997, p. 101).

Speaking of Christensen, he also popularized the phrase “disruptive innovation,” giving rise to the more popular (but less correct) term in marketing research circles: “disruptive technology.” Technology itself is not disruptive; only its application is, and only then when it is able to transform markets by changing what customers buy.

To use one of Christensen’s examples: The automobile was a revolutionary technological innovation, but it was not a disruptive innovation because, in the beginning, it was strictly a luxury good. The larger market was unchanged. The Ford Model T was a disruptive innovation, because it applied the technology in a way that transformed the market.

Considering an innovation’s potential to disrupt a market is a useful way to assess its chances for success, especially if we consider whether that disruption is going to be felt most by the supplier or the customer. Innovations that introduce only incremental changes to an already accepted research method have a better chance of being accepted, and accepted quickly, than those that represent a major shift. More importantly, those with the potential to disrupt how buyers behave are a tougher sell than those that mean suppliers have to change what they do.

“The greater the disruption for the customer, the higher the risk of failure, or at least the longer the road to significant adoption.”

To paraphrase Bernie Malinof and Jon Puleston (2011), clients are reluctant to adopt research innovations that have the potential to disrupt their metrics, norms, and basic approaches to doing research and making decisions. The greater the disruption for the customer, the higher the risk of failure, or at least the longer the road to significant adoption. Incremental changes can be sold through aggressive marketing. Dramatic changes require education before marketing – a much heavier lift.

Online Quant: The Most Successful MR Innovation of Our Time The rapid growth of online research is a good example of this dynamic at work. A methodology that hardly existed fifteen years ago now accounts for almost $3 billion of U.S. marketing vue December 2013

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research revenue (Inside Research, 2013a). Worldwide, ESOMAR (2013) estimates revenue from online, by far the most dominant research method, to be approaching $9 billion.

Without question, online was a major disruption on the supplier side of the industry but, from a client perspective, it was a relatively incremental change. Research could be specified in much the same way using the same questionnaires and getting back deliverables that looked pretty much the same as those with methods already being used. Those deliverables came more quickly and at a lower cost. All a client was required to do was suspend the belief that sampling is important. The rest is history.

“History also teaches us that innovation is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. Technology is more important than ever, but the customer is still king.”

Yet, despite the ease with which customers could transition to online, it still took more than a decade, from its first introduction, to be on a par with the method it has mostly replaced, CATI. The Online Qual Struggle Online qual has been a much different story. Recall that Ray Poynter declared it a loser back in 2006; yet it nonetheless has experienced steady though unspectacular growth, and that growth has picked up in the last few years with the emergence of market research online communities (MROCs) and other forms of online qual. Inside Research (2013b) estimates online qual revenue in the U.S. at the end of 2012 at $34 million. To put that number in perspective, the estimate for total U.S. qual revenue during that same period is $2.4 billion. So, despite the steady stream of intriguing conference presentations about online qual, it remains a pimple on the butt of the elephant that is qualitative research.

As Poynter observed back in 2006, the reason for this dismal take-up is that online qual runs afoul of how clients conceive of qualitative research. They value the interaction, seeing it in person, sitting in the back room changing the discussion on the fly, feeling the intensity of participants’ views, seeing body language and facial expressions, having their own discussion with colleagues and researchers, sipping the wine, and feasting on the M&Ms. The digital version is just not the same, the learnings too difficult to come by. Online qual is a major disruption for customers, and so it has struggled to gain broad acceptance.

The Curious Case of Mobile Some months ago, I did a Google search on the term “year of mobile.” That search yielded roughly 880,000 hits. For a very long time, mobile has been viewed as the next big thing for all kinds of uses. I quit looking at references dated before 2006.

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I chose 2006 because that is the year for which Inside Research began collecting data on annual revenues from mobile for U.S. marketing research companies. Those data are reported in the table below and show that, despite all of the hype around mobile, it accounts for only about $42 million in revenue in an MR industry whose total revenues are around $10 billion. See figure 2.

To be fair, those data include only research intended for mobile. They do not include what many of us believe to be the biggest chunk of mobile marketing research, that is, people who choose to complete a standard online survey using a mobile phone or tablet rather than a desktop computer or laptop. These are what we increasingly call “unintentional mobile respondents” or UMRs, and studies are showing that they can comprise anywhere from 10 to 40 per cent of online survey respondents (Tarran, 2013).

UMRs aside, what the Inside Research data mostly capture are the supposed killer apps of mobile – in-the-moment and geolocation – and the take-up rate at this stage is unimpressive.

In part, that showing may be due to client discomfort around the need to redesign their research programs, a process that can take years. But, as with almost any marketing research innovation, there is another stakeholder to consider: prospective research participants.

Figure 2: U.S. Mobile Revenues, 2006–2013

Source: Inside Research, 2013a.

At least in the abstract, there are two reasons for believing that those prospective participants may be slow to warm to mobile’s killer apps and, in the process, slowing the adoption of mobile across the marketing research industry.

The first is that in-the-moment research is interruptive.

An oft-heard criticism of telephone research was that it was interruptive, that people were tired of being called during dinner and, so, would warm to a method such as online that would allow a survey to be completed at their convenience.

Can we now be successful getting cooperation from people while they are choosing their cereal at the grocery store or running in for a latte at Starbucks?

Second, some mobile research methods are extremely invasive. Mobile phones are very personal devices, on which people store all sorts of personal and potentially sensitive information. Will the tens of millions of people needed as mobile research participants agree to tracking of their

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movements, their web visits, their app usage, their biometrics, and more? Ask mobile enthusiasts to name the biggest obstacle to mobile’s going mainstream, and many will tell you that sampling is the biggest challenge.

All of which is not to say that clients are ready to adopt mobile on a massive scale once there are sufficient numbers of willing mobile users out there. Taking advantage of mobile will require that research programs be redesigned, if for no other reason than to accommodate the limitations of mobile devices, both in penetration and in the physical constraints of screen size, speed, and network reliability.

Before mobile research methods can become truly mainstream, there first must be an alignment of stakeholders – research agencies, their clients, and the general public. That is going to take years, much longer than many in our industry want to believe.

“Customers control what companies can and cannot do.”

References Beard, C.A.“Time, Technology, and the Creative Spirit in Political Science.” The American Political Science Review, 1927: 21, 1–11.

Bogart, L. “The Future Study of Public Opinion: A Symposium.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 1987: 51, S173–S191.

Brette, O. “Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of Institutional Change: Beyond Technological Determinism.” The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2003: 10(3), 455–477.

Christensen, C. M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997.

ESOMAR. Global Market Research 2012. Amsterdam: ESOMAR, 2013.

Feltman, R. “Why Don’t We Have Flying Cars?” Popular Mechanics, 2013. Available at http://www.popularmechanics. com/technology/aviation/news/why-dont-we-have-flyingcars-15128771 Inside Research. “U.S. Mobile Spend Growing.” 2013a: January.

The Long Haul To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumours of the death of contemporary marketing research are greatly exaggerated.

Will the industry look different in ten years than it looks today? No question.

Do we ignore the opportunities that new technologies create for us at our own peril? Absolutely.

But history tells us that major changes in the practice of marketing research take years to play out. The process is one of evolution, not revolution. History also teaches us that innovation is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end.

Technology is more important than ever, but the customer is still king.

In 1987, the Public Opinion Quarterly, then celebrating its fiftieth year of publication, asked a number of thought leaders in the field of survey research to describe what marketing, opinion, and social research would look like fifty years hence.

Sir Robert Worcester, the dean of British public opinion pollsters, wrote this: “Market researchers are close to their tactical ideal, the comprehensively wired micro model of segmented household ‘norms’ which can be conceptualized, pressurized, test marketed to, weighted (up or down), copy tested, product tested, studied, and, yes, manipulated by cables, satellites and sensors (worn in rings, necklaces, earrings, or even – shades of George Orwell – implanted!).” (cited in Bogart, 1987, S188).

We are now halfway through those fifty years. I leave it to you to decide how we are doing.

This article is based on a keynote presentation, under the title “Not So Fast,” given at the 2013 national conference of the Australian Market and Social Research Society.

———. “Special Report: Online Qual Continues Streak.”

2013b: February.

Malinof, B. & Puleston, J. “How Far Is Too Far? Traditional, Flash, and Gamification Interfaces, and Implications for the Future of Market Research Online Survey Design.” 3D Digital Dimensions 2011: Conferenced Papers. Amsterdam: ESOMAR, 2011.

Martin, M.J.C. Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Technology-based Firms. New York: Wiley-IEEE Press, 1994.

Metz, C. “Tech Time Warp of the Week: AT&T Uncloaks the Picturephone, 1970.” Wired, 2013. Available at http:// www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/04/tech-time-warppicturephone/ Poynter, R. “Innovation: Winners and Losers.” Research World, 2006 (December).

Tarran, B. “19% of Online Surveys Taken on a Mobile Device, Says New Report.” 2013. Available at http://www.research-live. com/news/news-headlines/19-of-online-surveys-taken-on-amobile-device-says-new-report/4010663.article

Reg Baker is the former president and chief operating officer of Market Strategies International. Since retiring in 2012, he busies himself with birding, photography, teaching, and a variety of consulting assignments. He blogs on and off (mostly off, these days, but when he’s on, you’ll find him at www.thesurveygeek.com).

Reg can be reached at reg.baker@comcast.net vue December 2013

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ANNOUNCING OUR KEYNOTES! Gail Livermore, TARGET Merrill Dubrow, M/A/R/C® Research Naomi Henderson, Riva The theme of this year’s QRD Day is Creating Connections. The conference will explore: • Connecting researchers with information on emerging qualitative techniques •H ow qualitative research and recruiters are connecting to diverse audiences such as teens and newcomers to Canada • I deas for how to connect qualitative research with action-oriented business decisions • and much, much more

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MOBILE RESEARCH: THE NEXT BIG THING OR NOT? Maire Kushner

Since very early in the process of collecting marketing information, marketing researchers have struggled with the challenges of providing good-quality consumer data to their retail clients.

Why has it been a struggle?

Previously, researchers conducting “voice of the customer” studies were constricted by technology and limited to asking respondents for input on their shopping experiences, generally by a phone call and always long after the purchase transaction.

As we know, customer recall degrades with the passing of time; asking about a purchase and shopping experience long after the fact often leads to less than optimal recollections and correspondingly unsatisfactory data.

In an attempt to rectify the deficiencies of these methods, researchers then resorted to in-person mall intercepts. But speaking to people who have a clipboard in their hand can be an intimidating or uncomfortable process for consumers and, historically, the number of opt-ins for these types of interviews has been quite low. The result is another difficult recruit in a busy, noisy environment full of distractions – a sub-optimal situation for data collection.

In addition to mall intercepts and paper-based surveys, researchers came to rely on other tools, such as customer service response cards, URLs printed on store receipts or posted on shelves (“How did we do today?”), focus groups (either in-person or online), and even the occasional kiosk. But the fundamental issue remained, which was how to acquire highquality generalizable data about the shopping public.

All of these methods represent acceptable data collection techniques, with one very critical shortcoming: each one is 16

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challenged by time – that is, the amount of time between the actual transaction and the point at which the researcher poses the “How did we do today?” question. This “delta,” or delay, can contribute to numerous biases in recollection, skewing the results of any survey and depriving the marketer of key insights.

But the retailers accepted the delay, because there were no other viable, conclusive methods available.

The Social Media Disappointment Widely assumed to herald the next significant breakthrough in the development of customer feedback, social media platforms, as most researchers would agree, have been somewhat disappointing. In spite of the fact that these platforms were anticipated to be optimal and viable sources for in-the-moment input, in fact, interest and participation have waned radically after the initial excitement and surge in interest.

Although highly optimized for allowing individuals of like nature and interests to communicate, share and interact with one another, social media platforms have largely been disappointing. Given all the hype and hoopla, why were Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Pinterest, Meetup and a host of other services ultimately not good platforms for data collection and consumer feedback? Here are a couple of reasons.

First, social circles or communities have not expanded to include global participants in a real-world kind of way,

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restricting access to only those already somewhat predisposed to a given opinion. Second, substantial limitations have been imposed by site management on third party access to member data; while appearing to be unnecessarily limiting, ultimately this position was impossible to contest, given the focus on privacy in the real world and the virtual.

From corporate and B2B perspectives, the only real exception to the disappointment represented by social media for marketing researchers is, quite possibly, LinkedIn. Fostering an online information-sharing culture, this social media platform has created an opportunity among its members to collect, analyse and deliver informal results through the abilities of those who are “linked in” with each other, usually from within the groups function.

Mobile-Enabled Research From the early days of the geographic information system (GIS), businesses have been using some combination of software, hardware, firmware and even satellites to collect data on the locations of individuals and their various assets. Originally developed as a means of substantiating cartographers’ postulations on the maps they had created, GIS has morphed, over the past couple of decades, into a foundational tool for commercial and academic endeavours.

With the addition of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, integrated GPS systems were then able to identify, monitor, manage and, most importantly for the purposes of later uses, track and locate properties or groups of objects.

Marketing within a virtual perimeter is referred to by many names – geo-fencing, location-based services (LBS), or near field communications (NFC) – but all provide a methodology or platform for inanimate objects to communicate with each other. So what, then, happens when one of those machines is a GPS-enabled smartphone or tablet that sits in our pocket or purse and we encounter a geo-fence that’s been established by a product or service business that wishes to communicate with us?

Applications According to a new survey (conducted by mBlox and Millward Brown on September 24, 2013), 80 per cent of mobile users would share location data with brands in order to receive “push” or SMS messages.

From a practical perspective, the opportunity to reach an existing or even a potential customer within a short distance of our service or product location gives an entirely new meaning to “target market.” Although possibly resonating with Big Brother, today’s marketers have access unlike ever before – an entirely new way to generate sales from a physical location.

When customers enter – or more importantly for the marketing researcher – exit a perimeter or fence, they trigger a notification to their mobile device to collect real-time information about their experience and their impressions of the point of purchase. The appeal of such technology to a researcher is that the shopper is intercepted as soon as possible after executing a transaction, effectively eliminating the issue of time delay. More significantly, mobile responses can be

vastly augmented by photos, videos, text and even audio files, providing exceptionally robust, contextualized consumer feedback.

Point-of-experience feedback might include the following: product or version comparisons, in-store advertising effectiveness (location, content), length of time in a given location, the ambiance of that location, customer selection of a given type of product or group of products and, in a highly sophisticated application, the trajectory of the shopper through the retail location.

Today, there are many more applications for mobile marketing research, in addition to the point-of-experience shopper surveys. Here are a few: Advertisers attempting to determine the effectiveness of an ad can assess its impact by sending a survey to mobile participants when they are in proximity to the ad, whether it’s on a billboard, bus shelter or other out-of-home promotion, or within a given retail location. Marketing researchers might even employ this technology for an ad placed by their client’s competitor, by pinging participants when they pass through a previously specified geo-fence.

Marketers interested in building communities of mobile users or MROCs (market research online communities) around visits to a given physical entity (museums and art galleries, sports facilities, music and other performance venues, restaurants, etc.) are able to profile individuals, based on their responses to a quick survey or quick response code activation, and immediately determine their interest in participation.

By using geo-fencing, and combining passive data collection and information collected from various social media sites (permission-based), researchers are able to collect insights and identify the behaviours of a defined segment.

This is all wonderful, but why has mobile research or research conducted in our ubiquitously mobile environment not yet found a foothold? Even in the emerging markets where mobile has been adopted to the degree that it is now mobile-only for most consumers, conducting mobile research remains immensely challenging.

Perhaps the existing mobile capability, with its various but not insurmountable limitations – both human and technological – still needs some finessing before the mobile methodology will be widely accepted and adopted.

Maire Kushner is a 25-year veteran of the technology industry, having held executive positions in various companies from startups to the Fortune 500. Throughout her career, Maire has driven top-line revenue through sales and marketing efforts, and has also managed back-office business operations. More recently, she has focused her diverse talents on exploiting the benefits derived from smartly handling big data across various industries. She also ghostwrites for various marketing and research publications. Maire can be reached at maire.kushner@gmail.com vue December 2013

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ARE SURVEYS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN? Some Profound Positives (and Nagging Negatives) of Gamification in Marketing Research Briana Brownell, Jared Cechanowicz, and Carl Gutwin The jig is up: Respondents know why we ask them to do surveys. They know that someone is telling someone else what percentage of people saw a business’s ad and linked it to the right brand, predicting how many people might try a new product, or deciding which creative execution people liked better. In other words, surveys are obvious in their collection of opinions.

Both researchers and respondents know that we are asking these questions because we want to know the answer: surveys have a purpose.

Games, on the other hand, are designed to be, well, games.

They are created to be enjoyable or challenging, but they are not usually designed to be useful (there are exceptions: Jane McGonigal’s World Without Oil, for instance).

So far, the conflicting functions of survey research and games have been given little thought, as researchers have attempted to use gameful design principles to augment their survey research.

But what does this opposition of purpose mean for gamification in survey research? As it turns out, it might mean a lot.

Games in Marketing Research The motivational benefit of adding game elements into nongaming contexts has shown some early success in various fields.

Adding gamified components has been shown to increase user motivation to complete a work-like task, such as instrument calibration and industrial assembly. These successes prompted many in the marketing research industry to see whether the motivating factors of games could be used to increase respondent engagement in surveys.

Even more than engagement, gamification in research could provide further benefits: if the game is designed correctly, it would be possible for us to capture how respondents played the game and, in so doing, collect data that we would normally be unable to obtain with a survey.

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Looking at the most recent GreenBook Research Industry Trends results, it is clear that most marketing research practitioners are unenthusiastic about using gamification. Many are unsure whether there are benefits to adding gamified elements to surveys, and whether the data from the games is reconcilable with those collected by traditional means. Their doubts are with good reason: little research has been done to substantiate the claims that gamification can have a positive effect on engagement in the research process while still allowing researchers to collect reliable data.

To help settle these uncertainties, we at Insightrix Research Inc., an industry-leading marketing research firm, teamed up with the Human-Computer Interaction lab at the University of Saskatchewan to build and test games that could be used in marketing research. Armed with an Engage grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, we designed and built two marketing research games and tested them empirically alongside survey versions.

Some of our games were resounding successes: We were able to gain insights from the games that were not possible through any other method. The games increased engagement and allowed us to collect more data from each respondent.

Others, however, failed to give us the results we had hoped for and even had a detrimental effect on engagement. What was it that allowed some of our marketing research games to be so successful while others were complete flops?

Why Use Games to Collect Data?

Sure, it might be more interesting for respondents to do a survey about beer or advertising, but most clients aren’t doing research on topics that arouse respondents’ passions. If gamifying the survey process could be more enjoyable for respondents, they may be more willing to complete a longer or a more complex survey, despite a lower interest level in the topic. They may also be less likely to drop out of the survey partway through. If a survey game

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were extremely motivating, it could even encourage those who would not be willing to participate in a survey to take part in marketing research.

Increasing enjoyment and engagement among survey respondents has a benefit beyond a single survey, as well. Because many marketing research firms rely on online panels to conduct research and it is expensive to recruit respondents to these panels, having research participants stay active on panels is extremely important. If we make the surveys that respondents complete more enjoyable, perhaps we can retain the respondents a little longer.

Nevertheless, neither of these advantages really demonstrates that gamification provides a unique benefit over traditional survey research. However, if a game or gamified survey could elicit more information than could be gathered from a straight survey, perhaps by allowing researchers to analyse the way that users play the game, its value would be much more apparent. In this case, research games could be a compelling new method of research.

Challenges Linking Games and Surveys Unfortunately, gamifying surveys is far from a straightforward task. Among the biggest challenges is reconciling the pertinent aspects of a game to the essential features of a survey. Many of the important features of games run counter to essential aspects of survey research.

Games have a story. Games often are created with a fictional narrative in which participants are asked to play a character and act in a way that they may not act in real life. Making an appropriate match between the game’s story and the task of completing survey questions is very difficult. Meanwhile, surveys are full of questions about respondents’ real lives – and we want them to answer truthfully. We almost never want respondents to answer as if they were someone else.

Games have scores. In the survey world, every response is correct insofar as it reflects a respondent’s perceptions. Games, on the other hand, often have a score that tells the players how well they are doing in relation to a built-in benchmark.

Games have levels. Unlike surveys, most games have levels that are increasingly challenging, for example, shorter times for successive rounds. In a survey, results are typically aggregated, and a researcher would not want any bias due to differences in levels of difficulty.

Games are competitive. Few research companies would be comfortable running a competition to see which respondents on their panel could complete the most surveys. However, in games, it is scoreboards or competition among players that provides a motivating factor for play.

Games are fun. The motivation to participate in a survey may be quite different than the motivation to play a game. Panellists who wish to participate in surveys are often interested in giving their opinions because they believe that what they are doing really matters to someone – and of course, it does! Games, on the other hand, rarely have a purpose beyond the enjoyment of those playing them.

Reconciling these contradictions is a major hurdle to making gamification work for surveys. However, if they can be overcome, there can be major benefits to applying game elements to surveys, as our results show.

Our Results Gamification works. The first game we designed was really a set of three minigames packaged together under a game show umbrella. To fit the goals of the narrative (getting correct answers in the game) to the goals of the survey (having a question that had clearly correct and incorrect answers), the question styles we chose were from the familiar suite used in advertising research: sponsor recall, brand associations, and main message comprehension.

Our first set of experiments really worked. In terms of respondent engagement, we achieved significant benefits from gamifying the advertising research questions. Respondents were willing to spend more time giving us data in a gamified way than they were in a straight survey.

We were also able to show that there was a cumulative effect for the various gamification elements: while adding a few gamification elements provided some motivational benefits, adding even more provided additional motivating benefits.

Not only that, but in our analysis of the way that participants played the games, we were able to gain additional insight, determining not only whether participants could identify the sponsor but also the speed at which they could do so. This outcome allowed us to assess the strength of the campaign’s congruence – an important measure for many companies.

We were also happy to find that our gamified sponsor recall rates, brand associations, and main message comprehension measures were comparable to those measured in a traditional survey.

However, not everything worked as we expected. In the initial design of the experiment, respondents were given the correct sponsor of an advertisement as a feedback mechanism.

Since marketing campaigns are generally consistent for a single company, respondents quickly learned to identify the sponsor of the executions that were similar to those they had previously guessed incorrectly! Changing the game so that it no longer gave the correct sponsor moved the recall rates in line with the survey results.

Gamification doesn’t always work. The reason that the gamification of work-like tasks has been successful is that it makes a tedious or boring task more enjoyable. So, for our next set of experiments, we wanted to choose the most boring, tedious kind of survey in all of marketing research: a conjoint survey.

In this case, the core survey task was choosing the “best” from a variety of different options. To match this decision process, we chose a shopkeeper narrative in which the respondents were asked to serve customers in their store by choosing the best product from those provided.

To push the gamification aspect to the limit, we also designed a game in which the customers were monsters and the storefront was on an alien planet. Our aim was to see whether the realistic or fictional aspect had an effect on the results that we collected. vue December 2013

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When we compared the average number of choice sets that respondents completed in each of the various versions, we found no additional motivating factor as a result of the gamification process. Imagine our surprise in discovering that respondents preferred going through dozens of regular choice sets rather than playing the game, some even completing all (nearly 200) of the questions!

There were other negative results. We asked respondents to rate their enjoyment of the survey and games, their motivation to continue, and the extent to which the survey subject matter was interesting. In our most far-out game, the one with the monsters narrative, respondents rated the interestingness of the task significantly lower than the survey. This result suggested that, as the game becomes further removed from the opinion research for which respondent signed up, the game becomes less relevant to them.

Why did we have such success in the first experiment and such a failure in the second? There are two probable explanations.

First, shifting the task from choosing for someone else as part of the game narrative (and asking respondents simply to choose the best product, not explicitly instructing them to choose for themselves) may have decreased interest in the task and therefore removed any motivating benefit of the game. This possible explanation highlights the importance of matching the core task of the survey to the game mechanism, illustrating that a mistake on this count may have the potential to remove any motivational benefit.

Second, the “meaningful framing” of the task appears to have been of crucial importance. Had we hidden the conjoint component in the game too well? Whereas, in a survey, it is obvious that the results are being used, it is much less obvious that there is a purpose to the choices respondents were making in the game. This comment from a participant was indicative of the issues we had: “What was the point of the survey? Waste of time.”

It wasn’t all bad news for gamification, however. To our surprise, the realism of the game as we had set it up did not have an effect on the accuracy of the results. This result is reassuring in that, when we ask respondents which product they think is best, they seem to believe that it is best regardless of whether they are choosing the product for themselves, for someone else at a store, or for a monster on an alien planet.

A Guide to Gamifying Surveys We found that in some cases there was a clear benefit to gamifying a research survey. Not only were we able to get the respondents to complete more questions, but we were able to get more information from them by collecting paradata on other specifics, such as how quickly they were able to complete each question, giving us data that we would not have been able to collect in other formats. The results from both the survey versions and the gamified versions were consistent with each other. The notable exception was when there was learning on the part of respondents because of the game mechanism itself; in this case, the data collected was compromised.

In the first set of games we developed, the game mechanism and the core task matched very well. As well, the game did not 20

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completely obscure the core survey task: recalling the correct sponsor of an advertisement.

However, in the second game, obscuring the survey task seemed to produce the perception of pointlessness. Perhaps the survey game was too much like a game and participants were looking too much for entertainment.

There may also have been a conflict between the core task of the survey and the goal of the game: respondents may find it much less interesting to choose for someone else than to choose for themselves. The expectations and motivations of survey respondents are very real challenges for researchers who wish to develop survey games in the future.

These pitfalls all have to do with the actual effectiveness of the gamification. However, the business decision to gamify surveys is also significant. Is the motivating effect strong enough to justify the cost of development of a game? Or is the additional insight you may be able to get from a gamified survey important enough to pay for the development of a game framework around the survey?

There is much research still to be done, both in terms of proving consistent benefits of gamification and its impact on motivation to participate in research. We found that gamification is not a foolproof way to increase engagement and also that the difference in motivation to complete a survey, as compared to the motivation to play a game, is significant enough to be problematic for its success.

Further Reading Please have a look at our research paper and video. We were thrilled to have received an award for the best paper at the Gamification 2013 conference, hosted at Stratford, Ontario, by the University of Waterloo. For more details, go to http://hci.usask.ca/publications/view.php?id=324 A chapter summarizing the research results will also be included in the book Gamification in Education and Business, to be published by Springer in 2014.

Briana Brownell oversees statistical modelling and advanced analytics at Insightrix Research. Several original techniques and methodologies she has designed have been published academically and utilized by other research groups. She loves to share her love of research with others and has had the opportunity to speak at conferences and organizations in various parts of the world.

Jared Cechanowicz, MSc, is a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan, under the supervision of Dr. Carl Gutwin. His broad interests in technology and entertainment have lead his research into the areas of interaction design, simulation tools for game design, adaptive games, and the gamification of work.

Carl Gutwin is professor of computer science at the University of Saskatchewan and the co-director of the university’s HumanComputer Interaction lab. He has published more than 150 papers in HCI. His research covers a variety of topics, including interface design and organization, information visualization, modelling of human performance, and groupware usability.

NET GAIN CELEBRATES INNOVATION AND LEADING EDGE RESEARCH This January 30, 2014 marks the 8th annual Net Gain conference.

The theme is Transformation.

Market Research is changing rapidly but into what?

The Transformation of Market Research: Where To Next?

Jeffrey Henning, President, Researchscape International, Boston MROCS: The New Research Frontier for the Entire Enterprise Tom De Ruyck, Head of Consumer Consulting Boards at InSites Consulting Mobility Research Best Practices Mark Michelson, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Mobile Marketing Research Association, Atlanta n

What are the best practices and new applications for online communities? n What exactly is behavioural economics? n Is IVR still a robust method to collect data? n How do we integrate and analyse terabytes of social media? n To what extent has social media analytics advanced? n Are visualization and infographics a necessary part of our toolbox? n How do Canadians vs. other regions of the world view online surveys? n What role can video play in our analytical tool box? n How can we collect international data cheaper, faster and better? n What new skills sets are required for future talent? n What are the best practices for mobile research?

Net Gain 8.0 co-chairs

Cam Davis Ph.D., FMRIA, CMRP – camdavis@sdrsurvey.com Sandy Janzen, MRIA Past President – sandy.janzen@rogers.com

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THE SCIENCE OF

M-COMMERCE

Diana Lucaci

In the “good old days,” marketers thought of the customer as a logical information processor, running virtually emotion-free.

It was assumed that he thinks in terms of information and can accurately retrieve this information at any point in time.

He uses cost-benefit calculations that rationally determine his preferences. Sounds like the customer is Mr. Spock, doesn’t it?

This model – the rational consumer model – was developed in light of traditional marketing research methodologies. In accord with this model, focus groups, interviews and surveys have primarily dominated the marketing research industry over the past century, relying on two primary assumptions: that people can identify their preferences, and that they can accurately remember the past.

However, almost everyone in the marketing research industry knows that self-reporting measures can be misleading and unreliable, and that they send researchers in the wrong direction.

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The simple action of asking a question can influence the answer. Similarly, offering a cue to help retrieve an emotion can alter the truth. For example, when you hear the word airport, you will probably imagine aircraft and big buildings. If you’re then asked to spell the word plain, you will most likely spell it plane (as in airplane) because of the priming effect of the word airport.

Although marketing research technologies have been improving their techniques and controls, the underlying challenge of relying on explicit assessments can lead to overrationalization of answers and an incomplete view of the customers. To help complete the picture, neuroscience has gone from the lab to the boardroom in an effort to provide implicit measures of emotion and to deliver predictions of behaviour.

Neuromarketing Introduction The innovative field that evolved is called neuromarketing, and it refers to the application of neuroscience technologies to solving marketing and advertising challenges. Initially conceived around 2002 by Nobel laureate Ale Smidts, neuromarketing has been increasingly applied to retail, consumer packaged goods, and entertainment industries, among many others.

Customer understanding enhanced through neuroscience has provided major companies such as Coca-Cola, Campbell’s

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and P&G with a competitive advantage. The key is in the way neuroscientists view the customer: not as rational, but as highly emotional. In contrast to the rational consumer model, the intuitive consumer model states that people make decisions based on their responses to certain situations. In fact, as much as 90 per cent of decision-making occurs at an emotional level.

For example, the customer does not do a lot of deliberate thinking about brands he purchases on a regular basis. He retrieves information from the past in a loose manner, and his preferences are highly influenced by his friends’ opinions.

He is not persuaded by logical arguments, but by repetition, positive themes, and good imagery. The consumer may not be like Mr. Spock after all, but more like Dr. McCoy. The notion that emotions drive behaviour has been at the centre of many debates in the boardroom. It’s important to note that, in addition to challenging the status quo, neuromarketing research is being successfully implemented by major companies every day. In the past decade, neuroscience has contributed to a deeper understanding of the customer, offering never-beforeseen insights that improve marketing effectiveness. In addition, studies have shown that measurements of brain and body reactions are much better predictors of behaviour. The truth is that people may say what they think; however, they’ll always act on how they feel.

With all of this in mind, True Impact Marketing partnered with Plastic Mobile to understand how users truly feel about the mobile commerce, or m-commerce, experience. Plastic Mobile is a New York and Toronto–based mobile agency focused on helping top brands build their businesses through mobile. The agency is the first to admit that delivering successful commerce capabilities in a mobile application is not as easy as one may think. Mobile phones have become ubiquitous and highly personal, if not intimate, pieces of technology. As is the case with other channels of communications, brands that set up a commerce environment within an app face the challenges of (a) being seen, (b) being seen as relevant, and (c) being contacted.

To meet these challenges, the two firms teamed up to apply neuroscience to user experience, and to spark a revitalized understanding of usability and of design preferences. How critical are usability and design to users’ emotional experience?

What can m-commerce professionals learn from the implicit reactions of people using mobile apps? What are the key factors that define a successful m-commerce app?

The best way to answer these questions was to go directly to the source of emotion, the brain. The most portable and affordable technology to measure brain activity is electroencephalography (EEG). Much improved since its beginnings in the 1960s, the EEG uses a light, wireless

headset that records the brain’s electrical activity. By knowing how to filter and interpret the considerable data collected, neuromarketers are able to derive emotional states related to attention, emotional engagement, motivation, and more.

Knowing how the brain reacts to m-commerce apps was critical; however, we also wanted to understand what grabs the user’s attention. To address this need, we paired EEG with eye-tracking technology, allowing us to learn what the users are attracted to visually and what sort of emotional reactions they are experiencing.

Conducted in A study participant sho wing some of the March 2013, the study technology used in the study included thirty mobilesavvy participants who brought their own iPhone (iPhone 4, 4s or 5) to navigate three mobile applications in the m-commerce category: Pizza Pizza, Best Buy, and Hyatt. We outlined a single user journey, a five-step navigation process consistent across all three mobile applications, in order to get a better understanding of how users navigate mobile commerce, and what contributes to a positive or negative user engagement. It was important to keep the stages consistent in order to be able to compare the effectiveness of each app.

In addition to using brain imaging technology and eye tracking, we surveyed the participants before and after exposure to the app. Doing so helped us compare what they said with how they truly felt; and the findings were impressive.

Figure 1: EEG Metrics: Emotional Engagement (blue) and Attentional Activation (red)

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Figure 2: The Most- and Least-Liked Stages in the App Navigation Process

Figure 3: Participant Expression of Intention to Use the Pizza Pizza Mobile App in the Near Future

When the Brain and Mouth Disagree

Pizza Pizza wins at checkout, with a simple and straightforward user experience. When the immediacy of the reward (i.e., food delivered within an hour) is factored in, the user is both emotionally invested and keenly interested. The bottom line is that, once a customer is interested, it’s imperative that delivery be as quick and as easy as possible. Also, among the three apps, this one is the most downloaded and the most positively reviewed in the App Store.

The full report of this study can be downloaded by going to www.trueimpact.ca or www.plasticmobile.com

One of the seven key findings of this study highlights the importance of diving below the surface of spoken assessments in order to understand the consumer’s true opinion. The Pizza Pizza navigation process included opening the app, choosing a pizza, customizing the toppings, proceeding to checkout, and finally entering personal information.

When asked, 62 per cent said they preferred the selection stage, which included choosing the pizza and its toppings. Also, 55 per cent said they disliked the checkout stage, including entering their personal and payment details. So far, this response makes perfect sense, since the most painful part of any transaction is actually paying for it.

Upon reviewing the brain activities of this group, we learned that the checkout stage was, in fact, the most emotionally engaging. By setting the lowest values for emotion and attention for the entire study at 0 per cent and the highest values at 100 per cent, we saw 100 per cent emotional activation for the checkout stage and an impressive 76 per cent attentional activity. See figures 1 and 2.

In the post-survey, 79 per cent of users said they would use the Pizza Pizza app again. See figure 3.

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The study described here is the first in the world to use neuroscience for understanding the usability of m-commence apps, and it opens the door to many future study directions.

For example, future studies might pursue questions such as these: Are all food and beverage apps engaging at checkout?

What is the role of the immediacy of reward in the decisionmaking process on mobile? How do you facilitate the path to purchase and make it easy to order food through an app?

While it will always remain important to measure explicit responses, we must not underestimate the power of emotions in driving decision making. They are automatic, instant gut feelings that we are often unaware of, yet they are the best indicators of behaviour. When paired with traditional marketing research methodologies, neuroscience helps measure these feelings and provides a more complete, colourful and interesting picture of the customer – one that portrays him as much more than data.

Diana Lucaci is the founder and CEO of True Impact Marketing, an innovative neuromarketing research and strategy firm. Diana serves as Canadian chair on the Neuromarketing Science & Business Association (NMSBA) and was named one of the Top 30 Under Thirty by Marketing magazine in 2013. You can reach her at diana.lucaci@trueimpact.ca and follow her on Twitter (@dianalucaci).

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GOODBYE MARKETING Kristof De Wulf

RESEARCH

It seems Andy Warhol was right in 1968, when he stated that “in the future everybody will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

This quote predicted that, someday, the “hierarchy of subjects” worthy to be represented would be abolished, with anybody, and therefore everybody, becoming famous at some point in time.

Whether or not that idea is entirely true is debatable; what is clear, however, is that we are in the midst of an unfolding economy of (crowds of ) individuals. If you are talented and creative, you can make it happen; neither money nor power will stand in your way. Just think of the massive success of the South Korean musician Psy, who conquered the world with his song “Gangnam Style.” While the song was originally produced only for local K-pop fans, it conquered the world by way of the first YouTube video to reach a billion views.

The End of the World as We Know It Digital transformation is the core engine behind the great shift of power toward individuals. The combined effect of online, mobile and social technologies is creating unseen change and disruption in many an industry.

Researchers at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) recently published a list of new technologies that are expected to drive massive economic transformations and disruptions in the coming years: mobile Internet, automation of knowledge work, the Internet of things, cloud technology, advanced robotics, autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles, nextgeneration genomics, energy storage, 3-D printing, advanced

materials, renewable energy, and advanced oil and gas exploration.

Most of these technologies can be brought down to one single disruption or revolution: that which was caused by information technology.

Just like a snake that sheds its skin to allow for growth (as well as to remove parasites along with the old skin), the marketing research industry will need to reinvent itself continuously in order to survive and remain successful. The yearly GreenBook Research Industry Trends Reports indicate that our industry is moving in the right direction.

But are we sufficiently fast and furious? Do we realize that the very existence of the marketing research industry is at stake, with new entrants from unexpected corners driving new relevance for clients? In a business that has now been around for seventy years, are we really getting rid of old, habitual ways of thinking?

Let’s take a critical look at the label we use to define what we are doing: marketing research. How relevant is it to take a “marketing” perspective in an environment that is increasingly dominated by individuals instead of segments? Is it still okay to rely on ad hoc brain-picking from samples that should be representative of markets? Is research a good descriptor of what our clients are really looking for? Increasing or revising current knowledge by discovering new facts still remains a core activity, but are clients not increasingly asking us to drive actionability and impact to make a real and tangible difference to their businesses? vue December 2013

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Preparing for Disruptive Change With traditional surveys and focus groups still dominating the scene, the speed with which our industry is changing is, in many ways, similar to the speed with which companies adjusted to the invention of electricity. It took well over a decade for companies to realize they no longer needed to build their factories near water, still considering water to be their prime source of power.

We cannot afford a similarly slow response, with the speed of environmental change being far higher today than at the time electricity was invented. Just recently, McKinsey reported that the research and consulting industry is listed at the bottom, versus other industries, when it comes to economic mobility.

I believe it is time to redefine the business we are in and prepare for revolutionary, disruptive change. Just as the music business has realized it is fighting a battle in the entertainment space, so the marketing research industry needs to redefine its scope and purpose. We either accept further commoditization, focusing on increased efficiency and accuracy, or we migrate to something bigger and more purposeful. Personally, I am convinced that the latter choice is preferable.

I believe the greatest chance for our industry to survive and prosper is to transform itself into what could be labelled as “consumer collaboration,” further building on the fundamentals of our industry, that is, curiosity, creativity and communication. An industry labelled as such would imply that we build consumer-activated organizations, helping companies migrate from passive marketing research to active consumer collaboration. It would mean that the role of “chief consumer officer” is taken seriously, acting as the linchpin between all other CxO roles. It would entail that we act as “matchmakers,” facilitating and strengthening employee-consumer interactions and driving unique value from that. It would encourage us to move beyond asking questions and getting answers, and toward getting questions from and formulating answers for consumers.

It would make us behave as “consumer custodians” for brand owners, moving beyond consumer-centricity by giving consumers a real and direct impact on companies.

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A Perfect Storm We are in a perfect storm when it comes to making this radical change, not just from a defensive perspective, but even more so from an offensive perspective that would allow us to claim a more strategic position within the marketing services industry.

We are probably witnessing the single best opportunity for the marketing research industry to actually become a respected partner of the C-suite or board level.

First, CEOs are waking up to the new reality. According to a recent (2013) IBM report, The Customer-Activated Enterprise, which captures the opinions of more than 4,000 C-suite leaders, 60 per cent of the CEOs surveyed expect to see customer influence grow most in business strategy development over the next three to five years. (The report can be accessed at http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/ gbe03572usen/GBE03572USEN.PDF) In its 2013 financial performance report, Growth Strategies: Unlocking the Power of the Consumer, PwC highlights that “the race is on for CPG companies to put aside old ways of doing business and remake themselves as consumer-centric organizations active and effective across the channels in which their consumers engage.” (This report can be accessed at http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/retail-consumer/financialperformance-report/assets/pwc-retail-consumer-financialperformance-report.pdf ) Clearly, business leaders are convinced more than ever that they can build organizational resilience through crowd empowerment – embracing connections with consumers as key stakeholders and driving serendipity therefrom.

Second, consumers are more than ready. A recent study in the U.K. highlighted the fact that consumers now spend more time and money on innovation than do all consumer product firms combined. The people who were formerly known as consumers have turned into contributors and volunteers, constituting a world full of problem-solvers who are creating billions of dollars’ worth of value without even being paid for it.

In the most recent study report by InSites Consulting, Social Media around the World 2012, eight out of ten consumers express their desire to become involved in any form of collaboration with a brand. With consumers having increasing access to powerful online, social and mobile technologies, clever organizations can benefit from consumers’ desire, enthusiasm and ability to collaborate with brands if the organizations create the necessary conditions for it. (The InSites Consulting report can be accessed at http://www.insites-consulting.com/socialmedia-around-the-world-2012/) Third, researchers are in pole position to take the lead.

Or, as put so nicely by T. G. Stemberg, “Forget branding and positioning. Once you understand customer behaviour, everything else falls into place.” Research agencies have the unique strategic advantage of having worked with the consumer for ages, putting them in a far more powerful position than any other business strategy consultant, advertising agency, or innovation firm willing to jump on the consumer empowerment bandwagon. The expertise and capabilities that research agencies have built over time provide a strong backbone and a springboard to claiming the consumer collaboration space.

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The above-mentioned three forces create a perfect storm for change. But we need to move fast; else we run the risk of becoming obsolete and being left behind by new players invading the market space – think of DIY research tool providers, strategic consulting agencies, social listening companies, co-creative digital consultants, and customer relationship management advisors.

What It Takes Although marketing researchers are in pole position, the race is far from being won. Our industry will need to develop a number of new skills that are essential if we are to be successful.

We will need to transform ourselves if we are to take the roles outlined below.

Consumer coaches. There is a downside to expertise: Experts tend to do less out-of-the-box thinking; have a narrower focus, restraining creativity; and incline to giving too much attention to whatever they are expert at. In fact, certain tasks can actually be better performed by everyday consumers.

Although consumers have dominantly been used in their role as “judges,” there is a whole range of new roles consumers can take up to drive unique value for brands: consumers as “friends,” closing the gap between the corporate and consumer world; consumers as “colleagues,” directly collaborating with employees (e.g., ideating, co-creating, developing); consumers as “advocates,” sharing content they have co-created with peers and the outside world; consumers as “researchers,” taking over tasks from professional marketing researchers (e.g., moderation, quality control, interpretation).

Obviously, a lot of work still needs to be done in order to find out what type of “coaching” is required to bring the very best out of consumers: Who is most suited to taking up a certain task? When in the process are consumers most valuable? What techniques (e.g., crowd intelligence, implicit measurement) help overcome some of the natural limitations everyday consumers are facing?

People engagers. Our industry is and will remain a people business. Business success is, more than ever, dependent on the collaboration between various types of actors, the consumer taking a pivotal role. Knowing how to engage consumers as well as business executives will become the key differentiator in our industry, building on knowledge about what drives people to act (e.g., visual cues and design, storytelling, gamification).

The winners of tomorrow will be those who know what makes people tick and who use this knowledge to their own benefit, efficiently and impactfully. Ultimately, they will be experts in uniting people around consumers, tearing down organizational silos, and focusing all their attention on building a consumer-activated environment.

The role of people engager will require an even better understanding of an organization’s strategy, context, structure and culture, customizing the consumer collaboration journey and making it fit the organization like a glove.

Action heroes. Driving new and powerful insights from consumers is silver, but doing something meaningful with those insights, something in support of corporate goals, is gold. Demonstrating impact is, more than ever, the name of the game for professional marketing services agencies. It is less about what we do and how we do it than it is about how much of a difference we make.

Meaningful actions are turning insights into concrete ideas and concepts, positively affecting the hearts, minds and actions of employees, through consumers, and delivering better brand and consumer experiences.

Making the transition to the consumer-activated enterprise implies that actions and their subsequent impact will become the ultimate measures of success. The focus will shift from looking back to building capabilities forward, moving beyond what we know today and addressing what consumers want next. Researchers need to move up on the consultancy ladder, embracing knowledge and expertise from the branding, innovation, and brand activation domains.

Becoming action heroes implies speed as well: organizations will need to catch up with the speed of external change around them, allowing external stakeholders inside their own organizational walls.

Ecosystem builders. We will move away from ad hoc thinking and acting and, instead, we will build sustainable ecosystems of consumer involvement and activation, minimizing waste, using output from one source as input for another, allowing recycling, making information and knowledge shareable with others, and enabling the option to connect the dots more easily. This change will require us to learn how to drive value from “knowledge in use” rather than from stored knowledge, realizing that the value of knowledge decays every minute of its existence.

I expect our industry to become increasingly methodagnostic, combining several sources of inspiration and collaborating with a hybrid breed of stakeholders. Various crowds of people will become fixed institutions, available on demand, or they will provide support without even being asked for it. These crowds will, increasingly, need to be global, transcending barriers of time and place, offering a unified yet culturally localized experience.

Collaboration with consumers is moving into the mainstream; even if you do not take advantage of it, your competitors surely will. Are you ready to say goodbye to marketing research as we know it?

Kristof De Wulf, PhD, co-founded InSites Consulting in 1997 with three colleagues and has acted as CEO since 2012. Kristof still supports clients and is the account director for PepsiCo, Mars, Danone and Unilever. He has published numerous articles in refereed journals and was awarded the 2010 MOAward for agency researcher of the year. He is on “The Ultimate List of Social CEOs on Twitter,” just a few places behind Oprah Winfrey and the Donald. You can follow Kristof on Twitter (@kristofdewulf ). vue December 2013

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INSTITUTE FOR PRO F E SSI O NAL D E VE LO PME NT

MRIA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSE CALENDAR FOR 2013–14 IS POSTEDInstitute ON OUR for WEBSITE AND NOW MRIA ACCEPTING REGISTRATIONS THROUGH OUR PORTAL Professional Development Grace Woo, Manager Member & Board Relations

Courses covering the core knowledge requirements of the Certified Marketing Research ProfessionalInstitut (CMRP) are as follows:

de développement

Course

professionnel de l’ARIM Next in-class session

11 of these 12 core courses are available online

Register by

303-Marketing Management for Researchers December 10, 2013 December 2, 2013 202-Questionnaire Design December 13, 2013 December 6, 2013 203-Marketing Research Statistics & Data Analysis* January 16-17, 2014 December 19, 2013 November 4, 2014 October 2014 101-Introduction to Marketing Research November 28, 2013 November 21, 2013 102-Ethical Issues and Privacy in Marketing Research Development September 30, 201-Marketing Research An Applied Course Institute for Professional 2014 September 2, 2014 InstituteDesign: for Institut de développement professionnel February 4, 2014 January 7, 2014 204-Qualitative Marketing Research Professional Development April 1, 2014 301-Competitive Intelligence, Mystery Shopping, and Benchmarking April 29, 2014 April 3, 2014 March 6, 2014 302-Market Intelligence February 26, 2014 January 29, 2014 401-Online Research, Best Practices and Innovations

MRIA

402-Advanced Analysis Techniques 403-Advanced Qualitative Marketing Research March 5, 2014 February 5, 2014 http://mria-arim.ca/education/online-learning/online-learning-faq

Looking beyond basic knowledge requirements? In-class sessions of these specialized or advanced areas of marketing research are also available.

Categorical Data Analysis Communicating Research Results with High Impact Graphs Conjoint Analysis: Design, Analysis and Reporting that Leads to Better Marketing Strategy Create Winning Research Presentations and Reports that Deeply Connect with your Audience Gamification: Making Marketing Research Fun and Engaging Market Segmentation Research Measuring Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty and Retention* Measuring Customer Satisfaction: Advanced Moderator’s Tool Box: Mapping & Projective Techniques Moderator Training: Basic* Semiotics, Introduction: How Symbols, Packaging & Advertising Communicate SPSS: Analyzing Survey Data: An Introductory Workshop SPSS: Analyzing Survey Data: An Advanced Workshop Writing that Gets Results Workshop http://mria-arim.ca/education/in-class-learning/professional-development-courses *Ces cours aussi disponibles en français http://mria-arim.ca/fr/formation

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IN D USTRY N E W S

RRS

RESEARCH REGISTRATION SYSTEM Since 1994, the RRS has allowed respondents to verify the legitimacy of a research project; helped legislators and regulators differentiate between legitimate survey researchers and unscrupulous telemarketers, phishers and scammers; and protected the industry from unnecessary and unwanted regulation.

RRS

MRIA’s Research Registration System (RRS) has long been a cornerstone self-regulatory mechanism for the marketing, survey and public opinion research and market intelligence industry in Canada.

Combined with other self-regulatory initiatives such as our Code of Conduct and Good Practice and our Charter of Respondent Rights, the RRS has paid huge dividends in protecting the industry’s positive reputation and good name with Canadians.

All Gold Seal and Basic Corporate Research Agency members of the Association are obligated to register all of their research projects with the RRS, and ClientSide Corporate members are encouraged to require their agency suppliers to do so.

MRIA’s Research Agency Council provides strategic, policy-level oversight of the Research Registration System, and receives aggregate data-only on the System’s performance.

Questions about the Research Registration System should be addressed to Erica Klie, Member Services & Events Coordinator, at 1-888-602-6742 or 905602-6854, ext. 8727 or eklie@mria-arim.ca or, in her absence, Interim Executive Director, John Ball, CMRP at ext. 8724 or jball@mria-arim.ca.

Rules of Conduct and Good Practice For Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007):

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES HAVE REGISTERED RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH THE RESEARCH REGISTRATION SYSTEM DURING JUNE 2013: Gold Seal Corporate Research Agencies

Academica Group Advitek Inc. BBM Analytics BBM Canada Blue Ocean Contact Centers Campaign Research Canadian Viewpoint Inc. Cido Research Consumer Vision Ltd. EKOS Research Associates Inc. Greenwich Associates Harris/Decima Inc. Head Count Hotspex Inc. Ifop North America Ipsos Reid Maritz Research Canada MBA Recherche MD Analytics Inc. MQO Research Nanos Research NRG Research Group Opinion Search Inc. Research Dimensions Research House Inc. Tele-Surveys Plus / Télé-Sondages Plus The Logit Group Inc. TNS Canada (Canadian Facts) Trend Research Inc.

Section A (5) Members must uphold the MRIA Charter of Respondent Rights.

Charter of Respondent Rights, Article 2 You can verify that the research you have been invited to participate in is legitimate in one of two ways. You can either obtain a registration number and the MRIA’s toll-free telephone number for any research registered in the MRIA’s Research Registration System or you can obtain the contact information of the research director who is conducting the study.

Basic Corporate Research Agencies

Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting Inc. (BCCR Inc.) Goss Gilroy Inc. Nexus Market Research Inc. SmartPoint Research Inc. INDIVIDUAL MEMBER ORGANIZATION

Illumina Research Partners

http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/research-registration/research-registration-overview

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I N DUSTRY N E WS

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY (QRR) In accordance with federal privacy laws, MRIA’s Qualitative Research Registry (QRR), or Registre de la recherche qualitative (RRQ) in French, was created to provide an ongoing, user-friendly vehicle for tracking those who do not want to be contacted or should not be contacted for qualitative research studies.

QRR is a comprehensive do not call list of those who have recently participated in qualitative research studies, those who have asked not to be contacted further, and those felt by recruiters and moderators to be best served by not being contacted.

These respondents are marked as “do not call” in accordance with established MRIA Standards.

All field and full-service companies are encouraged to submit a list of their qualitative respondents for entry into the QRR system each month, including those who do not wish to be contacted.

Participating firms will receive monthly updates of respondents to be screened from qualitative recruitment samples. QRR works effectively to increase the quality and integrity of the qualitative research process, by serving as a control to ensure respondents are not contacted more frequently than is necessary.

However, the ability of the system to function effectively is directly related to the co-operation received from firms who provide recruitment services.

If you are a full service research firm or field supplier that is currently participating in the Qualitative Research Registry program – thank you very much and keep up the good work!

If you are not currently participating, please get involved! If you are interested in submitting to QRR, please visit the MRIA website at http://mria-arim.ca/ about-mria/qualitative-research-division/qualitativeresearch-registry for further explanation and guidance on how to submit qualitative research participants’ names, along with the required electronic forms.

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES HAVE SUBMITTED NAMES TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY FOR JUNE 2013 ONTARIO Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting Consumer Vision CRC Research Dawn Smith Field Management Services Inc. I & S Recruiting Ipsos Reid Nexus Research Quality Response Research House Inc.

QUEBEC Ipsos Reid

WEST Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting CRC Research Ipsos Reid Trend Research

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY SUBMIS­SIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO: QRRQ@MRIA-ARIM.CA Submission templates and payment forms can be found at http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/qualitative-researchdivision/qualitative-research-registry-fees

Rules of Conduct and Good Practice for Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007), Section C Rules Specific to the Conduct of Qualitative Research: 20. R ecruiters should provide accurate data to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such exists, on a consistent basis and check all respondents against the Registry.

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21. M oderators buying recruiting services should give primary consideration to recruiting agencies which submit to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such a service exists, on a regular and ongoing basis.

IN DUSTRY N E W S

PEOPLE AND COMPANIES IN THE NEWS •T o read more news online, or to submit your “People and Companies in the News,” simply fill out our online form at http://mria-arim.ca/news/people-and-company-news.

•T he Vue editorial team reserves the right to select and edit your submission for appearance in Vue. •M RIA is neither responsible for the accuracy of this information nor liable for any false information.

Former Coke Exec to Head FleishmanHillard Research Omnicom-owned communications network FleishmanHillard has hired former Coca-Cola insights leader Christina Liao as Senior Vice President and Senior Partner, Director of Applied Data, in charge of its global Research and Analytics practice. Liao joins with nearly two decades of experience in the measurement and analytics field. Most recently, at Coca-Cola, she headed the Knowledge and Insights team. Prior to this, she spent eight years at CMI Research, latterly as VP of Analytics and Insights; and nine years at ORC Macro. In addition, Liao teaches at the annual American Marketing Association Advanced School of Marketing Research. www.fleishmanhillard.com Headcount Tumbles at Nielsen Audio Nielsen has made an unconfirmed number of staff redundant in its Audio division, formed from recently-acquired Arbitron.

Nielsen bids goodbye to “around 500” staff, mostly from Arbitron. Nielsen Audio was created following the $1.26 billion acquisition of the radio ratings giant back in September. At the time, Nielsen CEO David Calhoun told investors that the company projected around $20 million in “synergies” from the acquisition. Shortly after the deal closed, it was rumoured that a number of Arbitron’s execs would be leaving the company, including former CFO Debra Delman and CEO Sean Creamer. www.nielsen.com TNS Strengthens Asia Pacific Team TNS is moving Jacqui von Hirschberg (left) from her current role as Executive Director of Strategy & Capability in Australia, into a pan-Asia Pacific role as Regional Director, Clients. Separately, Mandy Tam (right)will join the firm in the new year as Regional Director, Business Development. Von Hirschberg has been with the company in Australia since 2002, having previously worked for Research Surveys in Cape Town, South Africa from 1997 to 2001, prior to its acquisition by TNS in 2007. In her new role, which commences in January, von Hirschberg will be responsible for leading regional client service efforts and driving client partnership programs. Tam most recently served as Business Development Director, Asia at Vision Critical, before which she worked in Account and Business Development at Ernst & Young,

and she spent more than eleven years at Synovate in Hong Kong. When she joins, Tam will work closely with a portfolio of strategic accounts, and develop programs to support their growth targets. www.tnsglobal.com SurveyMonkey Beams Up to the Enterprise Online DIY survey specialist SurveyMonkey has launched Enterprise, an enhanced version of its survey product promising organisations the ability to bring individual users into a centrally managed system. The firm says individuals at “nearly every Fortune 500 company” already use the basic tool, and the new product will allow them to “use a service they know and love” in a more collaborative environment with more scope for comparing and sharing data, improving decision making across organizations. www.surveymonkey.com GfK to Enter South American TV Audience Market GfK has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with four Brazilian television broadcasters: Band TV, Record, RedeTV! and SBT, to bring its audience measurement services to the country.

The planned initial contract will have a five-year time span and a value of more than $100 million. The deal also allows the global agency the potential to sell data to additional TV stations, media agencies and buyers.

GfK says its offer will include “broader sampling” including viewers of terrestrial, cable and satellite television, and measurement will be through a system installed in approximately 6,000 panel households. The service will take into account both live and time-shifted content, and include realtime ratings and overnight consolidated ratings, along with spot and advertisement monitoring. The new service is expected to go live in 2015, covering the fifteen largest cities in Brazil. www.gfk.com Confirmit and Futurelab in CEM Partnership Online MR software company Confirmit has partnered with customer-centric consulting firm Futurelab, allowing both companies to offer an enhanced portfolio of customer experience management (CEM) services and solutions to businesses across Europe. Through the partnership, Confirmit’s Voice of the Customer and Voice of the Employee solutions will be combined with Futurelab’s consulting expertise, to offer a “best-of-breed” approach to the creation of customer experience programs. www.confirmit.com and www.futurelab.net vue December 2013

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Deloitte Buys Data-Driven Social Media Agency Business advisory firm Deloitte has acquired data-driven digital and social media agency Banyan Branch, whose offer includes social media analytics and insights, community management, and digital creative. Following the acquisition, founders Alex Garcia, Dave Hanley and Alicia Hatch will continue in leadership roles within full-service digital agency Deloitte Digital. www.deloittedigital.com Census Bureau Accused of Manipulating Employment Data The U.S. Census Bureau has been accused of faking data used to calculate the national unemployment rate, during the final month of the 2012 presidential election campaign. In response, the Bureau says it does not believe that there was a “systematic manipulation” of the data. Both the bureau and the BLS have now reported claims to the Commerce Department Inspector General Office for further investigation. www.census.gov SSI Rolls Out QuickThoughts in Seven New Markets Sampling, data collection and analytics specialist SSI has rolled out its “QuickThoughts” mobile data collection platform in seven additional countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The QuickThoughts app, which integrates seamlessly with the firm’s Dynamix sampling platform, was launched in the U.S. last year, and in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the U.K. during September. It is now available for all mobile platforms from the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Kindle Fire Stores. www.surveysampling.com

the organization’s 2,500 annual audits while serving as SVP of Auditing Services. www.auditedmedia.com SM Research and Marketing Systems Group Join Forces SM Research, a leading provider of samples and technical solutions to the market research community, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Marketing Systems Group (MSG) of Horsham, Pa., a top provider of products, information and services to the survey research community. With over sixty years of combined experience in the survey and market research industries, SM Research and MSG can provide research data and solutions across North America and the world. www.smres.com www.m-s-g.com Gartner Reports 11% Research Revenue Rise Technology research and analysis specialist Gartner has reported an 11% Q3 revenue rise in its Research arm – to $316.5 million.

For the group as a whole, revenue increased 10% year-on-year to $410.7 million. The firm’s Consulting division reported a 2% fall in revenue to $70.1 million, while the Events arm saw a 29% increase to $24.0 million. Overall, the group reported a net income rise of 22% to $38.2 million in the third quarter of 2013. www.gartner.com Mitch Barns to Replace Calhoun as Nielsen CEO Nielsen is to promote Mitch Barns to the role of Chief Executive Officer from January 1, 2014, replacing David Calhoun who takes on the role of Executive Chairman. Barns joined Nielsen in 1997 after nearly twelve years at Procter & Gamble. He currently serves as President, Global Client Service, in charge of the firm’s Watch and Buy client service teams worldwide. www.nielsen.com

AAM Seeks New President as Lavery Prepares to Retire Mike Lavery has announced he is to retire from his position as President and MD of the U.S.-based Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) in late 2014. The New York-based Alliance independently verifies print and digital circulation and audience information, and analytics for mobile apps, websites and social media, in the U.S. and Canada. The not-for-profit organization was formed last year after the merger of the Audit Bureau of Circulations and the Certified Audit of Circulations. Lavery joined the ABC in 1987 as VP of Finance and Administration, and a year later managed

Former Toluna Exec Opens Sample Firm in Canada In Canada, former Toluna exec Gaurav Agarwal has opened a new company called WiseSample, with backing from Microsoft’s Bizspark technology and support program. Agarwal worked for Toluna for more than nine years, latterly as Client Services Leader responsible for managing the Healthcare and Entertainment groups, and in charge of a team of 22 project managers across Toronto, Los Angeles and Gurgaon, India. www.wisesample.com

People and Companies in the News sponsored by:

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EVENTS

MARK YOUR CALENDAR December 5, 2013 Quebec Chapter Holiday Party Montreal, QC December 12, 2013 2013 Toronto Chapter Holiday Party Toronto, ON December 18, 2013 BC Chapter Winter Social Vancouver, BC January 30, 2014 Net Gain 8.0 Transformation Toronto, ON

February 21, 2014 MRIA Qualitative Research Conference 2014 – Creating Connections Toronto, ON March 4, 2014 Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) and MRIA, Client Experience (CX) Conference Toronto, ON June 8–10, 2014 MRIA National Conference 2014 – Dig Deeper & Discover Saskatoon, SK

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!

IND USTRY N E WS

Chapter Chat …

the new year

approaches

Fellow researchers: It has been my privilege to work on your behalf for two years as Associate Editor of this magazine. I’ve taken particular pleasure in working behind the scenes to vet every issue of Chapter Chat that has come out this year and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it.

Thank you to the current Editor-in-Chief and Publications Chair, Annie Pettit; her predecessors, David Hamburg (EiC) and Stephen Popiel (PC), who conspired to get me into this position; Managing Editor, Anne Marie Gabriel; Copy Editor, Siegfried Betterman; and the production staff at LS Graphics.

I’m stepping down in order to allow new hands to help Vue magazine move forward. I take pride in having contributed to this effort, much as I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished in the rest of my professional career, which will evolve in ways yet to be seen.

All of you deserve to be complimented for the contributions you’ve made to keeping MRIA members well informed. I look forward to seeing Chapter Chat continue in your capable hands.

Adieu, Christian Mueller, CMRP

BC CHAPTER Did someone say “Party?” The BC Chapter is planning to hold a holiday social on December 18th at V – a lounge and private event space located above Earls Restaurant in Yaletown. Come by and mingle with your fellow marketing research and intelligence professionals. Drinks and appetizers are on us! Stay tuned to our News & Events page, Twitter and Facebook accounts for details.

Best of ESOMAR Vancouver

TORONTO CHAPTER And if you can’t make it to Vancouver, join the Toronto Chapter in celebrating the holiday season at the festivities we’re organizing for December 12th at Ristorante Buonanotte. This party is sure to sell out fast, so get tickets now via the MRIA Portal. If corporate promotion is your thing, please contact Cary Brown (cary.brown@td.com) regarding event sponsorship opportunities.

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ATLANTIC CHAPTER

ALBERTA CHAPTER

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Chapter is reaching out to local universities over the next few months in order to speak about the MR industry (and MRIA) with a number of business and marketing classes. The first such event has already been held – to rave reviews! – at Cape Breton University in mid-November.

In November, the Alberta Chapter participated in “Industry Night” at the University of Calgary. Hosted by Alliances in Marketing, a U of C student organization, the evening included an opportunity for students in various disciplines to connect with professional representatives of the marketing research industry via speed networking.

QUEBEC CHAPTER

Carol Wilson includes twenty MRIA members from Moncton, Halifax, and St. John’s in a webex about The Importance of Being Neutral

On October 15th, in the majestic Hall des bâtisseurs de l’Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ), the Quebec Chapter officially launched our 2013–14 program. Approximately forty members and guests socialized amidst canapés and cocktails. Our newly elected chapter president, Daniel Brousseau, introduced his eleven-member board and announced the program lineup that’s coming soon: a dozen varied events such as breakfast seminars, training workshops, networking activities, the 11th Annual Student Contest, and more.

Daniel Brousseau

Season-opener cocktail in Montreal

Members and guests are welcome at all MRIA events: Check our online calendar at http://mria-arim.ca/events-awards/calendar for more information on all events and how to register. Members receive emails directly with event updates, so please check your inboxes for instructions on how to register for all upcoming events!

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COLUMNISTS BRAVE NEW WORLD Wake Up or Die Corrine Sandler Fresh Intelligence Research Corp.

Every day in business we experience uncertainty, risks and emotional exposure to winning and losing the battle for growth.

There are many theoretical business practices out there, but none as brilliant and simple as The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which was used to win wars two thousand years ago.

His fundamental philosophy is that no war has been won without intelligence and never will be. We are in the best possible industry because there is a war out there, the war of commerce, and everyone is fighting for market share. Only those with the best foresight will win business battles, and we as researchers and analysts are needed now more than ever.

Wake Up or Die is my new book, just launched. It is a powerfully written treatise on the use of intelligence in business today. I share the “must haves” to thrive and grow with actual stories of winners and losers. This book is for all decision makers who want to succeed in today’s business world where “loss leaders” dominate, consumers hold all the power, and competition intensifies.

The launch coincides with my last column in Vue. After a few years, it’s time to pass the baton. I hope all of you have enjoyed the columns. Please visit www.wakeupordie.us to read more about my book and to download chapter one for free. My frank and candid approach holds no bars. I believe the pendulum of the mind oscillates between intellect and ignorance, not between right and wrong.

Enjoy the read!

Innovation and Creativity Creativity and Inspiration Sources Margaret Imai-Compton, CMRP Principal, Imai-Compton Consulting Inc.

After five years, as I come to the end of my tenure as a Vue monthly columnist, I’d like to leave you with my favourite sources for inspiration and creative sparking.

With considerable trial and error over the years, I’ve landed on a handful of websites that consistently delight and inspire.

However, it’s always worthwhile to check out new links or websites as this world moves quickly. So here are my current favourites.

Brain Pickings is issued weekly and is a curated creativity site that is excellent for providing ideas on creativity as a process.

It sources literature, science and design with material that goes back as far as one hundred years, and draws connections using quotes, videos and book reviews. I also appreciate that it’s a weekly blog, so I don’t feel overwhelmed; I actually look forward to Sundays when it’s issued.

Then there’s the ever popular www.ted.com and www.ted.com/tedx sites featuring presentations from a dazzling array of disciplines. Creativity and innovation are at the core 36

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of TED (Technology, Education, Design). It’s an excellent source for exposure to new thinkers and new topics that would otherwise require substantial research.

Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small is a fun site that offers ideas in a variety of disciplines, including business and everyday living. For example, a current hot topic on the site is “Better Brake Light,” which has generated amusing and ingenious discussion among readers. http://99u.com is a website that weaves creativity and inspiration into predictable categories like graphic design, technology and writing. But it also has unique categories (often amusing) like passion, self-marketing and collaboration. There is sure to be something that will inspire. I particularly liked the piece on “The Smart Creative’s Guide to Dressing for Work.”

I thank the editors at Vue for the privilege to share my perspectives on creativity and innovation, and I encourage you all to keep up your creative spirit. You never know where it’ll lead you.

CSRC Industry Financial Survey (2012): Highlights Scott Megginson Millward Brown Canada

The results are in, and the outlook is mixed. The MRIA’s latest Industry Financial Survey results showed declines in Total Net Revenue among Gold Seal Members between 2011 and 2012. More members took collateral cost-cutting measures – namely, reduced conference and event attendance, and cutbacks on holiday season expenditures – than in the previous year.

Full-time staffing levels increased, but these resources worked harder, with an increase in revenue per person.

In terms of regional dynamics, there was a continued increase in U.S.-based clients. In fact, Canadian clients now represent only about three-quarters of the total pool. There were revenue shifts across regions, with Ontario now just below 50% and Quebec showing the only growth – albeit modest.

The types of research conducted were also changing. Although the proportion of Qualitative changed little, there was a sharp decline in Quantitative that was offset by a burgeoning “Other” category (which we might assume captures social media listening, growth in custom panels, and other evolving areas of interest to clients). Telephone research continued its decline, now representing less than a quarter of revenue.

When prompted for 2013 expectations, fewer Gold Seal Members expected to see increased revenue and profit, compared to the previous year. However, more were still expecting to see billings increase to some degree (57%), as opposed to decreasing (14%) or remaining the same (13%). There was a slight increase among those who thought “it is too early to tell” for revenue, rounding out the total (16%). It seems that we’ll just have to wait and see what the balance of the year brings.

Detailed results were in the process of being released at this press deadline. In addition, Gold Seal Members will benefit from exclusive access to the 2012 Compensation and Staffing data.

COLUMN I STS

THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

QUALITAS

Hopes Dashed for a Global MacDimsum Partnership

What Is the Shelf Life of a Qualitative Insight?

Ruth M. Corbin, CMRP CorbinPartners Inc.

Peter Milic Ipsos Reid UU

It’s a lazy Sunday morning, and your friend invites you out for MacDimsum. Where do you think she’s taking you? As of July of this year, the answer is “nowhere.”

Restaurateur Tong G. Cheah hoped to offer MacDimsum fare in Canada, and applied to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in 2007 to register MACDIMSUM as a trademark for food and beverages. McDonald’s Canada successfully opposed the registration, claiming that the product name was confusing with its family of trade-marks starting with “Mc.” Mr. Cheah appealed the matter to the Federal Court of Canada. Representing himself in court without legal counsel, he claimed that McDonald’s was a corporate bully, that would never put dim sum on its menu anyway.

Evidence regarding public perception was advanced in two ways. McDonald’s argued, and the court accepted, that the public does not distinguish between MC and MAC in drawing inferences about the source of a brand. McDonald’s also submitted survey evidence that 29 per cent of consumers in the relevant market indeed inferred that MACDIMSUM would originate with McDonald’s.

The federal court issued its decision in July 2013. The appeal was dismissed, and the registration was turned down.

The court had found no evidence that McDonald’s had behaved like a bully. Rather, the judge was led to suspect the motives of the trade-mark applicant, pointing to a letter Mr. Cheah had written earlier on to McDonald’s corporate lawyers stating that “…we can together perhaps explore the possibilities of a global MACDIMSUM partnership.”

Six years after his attempt to register the trade-mark, at least he had had his day in court. And so ended one man’s dream of a global partnership with McDonald’s.

With global partnerships more closely linking clients and research vendors, some companies are building an inventory of qualitative insights that can be used and reused within the organization. Not only does this encourage the dissemination of learning, it allows for wisdom to be retained despite employee movement and turnover. Because this method for sharing knowledge is a relatively new phenomenon, it is unlikely that the insights added to a database have, as yet, reached their best-before date. Nevertheless, there will come a time when an insight may not be sufficiently fresh for safe consumption.

How long does an insight remain valid? The answer is entirely dependent on the nature of the insight.

Fundamental insights can endure for years, but can change abruptly when major events impact the general psyche or the way in which we function. Do you remember what it was like to fly before 9/11?

The shelf life of category insights tends to be comparatively shorter and will differ from one category to the next depending on the degree to which competitors within that category are dynamic and innovative.

The shelf life for brand insights tend to be relatively short and getting shorter, on the grounds that there is constant tinkering with brand equity as marketers attempt to retain or increase relevance in an evolving world. No one has the prerogative not to pursue growth; consequently, brands are forced to change in their quest to extend their appeal to a broader audience.

Of course, it is not an immutable law that a qualitative insight will “go off ” at a specific date. However, if the insight has been around for some time, it’s a good idea to do a refresh, just in case.

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