MARCH 2019
The Perils of
PERCEPTION THE CHANGING
FACE OF NZ
market 5researchers Trends for
Plus
CHANGING CHALLENGING BEHAVIOUR WITH OGILVY
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InterVIEW March 2019
WORD FROM THE BOARD 2019 already! I hope you all had a relaxing Xmas, recharged your batteries and are fully into your exciting work in 2019. The RANZ Vision has been steadily developing over recent months and we thank all of you who came back with your comments at various waypoints. The board will confirm the overall direction at our next meeting and begin to add some meat to the bones so that we can translate the vision and purpose into measurable deliverables and agreed outcomes. Feedback has been quite diverse, but generally speaking there is a desire for a more forward-looking association which works with members more proactively to drive industry visibility and leadership. This isn’t going to happen overnight and is going to require that we all, i.e. members and the board, work together more. One of the key words that emerged from our consultation was “alliance”, and we will be exploring how we can create more effective alliances within and across industries for the benefit of the participants and the various research and insights disciplines.
2019 is RANZ conference year and we have been using much of the consultation and feedback to inform the conference which we are currently planning. A diverse range of speakers, thought leadership, learning and networking time are among the aims of this year’s conference team. One of the initiatives we are seriously exploring is making the event a 2-day conference with various options such as ticket sharing, etc. Once the venue and date are confirmed, we’ll be getting back to you with a ‘save the date’ and some early notes around theme, speakers, etc. It’s going to be in early to mid August. I’m looking forward to a great year ahead and to working with our members. Galina
Publisher: Research Association
The dedicated team which produced this publication includes: Sue Cardwell Ishita Mendonsa Rachel Prendergast
Layout and design by: Charmaine Fuhrmann
Images are copyright to their owners and should not be copied without permission Copyright (c) Stock.XCHNG Photos, 123RF Stock Photos, RA. InterVIEW is published four times a year by an enthusiastic sub-committee of the Research Association committee. The views expressed are not those of the Research Association. We welcome your input and your requests for advertising space.
Visit us: www.researchassociation.org.nz
Galina Mitchelhill Chair of the RANZ Board 3
5 Trends of market research
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Everybody lies
Book review
Written by Duncan Stuart Kudos Dynamics Ltd
02 06 08 4
Word from the board with Galina Mitchelhill
5 Trends for market researchers with Sue Cardwell, Nostolgic marketing, colouring for adults and the all powerful Sissu, plus more ... How might we get landlords to insulate their properties? A behavioural economics study
InterVIEW March 2019
InterVIEW March 2019
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Big data, AI & 5 privacy principles
Contents
22 Changing landlords behaviour
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Big data, AI and five principles of privacy with Duncan Stuart
The changing face of New Zealand and why it matters with Chris Coomer, Nielsen Media
Research in its PRIME by Todd Eglinton of Prime Research
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comments, or send us an original thought piece, email: ranzinterview@gmail.com >
The perils of perception A study by Amanda Dudding
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60 Seconds with
Robert Gaston
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Senior Research Manager at NeedScope International, Kantar
Research in its PRIME
The changing face of New Zealand
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Hype, buzz and opportunity - The GRIT Report by Cole Armstrong, founder of NeuroSpot Everybody lies, Big data, new data and what the internet can tell us about who we really are - Book review by Duncan Stuart The perils of perception by Amanda Dudding of Ipsos - Behavioural Scinece and research go hand-inhand
The GRIT Report
Hype, buzz and opportunity By Cole Armstrong, founder of NeuroSpot 5
5
Trends for market
researchers
Sue Cardwell is Brand & Customer Experience Manager at Public Trust. She is a keen trend-spotter, believing that what makes great market researchers is our ability to stay on the pulse and curious.
with Sue Cardwell
“5 Trends” is Sue’s regular contribution to InterVIEW magazine. Sue helped re-launch the magazine in 2011 and she continues to stay involved in RANZ communications. Get in touch! Sue loves to hear what you think - and your ideas for trends which should be covered here. Let her know your thoughts with a Tweet or LinkedIn shoutout. 6
InterVIEW March 2019
Written by Sue Cardwell @tuesdaysue
1. NOSTALGIA MARKETING Using nostalgia in marketing is nothing new. But what has changed is its target. Millennials, once the babies of the workplace, are all grown up and having babies of their own. It’s the perfect time to remind them fondly of their own 90s childhood. Not convinced? Look at Air NZs latest 90s-fest safety video. Look at the relaunch the toy of the 90s, Polly Pocket, by Mattel. Nokia reminding people how much they loved their phone’s durability and battery life. Oh and encouraging us to beat our Snake game high score. The list goes on. Nauseated by the 90s the first time around? Brace yourself. They’re coming back. Share this trend!
Share this on Facebook!
3. HUMAN EVERYTHING
2. COLOURING IN FOR ADULTS TAKES NEW FORM Remember those mindfulness colouring in books for adults? They are designed to slow down over-active and stressed out minds with a creative activity. Now Lego wants to do the same thing, and it has launched Lego Forma on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to do just that. These aren’t Lego blocks as we know them, but more complex kinetic creations that can be coloured in by the adults who use them. The forms are beautiful organic koi with a variety of skins, and the challenge of building something with mechanical movement set this apart from the blocks aimed at children. For me, it lacks the delight of building anything you want with Lego blocks, but it will be interesting to watch this attempt to rebrand a child’s toy into an adult hobby. Share this trend!
Have you noticed how the words “humanise” and “human-centred” are cropping up in every other thought piece you see these days? 2019 is tipped to be the year of the human. I’ve been trying to work out what that means - and if we all mean the same thing when we say it. Some describe a human approach as being inclusive: accessible design for customers, and inclusive approaches for employees. Others claim humanisation is about brands showing what they stand for. Ray Poynter describes this as taking a position, a trend I’ve previously talked about in this column. Take a look at these ideas on how market research companies can converse with conviction. Still others suggest that to humanise our customer interactions, we need to reconsider using technology in place of humans (customer service chatbots are one example; another is the Uberisation of the workforce / employer relationship). Share this trend!
4. MORE THAN A PURCHASE:
EXPERIENTIAL COMMERCE
Traditionally brands have competed in the four Ps: product, price, place and promotion. But now goods are widely available online, price competition can lead to a “race to the bottom” and a no-frills experience. Smart brands are realising they can compete on the experience of buying something, with physical stores complementing websites where products can be browsed and purchased. What does the store add? Experts to help with your purchase. Certainty of getting the product you want. The ability to interact with the product physically. This new paradigm will need experts who understand both great digital experiences, and experiential marketing. It’s a great example of a branded customer experience: cleverly blending clicks and mortar into a harmonious and uniquely branded shopping experience. Share this trend!
5. SISU: THE MOST POWERFUL WORD IN THE FINNISH LANGUAGE Sisu, it’s said, is the silent relentlessness that got Finland through WW2. It’s realism, stoicism, and perseverance against hopeless odds with dignity. Sisu has been part of the Finnish psyche for generations, but now this powerful idea is spreading, just as the Danish idea of hygge or cosiness did before it. Sisu gets the credit for some of Finland’s admirable qualities: its high levels of happiness, its sporting achievements. But of course there are also negative sides to extreme endurance the risk of burnout for example, and the pressure that is put on the people around you who aren’t following the principle of sisu. Want to try sisu for yourself? The classic way to introduce sisu into your life, practised widely in Finland, is to take a dip in a freezing cold ocean. Before you know it, it’ll feel great. Share this trend!
<< CONTENTS
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How might we get landlords to insulate their properties? A Behavioural Economics Case Study
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InterVIEW March 2019
In a world obsessed with Blockchain technol-
ogy, Fitbits and the latest gizmos flaunted around Silicon Valley; we can easily overlook the very human, psychological triggers that shape our behaviours. For example, a study with 471 adults, conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, found that participants using wearable technology lost less weight than the participants assigned a behavioural intervention. Participants using wearable tech monitored their exercise goals, and often indulged in a large high-calorie meal when they made their targets. From experiments in the UK piloting a behavioural economics approach, it was observed that simple ‘nudges’ like telling people that 9 out of 10 people pay their taxes on time generated the taxman £210m extra. A simple yet powerful mantra proposed by Richard Thaler, co-author of the book Nudge with Cass Sunstein is - “If you want someone to do something, make it easy”. In early trials with the government’s Nudge Unit, Thaler and team discovered that people were more likely to insulate their attics if they were offered help clearing them. Drawing inspiration from the work of Nobel laureate Richard Thaler, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) partnered with our behavioural science team at Ogilvy to motivate landlords in New Zealand to insulate their homes.
The Behaviour Change Challenge Insulating your home is the single most effective thing you can do to keep your home warm and to save energy and money. World Health Organisation research has shown that if your home is consistently below 18°C, you are much more likely to suffer from colds, bronchitis and asthma. One in six New Zealand adults and one in four children experi-
ence asthma symptoms. These are among the highest rates in the world, and it's no wonder when one in three of our homes are poorly insulated. Landlords do not stay in the properties they own and there is a general lack of enthusiasm towards investing into creating a healthy home for tenants. Despite subsidies available to eligible landlords via Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes, there was a low uptake of these grants. Our challenge was to find out what message resonates the most to get landlords to insulate their properties. We defined the following measurable outcomes for a behaviour change campaign: •
Test Messages: Find what message resonates the most to get landlords to insulate properties measured by CRTs i.e. online clicks.
•
Insulation uptakes: Registration of intent to insulate (6,000 referral leads target) and parallel monitoring of installations (1,200 insulation installs target).
Our Experiment We conducted an insights review (understanding drivers and barriers), used a behavioural science framework (optimised four messages) and developed a robust experimental design to maximise effectiveness (test-learnadapt approach for multiple messages).
Highlights from insights review: Through a secondary analysis of research conducted by EECA’s research partner and our own literature review, we discovered the following drivers and barriers: •
Hyperbolic discounting – Landlords may put off insulation for the future as there is no immediate reward for investing money towards tenants’ insulation << CONTENTS
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• Confirmation bias – Referring to landlords with positive attributes like ‘astute’ and ‘clever’ will help place an emphasis on their good decision-making skills • Framing - Highlighting the highly attractive savings (i.e. 50% off) can motivate landlords to insulate their properties
Attractive, Social and Timely (EAST). We conceptualised the creative proposition ‘What
kind of landlord are you?’ and applied the framework to develop four messages around this creative: 1. EASY Getting the experts to insulate your rental is the smart kind.
• Scarcity – Claiming the limited subsidy in a timely manner can motivate landlords
2. ATTRACTIVE Getting 50% towards the cost of insulating your rental is the astute kind.
Behavioural science framework:
3. SOCIAL Providing a warm, healthy home for your tenants is the caring kind
The EAST framework developed by the Behavioural Insights Team in 2012 enables practitioners to test insights using four simple ways. The framework proposes - If you want someone to change behaviour make it Easy,
4. TIMELY Getting a subsidy to insulate your rental now is the organised kind.
Above. A snippet of the four online banners and videos we developed and tested (all messages included the subsidy offered) using the EAST framework. The ‘Attractive’ message, with the positive framing of the offer, was the most effective in nudging landlords to insulate properties.
Vishal George Head of Behavioural Science, Ogilvy NZ Vishal talks, walks and breathes behavioural science. As a practitioner applying behavioural science across industry in India, UK and New Zealand, he embeds behavioural science research and approaches into the strategy for Ogilvy’s clients including Starbucks, Adobe, Westminster Council, the Department of Corrections and Accident Compensation Corporation. Connect on: Email / Linkedin / Twitter 10
InterVIEW March 2019
Experimental design: We piloted the four EAST messages i.e. Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely using online banner advertisements on property websites and native videos on channels such as YouTube. Our methodology involved running all four messages to unique users till midway through the campaign. This allowed us to rigorously evaluate the most effective message in engaging landlords to insulate their properties.
Test-learn-adapt methodology: At the midway point, we evaluated the proportion of ‘clicks’ using a z-test for proportions, to find out what message resonated the most across channels. To maximise effectiveness, we then adapted the campaign to run only the ‘winning message’ i.e. a message that delivered a statistically significant uplift in clicks for banner and video advertisements.
‘Attractive’ subsidy compared to getting help from experts, providing a healthy home like other caring landlords or the scarcity of the limited offer. Interestingly, all four messages indicated that there was a subsidy available, however the subsidy being framed as an attractive offer was the little nudge that makes a big difference.
Delivering effective behaviour change: Using behavioural insights and an experiment design through the test-learn-adapt methodology allowed us to get more registrations (8,283 referral leads for 6,000 target) and delivered real-world behaviour change with greater uptake of installations than we targeted (1,888 insulations installed for 1,200 target).
The Results Most effective message: The ‘Attractive’ message was most effective in both channels, delivering 315% more clicks in banner advertisements (z = 527.24, p < 0.01) and 162% more clicks in video advertisements (z =112.46, p < 0.01). This suggests that landlords were more motivated by the
Scaling effective insights: More than 300,000 households in New Zealand have been insulated with funding from EECA. The behavioural economics approach adopted in this pilot will help us get one step closer to get every house in the country insulated.
Vishal hosts the Wellington and Auckland Behavioural Economics Networks, bringing together private sector, government and academia to share learnings in the field and tackle socially relevant issues including recycling, climate change and unconscious bias at the workplace. Join the meetup to learn more about behavioural economics, participate in the discussions and share your learnings with the community. Auckland Behavioural Economics Network www.meetup.com/Auckland-Behavioural-Economics-Network/ Wellington Behavioural Economics Network www.meetup.com/Wellington-Behavioural-Economics-Science-Network/ << CONTENTS 11
nd Za N A fR sed er o NNs u b em th fe M 99 wi ce of i L 9 a en is e1 ar t AI sinc , incid and to on and u t S n ti ., can using mptio er, etc sump s n u u n n e D bee t cons turnov s of co escrib s a ic tore h is er an ed red s driv des. H ly if it f hum t n i to p hase, itu ma tha t on ts o c pur rmine nal att AI, bu strain data’ vel. f n e ll det nisatio fan o the co ‘sma ated le a n a org elf as within ialist i aggreg s c d him neere a spe mous, i is ny eng s. He ano t n h l rig s at a er fu d n k o wor aw k), -oo roo f t). K ( ch (Le rou bodia K m with an om Ca c n r Du ent f stud
B
IG DATA, AI AND FIVE PRINCIPLES OF PRIVACY
In China, matchmaking is huge business. In a marital marketplace that is competitive and sometimes ruthless, 90 million single people subscribe to the dating app Baihe and post their most flattering photos, their impressive CVs and, now, their credit ratings as generated by Sesame Credit, a private firm which has tapped into previously anonymous transactional data as well as data from service providers such as taxi companies. Sesame then adds, through its algorithms, a judgemental element to the credit score. Spend an unusual number of hours playing video games? Then you’d be judged as a somewhat lazy good-for-nothing and a probable credit risk.
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InterVIEW March 2019
By Duncan Stuart, Kudos Organisational Dynamics Ltd
Right now, the BBC World Service reports, the Chinese government is monitoring closely the usage and impact of Sesame’s system which has a number of fans in part because the credit rating adds an element of validation and trust. Otherwise how do you know if that stranger you meet in the bar is what he says he is? The state system will collect more data, and while participation in Sesame is ‘voluntary’” (they have information on you whether you sign up or not), the state-run national database will, of course, be compulsory. Reports the BBC: “A national database will merge a wide variety
of information on every citizen, assessing whether taxes and traffic tickets have been paid, whether academic degrees have been rightly earned and even, it seems, whether females have been instructed to take birth control.” Do you find that mildly creepy? Broken down into examples, what’s not to like about government agencies sharing a single file and getting their paperwork in order? Or a system that keeps count of your spending and your tax? Couldn’t this be a kind of social Fitbit that helps us keep tabs? But in tracking your every purchase, traffic fine, jaywalking arrest (happening now in China with
facial recognition technology), things start to get a little bit too Big Brother for my tastes. Such systems are prone to biases. One example is credit rating. Picture yourself caught in an earthquake or in some medical crisis. You run up serious bills and you max out your credit card. And the bills keep coming in, so for two months now you’ve been in the red. And in the course of the emergency you forget to pay the damned power bill. A series of blots appear on your record and now you are judged a moderate credit risk. You carry this with you when you apply for an extension to your mortgage. You get the picture? The Chinese system could get very draconian. Now here’s the thing. The West has similarly rich data collections. Remember Equifax? That’s the US-based company that holds a giant slice of the credit-reporting business in the USA. (They’re active in NZ and have data on 3.6 million adults here – which is just about every adult in our nation.) When you read up the sources of the data they collate on over 800 million individuals worldwide, you see data usage very similar to the Chinese models. Their clients include banks, and rather than simply assembling your bank account transaction records, Equifax can add demographic data, geo-spatial data (rich neighbourhood or poor), property ownership data, legal judgements, telecom data, utility usage (internet, electricity) as well as credit history of defaults, nonpayments or late payments. I have recently written a reference online for a job seeker and found that all the data was owned by the HR consultancy – who have a relationship with Equifax. It wouldn’t take much for the data to flow in two directions
– with confidential employer comments being attached to your history. (The HR firm assures me that this is currently not happening.)
2.
The right to opt-out. Does the citizen have the righT to opt out of the database? What gives my bank the right to buy and sell my data?
In the States, credit companies receive data from more than 10,000 (some estimates say as many as 30,000) different entities. Your bank knows a lot more about you than you might realise. Since the hacking debacle of 2017 when data on 145 million individuals was hacked, Equifax has worked hard to win a patent for their NeuroDecision product which marries NN technology with a level of explainability that NNs basically lack. Good for them, though transparency is demanded by most of the financial watchdogs and authorities.
3.
The right to reinvent oneself. Does the citizen have the right to a clean slate? Must a blemish on their record haunt the citizen forever? Should there be a decay-period built into data, so anything older than 5 years gets removed? At what point does a rehabili- tated ex-criminal have the right to say, “I’m a new person. The old me has gone”
I chose Equifax as an example here not to pick on them but to reflect that Big Data and AI analytics may be bigger than we imagine, and it runs the skinny borderline between creepy and helpful. The bottom lines of speed, scale and automation make AI attractive, for sure, but there’s a social bottom line that needs to be addressed, whether you’re in China or in the capitalist West. Privacy can be compromised through identification and tracking, voice and facial recognition, prediction (whether accurate or not is a moot point), profiling and through backdoor subterfuge – when privacy on a site such as Facebook turns out not to be private at all. Here are five principles that are worth considering when designing an AI system: 1.
The right to easy disclosure. Does the individual have access to their records? Can they inspect their file?
4. The profiling question and the right to NOT be profiled. Do I have the right to make sure that the data of my neighbours, my family, my peers, my colleagues doesn’t jump the fence and get attached to my records? I’m Black, I live in a poor neighbourhood – that doesn’t mean I’m a suspect. 5. The Open Black-Box principle. Do we have the right to see how AI analytics – for example, Neural Networks – are constructed and under stand what assumptions have been used? When AI makes recommendations and deci sions that go against us, have we the right to interrogate how these decisions were reached? The developments in China look scary, and the USA is already the Wild West in terms of privacy protection. New Zealand has taken some lead from the European model where there is some degree of regulation – but AI engineers and developers need to wear some responsib i l i t y, too.
<< CONTENTS 13
THE CHANGING FACE OF NZ, AND WHY IT MATTERS Chris Coomer, Client Development, Nielsen Media
While the 2018 census data isn’t due for release until 2019, marketers should be prepared to answer two key questions – “Are we adjusting to the changing needs of our target market? And how do we acquire new customers that are gaining relevance in NZ?”
With the help of Nielsen’s Consumer Media Insights (CMI) and Statistics New Zealand population projections, marketers and brand owners can prepare for what the ‘new’ New Zealand will look like by developing products and services that cater to the needs of the changing consumer.
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NEW ZEALAND’S CHANGING POPULATION - 3 OBSERVATIONS FOR MARKETERS 1. The population is aging: While New Zealand’s average age has remained consistent since 2012, this is expected to change, as the ‘over 55’ population is projected to grow from 27% to 30% of the overall population within the next 10 years (2028).
2. Changing ethnicity: Statistics NZ projections indicate a major growth in diversity in New Zealand's population over the next 10 years, with Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, Other Asian, Samoan and Maori groups all set to experience between 18% to 58% population growth compared to just 11% for the overall population. With increasing cultural diversity, marketers and brand owners need to look deeper at how they will connect and engage with a variety of ethnic groups in the future.
3. Different strategies for Auckland: Since 2012, the percentage of those in Auckland who identify as NZ European has declined by 3%, while Asian ethnic groups have increased by 13%. Now, two thirds of all New Zealanders who identify as Asian live in Auckland. With this change, marketers need to consider whether their strategies are suitable for Auckland and ensure that differing cultural needs are being catered for in their product mix and marketing messaging.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR AN EXAMPLE CATEGORY LIKE BEVERAGES: While changes to New Zealand’s population will impact all products and services, let’s consider what these changes mean for a category that concerns most Kiwis – ‘non-alcoholic beverages’. By overlaying consumer ethnicity across the top-seven non-alcoholic beverages New Zealanders consumed in the previous month, we begin to see some patterns emerge. The Asian population (540k people) was much more likely to consume a range of beverages last month, such as carbonated soft drinks, smoothies, iced drinks (e.g. iced coffee, tea, chocolate), and energy drinks. Conversely, New Zealanders of European origin were less likely to drink smoothies, iced drinks and energy drinks compared to all Kiwis.
A CONSUMER-CENTRIC STRATEGY: With the changing population, there is a growing need to develop products and services to satisfy a wider array of consumer preferences. Companies now need to ask themselves: ● “Which groups do our current products/ services appeal to the most?” ● “Are these group increasing/decreasing in size?” ● “Are their preferences changing?” ● “Are there new target customers that are increasing in relevance?” ● “What media mix is required to reach these customers for either retention or acquisition?” As New Zealand’s cultural mix continues to change, these are just some questions that marketers and brand owners need to ask when considering the future of their business.
Originally published on www.nielsen.com > << CONTENTS 15
Research in its
PRIME By Todd Eglinton, Managing Director of Prime Research Ltd Over 20 years ago, out of the need to help market researchers find participants for market research, Prime Research Recruit was born. Recruitment back then was a completely different game. There was no such thing as website testing, and landlines and NZ Post played a huge part. Now, of course, research recruitment is a very different ball game with sophisticated databases, and a variety of ways of contacting people. What absolutely hasn’t changed is the need to make sure that participants fit with researcher’s requirements and the constraints of the study.
word of mouth is still our single best source for panel growth. A lot of the participants we have believe that we are the company doing the research as well so we regularly get feedback - positive or negative. The positive obviously helps with panel growth. But those same participants become great advocates, assisting in networking. So interesting research is great for all involved. The negative: it still gives us a good chance to explain more about how it all works and worst case we just blame the research company!
Even with the advent of social media and the ability to use a variety of methods to contact people, the panel is still the real key to our recruitment. Nationwide and described as a perfect representative of the general population, we have approximately 35,000 participants (both personal and business) tuned to qualitative research. It’s like a rather large swarm of bees – individually easy to control but as a group it takes a lot to get the most from it.
Obviously social media is a very useful addition. Its effectiveness is definitely limited to certain types of consumer, but at the end of the day good old word of mouth is still our single best source for panel growth and quality participants.
I confess, I am constantly surprised when the panel turns up that “needle in a haystack” person. We’ve always said, with enough time and the right incentive (not necessarily money), we could get anyone for research though no one’s asked for a Prime Minister yet! The ability to share one’s opinion with someone genuinely interested is actually pretty enjoyable, so 16
InterVIEW March 2019
We are all under time pressure and it is a noticeable trend to have to deliver results faster. Filling researcher’s requirements at short notice is no exception. We have seen our lead times steadily reduce – based on end client’s requirements. Investing heavily in a database management system has really helped in that regard. Having the ability to securely maintain the panel is critical but to include a quick turn-around is becoming far more prevalent. The biggest limitation we have now is not necessarily finding respondents that fit a criteria, but ones
Now, of course, research recruitment is a very different ball game with sophisticated databases, and a variety of ways of contacting people. What absolutely hasn’t changed is the need to make sure that participants fit with researcher’s requirements and the constraints of the study.”
that are interested in the research and can make it at short notice. It makes no difference whether it is a focus group or an online board – specific time needs to be set aside. We can move quickly but not always having the time to present the perfect fit is an increasing frustration. Industry commentators have spoken about a return to “real qual” ie using deeper, slower and more immersive qualitative methods, as a drive for faster, cheaper and more lightweight methods. From my point of view I suggest this is definitely happening. It is noticeable that the days of research being limited to putting a focus group together have well gone. There are now so many options open to researchers – some of them really exciting both for participants and from a results point of view. There is still a very strong demand for focus groups but, as I alluded to earlier, there are so many more options available to the researcher that choosing the right method is clearly now a much more complex decision. In-depth interviews either here at Prime, online, or in participant’s homes are once again increasing in popularity, balanced with the additional time (read cost) to get through the participants. It isn’t necessarily faster or cheaper, so we’re really seeing a far greater variety with researchers choos-
ing what suits for the desired insights. One area I think is particularly exciting is the increasing connection (excuse the pun!) in the area of neuroscience and using virtual reality to glean insights. Being able to quickly get participants through a staged but realistic scenario is definitely growing in popularity and would appear to have some real promise. From a speed point of view, individual interviews are easy to get under way – We can begin quickly if fieldwork starts with one or two qualifying participants. Either way it would certainly seem that the demand for quality qual research, whatever form it takes, isn’t going away, so bring it on I say! Many years ago Todd did a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Otago majoring in marketing. After a number of years in the corporate world both in NZ and off shore he went out on his own – owning a trade services business where, as a client, he was exposed to the other side of market research. Todd and his wife Nic purchased PRIME outright just under 3 years ago. << CONTENTS 17
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InterVIEW March 2019
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<< CONTENTS 19
HYPE , BUZZ AND
OPPORTUNITY Every 6 months Greenbook, a US based market research directory, publishes the GRIT report. This report presents survey results from a range of agency and client-side market research professionals, focused on the concerns and trends within the modern market research industry. It covers some exciting topics such as the use of emerging and traditional research methods, satisfaction with research suppliers, and views on buzz topics such as AI and automation. In short, it’s a view on the strategic direction on the industry – admittedly one that is largely US/Europe based. For NZ market researchers this becomes a good opportunity to see what international trends we should be watching out for, and the emerging opportunities that our clients/ suppliers will be talking about – or that our competitors might be making use of. And equally, as an industry to challenge ourselves to ensure we meet the needs of our client. So, what came out? Adoption of emerging methods: The report highlights the range of emerging methods that are being used by market researchers these days. These include data analytic methods (e.g. text analytics, social media analytics), online qual (online communities, webcam-based interviews), and some of the latest ideas from the behavioural sciences (e.g. behavioural economic models, applied neuroscience). One point of concern for the industry? “The main worry for market research 20
InterVIEW March 2019
- THE GRIT REPORT providers is the suggestion from the data that many research buyers are turning to non-market research sources for their Big Data and Social Media Analytics”.
Non-conscious measurement techniques: The use of non-conscious measurement techniques (e.g. eye tracking, biometrics, applied neuroscience) has hit critical mass, being used by 57% of respondents, with a further 25% expressing interest. “This can be perceived as a triumph of the scientific revolution in market research”. Why? The report states: “the market is responsive to practical solutions that deliver immediate results along with high value for relatively low cost”. Buzz topics – hype or game changer? There’s been a range of buzz words floating around the industry – and blockchain in particular is open for debate (56% believe is to too early to tell or not sure about its role). But which buzz topics are people interested in? Storytelling/ data visualisation (84%), Big Data (82%), Automation (76%) and AI (72%) – showing the impact of technology on our industry. In demand skillsets and storytelling: If starting out in the looking to build a
data science you’re just industry and career, there
is a clear demand being reported for market researchers with data science expertise. But the report also points out that technical skills alone won’t deliver to today’s employers – whether agency or client-side, data science and story-telling skills (including visualisation) are required to influence clients. What’s important to clients: Essentially, it’s about enabling business or organisation value – from understanding the business problem in the first place, conducting quality research, and importantly, influencing business change. This speaks to the demands for storytelling skills; it’s not enough to simply pull-out the data, but to encourage changes that have a business outcome. Interestingly, client-side results showed they are demanding more strategic insights across a range of studies – but only 49% were satisfied with the strategic recommendations they were getting.
The report makes for interesting reading, and comments on a range of trends that many of us in NZ are already embracing. Whether in relation to the methods we bring to the table, the skillsets needed (or in shortage) or the drivers of client satisfaction, the GRIT report highlights some exciting opportunities.
About the author:
Cole Armstrong is founder of NeuroSpot, a consumer insights company using consumer ne roscience to help companies make more effective decisions. He's using his extensive experience as a market researcher and neuroscientist to remove some of the subjectivity that leads to differences between ‘what people say and what people do’ - to bring some objectivity to understand what people think and feel. Whether in the context of advertising, CX, UX or another issue, he's passionate about getting to the nub of why consumers do what they do. << CONTENTS 21
DUNCAN
STUART BOOK REVIEWS
Curiosity hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t killed this research cat, not so far. Duncan has been a researcher since 1993 and he continues to do the late nights and worried sleeps endemic in our profession. His strategy has always been: spend 20% of your working life learning truly new stuff and trying new things. He is both a Fellow and a Life Member of RANZ.
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InterVIEW March 2019
While he goes through many examples of where his digital investigations have run, the author summarises four useful qualities of Big Data searching. 1) Data doesn’t have to be numbers. It can be photos, pictures, words or behaviours. 2) Google clicks are truth. They reflect actual behaviours. 3)
Scale. A survey of 1,000 people is pretty hefty. But analysis of several million data-points enables the researcher to drill down and down – zooming in to micro-patterns – for example, attitudes toward smoking, within neighbourhoods.
4)
Big data enables A/B testing, so within minutes or hours you can test and find such things as the optimum headlines to generate more clickthroughs. His comparison of headlines and their relative click-through rates is a pretty simple and effective demonstration.
For all the power and glory of Big Data, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz sounds a few notes of caution about the limitations and hazards of Big Data analysis.
WHAT THE INTERNET CAN TELL US ABOUT WHO WE REALLY ARE
By Duncan Stuart, Kudos Organisational Dynamics Ltd
This bestseller has been out for 18 months now and is widely available at that last refuge for book retailing: your local airport (for around $37). Most researchers who have dealt with public opinion there may be little surprise that many of the results derived from surveys run off the rails of reality. A question asking if the respondent is at all racist is unlikely to deliver a true result, but as the author demonstrates, if you examine racist searches on Google, you’ll see, at least in the USA, a steady river of searches using such terms as ‘n*****r’, ‘n*****r jokes’, and ‘ni*****rs KKK’. The river doesn‘t flow just through the deep South, it runs through the rust-belt up North, too – precisely where Trump drew unexpected levels of support in his march to defeat Hillary Clinton. He finds that the number of ‘likes’ reported on Facebook is, if anything, a lot less reliable than survey data. Few people ‘like’ the trashy National Enquirer on Facebook, while thousands ‘like’ the thinky magazine The Atlantic. The ratio is 1:27 in favour of The Atlantic. Yet the readership of the two publications is near identical, and so is the ratio – about 1:1.
a) The curse of dimensionality. Pile too many variables into your neural networks and there’s a good chance that through over-fitting, some random variable may look like a statistically valid predictor. So far all algorithms designed to predict such things as the sharemarket or the IQ of individuals have been proved ineffective. Heaven knows that a lot of effort is going into these endeavours. b) Overemphasis on what is measurable. The old business adage, ‘what gets measured gets done’ still holds true. But just because we can monitor some trends in real time doesn’t mean that the exercise is useful. Don’t get seduced by the data. c)
Ethical boundaries. One study showed that people who used the word ‘thank you’ in their loan applications were, on average, more inclined to default on their loan. Is it fair, however, to profile and turn down all the people who happen to use the word ‘thank you’? Is this a kind of verbal racism?
d) Minority Report-ism and the hazard of a data empowered government to make wrongful pre-emptive arrests. On this last point, the author doesn’t even begin to address the fact that police and courtrooms in the USA are already using big data to profile potential criminals, and as with the rest of the book, I feel the author has presented a somewhat sanitized take on the power and the glory of Big Data. He is certainly no cynic: He marvels that data science is opening up a better, more understanding world. << CONTENTS 23
She has recently joined the RANZ Wellington Executive Committee
As researchers, we are all very conscious of Behavioural Science, the discipline that aims to explain, predict, and influence human behaviour. Many research agencies have internal behaviour science experts, models and/or a copy or two of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow and Sunstein and Thaler’s Nudge on their bookshelves. At the end of the day, research and behavioural science go hand in hand - we are all trying to help our clients influence change within their markets or among their customers (or citizens) in one way or another, whether that be changing their spend, brand preference or behaviour. Bobby Duffy, who was the Managing Director of the Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute in the UK until September 2018, has a deep interest in the impact of behaviour science principles (and the media) on our perceptions and misperceptions about the world, in particular our individual, social and political realities. He founded a survey back in 2013 with the Royal Statistical Society and King’s College London to investigate how wrong (or right) the British public was on topics such as the composition of the population and the 24
InterVIEW March 2019
By: Amanda Dudding, Director Public Affairs, Ipsos
Amanda Dudding is Director, Public Affairs at Ipsos and heads up their Wellington office.
scale of key social policy issues. The results were both fascinating and insightful, and so the survey was repeated across 14 countries the following year. Since then it has been held annually, covering different important topics and growing each year, with the 2018 measure including 37 countries. Ipsos NZ took part for the third time in 2018. We asked New Zealanders the same questions as were asked in 36 other countries at the same time. If I asked you what proportion of the New Zealand population are Muslim, what would you estimate? In our industry, we tend to have a firm understanding of the makeup of our population, but that’s not necessarily the case for the general population. On average, New Zealanders estimated that 11% of our population are Muslim, when in reality it’s just 1%. Compared to some other countries, we were relatively accurate, Australian respondents on the other hand were far more misaligned with reality. They had an average guess of 17%, which was 14 percentage points above the actual of just 3%. South African respondents, at the most extreme end of misperception, had an average guess of 26% when the reality is just 2%.
Q.
Out of every 100 people in [COUNTRY], about how many do you think are Muslim? Please see http://perils.ipsos.com/ for full details of all sources
On a different topic, we asked respondents “Out of every 100 infants aged under 12 months in New Zealand, about how many do you think have had all the World Health Organization recommended vaccinations for Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping Cough, Polio and Measles?” What would you estimate? Have a good guess before you read on (without checking Google!). We hear a lot in the media about the importance of immunising our children, we’ve probably heard this statistic once or twice – although it’s unlikely we can remember the answer with all the other things going on inside our heads. But we can probably all recall hearing of parents who are “anti-vax”. We’ve heard their stories through the media about babies that have become autistic, fallen ill or even died after having vaccinations. As a mother of a child who had meningitis as a premature baby, I have strong views on the importance of vaccinations, and when speaking about it with others, I’ve found many people do. As we’re thinking about what the proportion might be, all of these things are running through our minds. Even though we’re not aware of it, and it may only take a split second to come up with an estimate, our subconscious brain has looked at everything we know and have heard about the topic to help us come to a decision. So, what was your answer? On average, New Zealanders guessed 72% (compared to a global average guess of 73%).
This was a rather large 22 percentage points below the reality of 94% (also 94% globally). Why do we underestimate this figure? There are likely to be a few things at play. Firstly it’s a highly emotive issue; what could be more emotive than the health of our kids? As researchers we are all aware of how emotion impacts our decision-making abilities. Secondly, when we are unsure we tend to hedge our bets towards the middle, meaning we’re unlikely to give a very high or very low answer. In addition, the media coverage of the topic doesn’t help our misperceptions. Media is often keeping stories of those who are anti-vaccination alive, resulting in the availability heuristic encouraging us to overestimate the proportion of parents who don’t vaccinate. Interestingly, the World Health Organization has just named vaccine hesitancy (the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines) as one of the 10 biggest threats to global health in 2019.[1] In a different question, respondents were asked “The World Meteorological Organization collects annual global temperatures to see whether they are rising or falling across the world. How many out of the last 18 years have been the hottest in the world since they began collecting data in 1961?” How many do you think it was? << CONTENTS 25
Globally, the average guess was nine years. New Zealanders estimated 10 years and Australians thought it was 9. The actual data is 17 out of 18 years. Although we might have been closer than our Australian neighbours, we are still (along with the rest of the world) under estimating the extent of climate change. Netherlands, China, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey were all the furthest out, estimating just 7 out 18 years. Spain was the closest country at 13 years. Across all the questions asked (you can find details in the report > on our website) countries are ranked in a “misperception index”. Of the 37 countries, Thailand, Mexico and Turkey are ranked least accurate at 1st, 2nd and 3rd. New Zealand ranks 36th – making us the 2nd most accurate country – Australia is not too far behind at 29th.
simply not being very good with numbers. The emergence of ‘fake news’ in the past couple of years makes the interpretation of what is right or wrong even more challenging at both a local and international level. It’s important to understand that we tend to overestimate what we worry about as much as we worry about what we overestimate – in other words, misperceptions can be a very useful pointer to people’s real concerns. If we can understand the real reasons behind why people get things wrong, we have a better chance of changing our misperceptions. It also means that trying to correct misperceptions by only repeating the facts is unlikely to work – instead we need to engage with the more emotional reasons that might be driving why people are worried about a topic or range of issues.
http://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019
But what does all this mean? And why does it even matter? It means that many of us get a lot of basic social and political facts very wrong. There are many different reasons why we may be wrong about various facts relating to society. These can include external influences, such as what we hear in the media, online, or from our friends and family, but our own internal biases are just as important. These biases include our tendencies to focus more on negative stories over positive ones, to believe that things were always better in the past, to put too much emphasis on our own individual experience, and 26
InterVIEW March 2019
References and further reading: Duffy, B. (2018) The Perils of Perception. London: Atlantic Books If you’d like to take a quick quiz and find out how well or mis-perceived you are, visit the Perils of Perception website http://perils.ipsos.com/. You can also view the full deck and previous reports.
SECONDS
ROBERT GASTON
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