Archive for the ‘Future Trends’ Category
Thursday, May 30th, 2013
As market researchers pay more and more attention to the need for compelling data visualizations, Hans Rosling’s work with interactive data is becoming a catalyst for a fascinating new type of data visualization: animated statistical graphs. He uses them to show world social and economic trends over time, and the effect is exceptionally powerful. Here is a video of his TED talk well worth watching, in which the first eleven minutes are focused on interactive graphs:
Others are following his lead, though not always to the same superb effect. Here is another animated statistical graph, this one documenting drone strikes and fatalities in Pakistan: (more…)
Tags: statistics, stories, visualizing data
Posted in Charts and Data Visualization, Future Trends, Market Research, Presenting Research, Turning Data into Stories | Comments Off
Friday, May 24th, 2013
A few years back, some researchers were predicting that social media would cause a seismic shift in how we conduct brand research, customer satisfaction tracking, innovation research, and so on. Others were not so sure, arguing that the fundamentals of data collection and analysis will always be the same. Both sides were represented on a panel of industry experts I moderated for the American Marketing Association (AMA) in 2010.
On Monday I attended an update of sorts, via presentations in Chicago sponsored by our AMA local chapter and the Chicago chapter of the Market Research Association. Annie Pettit of Research Now, an expert on social media analysis and listening, spoke about the current state of quantitative social media research. I was struck by these points she made, in particular: (more…)
Tags: brand tracking, customer satisfaction, Market Research, social
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools | Comments Off
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
I rarely miss the world of academia after having jumped ship twelve years ago, but one thing I always appreciated was that teaching involved distilling ideas down to their simplest and most essential form. Students often led the way for me, asking questions that forced me to clarify, deepen, and condense. So it was again in Professor Alan Malter’s market research class for MBA students last month at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
My annual task is to offer a business-side view of market research. But this year I asked students to imagine that you, dear readers—Versta Research’s valued clients—were standing in front of them instead of me. What would they want to ask you about your work and about client-side research?
(more…)
Tags: best practices, insight, Market Research, research
Posted in Future Trends, Market Research, Topics in Marketing | Comments Off
Friday, April 26th, 2013
It is hard to find an appropriate use for Google Surveys, because, as we outlined in a review article last fall, its capabilities are limited. But last week we needed a quick incidence test of how many U.S. adults own a certain type of investment product. Google Surveys seemed perfect. It was not fast, by the way. It took five days to collect data from 200 respondents. Google says this is because we asked a screening question before asking about product ownership. Even so, this survey took longer than a standard omnibus.
But what struck me most about my trial run with Google Surveys was the Creepy Factor. It made me realize in a most uncomfortable way that Google tracks everything I do. I knew this already, and I follow ongoing discussions about online privacy. I have a personal g-mail account, a G+ page, and I use Google as the starting point for almost everything I do on the Internet. I know that they track everything I do. But it was never so creepy and apparent until I fielded a Google survey. How was it creepy? (more…)
Tags: ethics, Market Research, omnibus, Online Surveys, privacy, public opinion, Public Polls, survey technology
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Omnibus Surveys, Online Surveys, Public Polls | Comments Off
Thursday, April 4th, 2013
Some business managers and marketing executives mistakenly believe that “big data” will deliver better insight because of the sheer volume of data now at our disposal. Now we just need the statisticians, the computing power, and the analytics software to sift through it all, right? Not so. The truth is, for most purposes you don’t need a lot of data. You need a small random sample of data. (more…)
Tags: data, margin of error, Market Research, methods, Sampling
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Sampling | Comments Off
Thursday, February 14th, 2013
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways,” wrote Oscar Wilde in The Critic as Artist.
That’s just the problem for market research and consumer behavior. Few design aspects of products, packages, brands, logos, advertising, and environments are more subjective than color. Which is why so many marketing decisions about color are based on the personal preferences of designers, decision makers, and their spouses (“What do you think of this color, dear?”) rather than on scientific knowledge of which colors are best for specific purposes.
But just in time for Valentine’s day (today!) here is a compelling new finding about the color RED and how it affects buying behavior: (more…)
Tags: Market Research, marketing, product marketing
Posted in Future Trends, Market Research, New Products and Innovation, Topics in Marketing | Comments Off
Thursday, January 10th, 2013
As we begin the New Year 2013 (and as Versta Research enters its fifth year in business!) my colleagues and I are thinking less about the hottest trends that dazzle, and more about a few rock-solid resolutions for the market research industry that would make research more valuable, relevant, and useful compared to last year, last month, or the last project just completed.
Here is our list, along with a tip for succeeding with each:
(more…)
Tags: best practices, data analysis, Market Research, visualizing data
Posted in Future Trends, Market Research, Resources and Recommendations | Comments Off
Thursday, November 29th, 2012
If there is one super important lesson to be learned from this year’s round of election polling, it is that online surveys work. Google Consumer Surveys, which use non-probability online samples, predicted the election far better than Gallup did. And online surveys, overall, outperformed telephone surveys.
The New York Times’ Nate Silver compiled polling results from 23 organizations that conducted at least five surveys in the final three weeks of the campaign. He calculated how far their projections were from the actual outcome of the presidential race. Google (a fully automated, online solution) came in second place, predicting the actual outcome within 1.6 percentage points. Gallup (using “gold standard” telephone methods) came in last, predicting the outcome within 7.2 percentage points.
(more…)
Tags: Online Surveys, phone surveys, Public Polls
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Public Polls, Public Relations | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 21st, 2012
An extremely useful chart rarely used by market research professionals is a mekko chart, sometimes referred to as a marimekko chart. It is a stacked bar chart, but (1) the width of the bars varies in a meaningful way and (2) they are lined up next to each other. Usually the bars vary in width according to market share. This means that the surface area of the chart represents the total market, and each component of the chart is proportional to its share of the total market.
Here is an example: (more…)
Tags: charts, market share, segmentation, software packages, visualizing data
Posted in Charts and Data Visualization, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 14th, 2012
I have never been a media poll watcher or politics junkie who tracks every new poll saying which candidate is favored to win. It is hard to see the point of spending so much time and money predicting the outcome of an event that will be known with certainty within a matter of days, weeks, or months. But elections are an amazing way to see survey research methods in action, and there are few opportunities to have those methods validated so quickly, accurately, and unforgivingly than political polling.
What did we learn from the polls this election season? (more…)
Tags: methods, models, Online Surveys, phone surveys, Public Polls, research, statistics, survey
Posted in Future Trends, Market Research, Public Polls | Comments Off
