MRMW London 2015: A Sentient Recap

Over the course of two days at MRMW London we heard from several speakers about the future of market research and how mobile research would be gaining in popularity across the globe.

MRMW London Day 1 Recap

Marketing for Tomorrow, Not Yesterday–Moving Into a New Future

Zain Raj, Chairman & CEO of Shapiro and Raj, boosted the crowd even higher with an entertaining yet informative talk entitled “Marketing for Tomorrow, Not Yesterday–Moving Into a New Future.”
We’re in an “Insight Economy,” says Raj, “We need a new way to understand loyalty, and a new way to earn it.” Your most valuable customers, those most dedicated to your brand, are your best starting point for attracting new prospects. Increasing brand loyalty amongst your consumers will have a direct effect on your bottom line.
We wondered how this content was meaningfully different from the loyalty research embraced by the MRX industry for the past 20 years built on Reicheld’s foundational work. We were also eagerly awaiting the unique link to mobile data collection but that never emerged within the talk.
While the principles presented were sound, the talk served as a good example of a lack of unifying themes around the unique challenges of market research in a mobile world that we observed in many talks.

UK Elections’ Wakeup Call–Critical Challenges and the Way Forward

Leighton Vaughan Williams from Nottingham Business School moderated a discussion between panelists John Curticce of the British Polling Council and Gideon Skinner of Ipsos MORI on “what went wrong” during polling for the last UK Elections.
Going into the election, the polls had the two parties neck and neck, however, come election day, the results were drastically in favor of the Conservative party. Discussion arose regarding the accuracy of the sample and how to utilize mobile research to target the younger voters who are typically more difficult to reach with more traditional polling methods. Sample might be one issue, but what about the “can’t say/won’t say” problem facing pollsters?
The panelists were asked, “What consideration, if any, has been given to the inclusion of implicit measures in your political polling process.” The short answer was, “No,” but the larger issue is that it was clear the panelists hadn’t really understood the question, providing more evidence to the Sentient team that we need to work to increase awareness of implicit methodologies and their applications.

The Opportunities and Challenges of In-The-Moment Feedback using Location and Beacon Triggering

Miguel Ramos of Confirmit and Crispin Beale from Chime Communications predict that smartphone adoption will nearly double in the next five years to nearly 4 million users and that companies will be investing heavily in platforms that will allow them to engage with their consumers via a mobile device.

“Seventy-Seven percent of smartphone users are willing to share their location as long as they receive value in return,” say Ramos and Beale.

While there are still some challenges to this methodology including permissions and cellular service/wifi signal issues, they suggest that these will be minimized in the future and that we as an industry need to seize this opportunity to push surveys out to consumers while they are “in-the-moment” in order to capture context.
While increased access to consumers at “moments-of-truth” is extremely interesting for researchers, we think that it will be increasingly important to ensure the way we’re engaging with consumers at those moments is interesting and valuable to them.
Otherwise we run the risk simply being a nuisance taking people out of the moment and getting feedback that doesn’t provide meaningful insight. Gamified interactions that are kept short, and are directly relevant to consumers’ immediate experience stand a much greater chance of being successful.

The Game of Context–How Mobile Context-Based Measurement Impacts the Future of Survey Research

A big concern amongst market researchers who are adopting mobile surveys is whether or not we are truly getting a representative sample, but several speakers at MRMW have assured us that, yes, it is possible and that the number of mobile device (and especially smartphone) users is increasing exponentially over the next few years.
Katia Pallini from InSites Consulting and Alistair Hill from OnDevice both presented slides showing promising statistics regarding the penetration of mobile devices across multiple countries and in emerging markets.

MRMW London Day 2 Recap

Mobile, Global, Scientific Measurement of the Consumer Non-Conscious

On the morning of Day 2, our own Dr. Aaron Reid roused the audience with a presentation on “Mobile, Global, Scientific Measurement of the Consumer Non-Conscious.”
“We need to include non-conscious measures in our mobile research,” says Reid who went on to present case studies showing how integrating system 1 and system 2 measures provides greater accuracy than explicit measures alone in predicting consumer behavior. We need to make sure we’re not taking one step forward in mobile data collection and two steps backward in the science of market research.
Though neuromarketing is still in the early-adoption phase, it is critical that we become aware of the applications and adopt these techniques, and that the methodologies we use are based on sound science. Incorporating implicit measures into traditional research studies allows researchers to deliver more valuable insights to our clients so that they can make well-informed business decisions.
Sentient Prime implicit research technology is the most easily scaled of the non-conscious research techniques, providing representative, quantitative data on consumer emotions in-the-moment. Notably, Sentient Decision Science was the only non-conscious measurement firm at the event.
This emphasizes the early-adoption phase of non-conscious techniques in mobile research, and the importance of raising awareness of how these techniques can be applied and integrated with mobile survey platforms. Feel free to review our slide deck, below:Implicit Concept Testing & 3 Keys to Broader Adoption of Consumer Neuroscience from Sentient Decision Science

The IoT Potential and Accompanied Privacy Challenges for Market Research

The presentation by Pete Cape from SSI was probably considered one of the most creative from the standpoint of delivering the message. Cape took a rather clever approach and invited in 12 of SSI’s UK- based panel participants to engage in a discussion which called out the inferior quality of surveys that come their way.
With the growing reliance on mobile data collection, these panelists were clearly growing intolerant of lengthy surveys (with an introductory promise by the sender that the length was less than 10 minutes), poorly written and unnecessary questions, arduous grids, silly trap questions and the like.
Who better to give us the wake-up call that we need to more aggressively scrutinize our surveys than a group of truly committed survey junkies? We did find it curious that SSI recruited some “professional survey takers” (80-100 surveys a week!) to participate in the panel.
These participants drew into question the validity of panel survey data, and seemed to be at odds with the value that SSI brings to the market. Was this an oversight, or was this intentional, and if intentional what was the ultimate goal for SSI?
 
We had a great time at MRMW in London hearing about the ways in which people are currently utilizing mobile research and the ways that they think it can benefit the industry in the future! In closing, we’d like to say thanks to the Merlien Institute for organizing this conference. We’re looking forward to the next event!