Many new research solutions are referred to as 'Research 2.0', but what on earth does this really mean? Find out how one global innovator is defining new rules.
There are two major new areas of development which are clearly changing the way research is conducted. Firstly, research companies are using many features of the interactive web (or Web 2.0) -- social networking sites, blogs and the like -- within new research environments (we can call this YouBuild). Secondly, brands are scouring the web to look at the information on publicly available sites (we can call this YouTrawl). Let's explore each of these in turn:
YouBuild
Inspired by the rise of social networking, some research companies are taking the techniques these sites employ and then adapting them for research purposes. Research 2.0 studies of this kind can turn relatively passive survey respondents into proactive and collaborative participants by allowing them to explore concepts, interact with each other and share their ideas, alongside marketers, planners and creatives.
For example, at Millward Brown we have developed a custom-built short-term community called IdeaBlog that is designed to explore specific research issues. Since so many online users are now familiar with social networks, interactive forums such as these are second nature, and participants have found the site fun and very easy to use. Once within this sort of environment, participants can develop ideas via blog discussions, mini-polls and surveys, and they can upload their own concepts (images, videos and web links). The best ideas can take a little time to germinate so IdeaBlog sessions typically last about seven to ten days.
Participants can be drawn from a variety of sample sources, depending on what is most appropriate for the research task. If a nationally representative sample is required it will likely be more effective to recruit to the blog from an online research panel, whereas we might use a client database or community for studies among brand users. By focusing a fresh group of consumer minds on solving a specific issue, these blogs are less likely to suffer off-topic comments, and more likely to provide the answers you need.
The creative nature of blogs makes them most useful for testing 'big ideas', or developing early stage communication, product or media planning concepts and strategies. It's not a replacement for established techniques in the areas of ad pre-testing and brand tracking where more straightforward quantitative measures are required.
These research forums provide participants with much greater freedom and opportunity than is typically possible during a regular research survey, but they will only take full advantage if sufficiently motivated. Relatively generous cash incentives are a good way to ensure decent contributions and an interesting subject matter undoubtedly helps, but we've found that the most productive studies tend to be those where the research tasks themselves are particularly interesting and creative. The more we challenge participants (eg, to take photos of their family, to think creatively about potential new brand slogans), the more they feel their opinions and ideas are valued, and the better quality research insights we can generate.
YouTrawl
Let's turn now to the content left on public web sites. This information can be fantastically powerful, but the major challenges here are sifting through it all, finding what's relevant, understanding what it means, and then taking appropriate action.
To help sift and sort the information, there are services that trawl millions of blogs, usenet sites and social networking message boards and then aggregate that information into an easily digestible summary form so that companies can track mentions of their brand or topics. These services, including Millward Brown's recently updated Precis:cubed solution, can identify 'hot topics' from changes in online comment over time, can monitor share of online mentions between brands and can identify positive and negative associations with each brand. Marketers can then save time by reviewing a high level view of big issues without having to delve into the detail unless they want to (eg, filtering by type of site and even linking back to specific individual comments and posts).
A very clear finding from our studies conducted to date is that media and consumer conversations can often be very different. For example, whilst the comments appearing on official media sites might be talking mainly about the recession, consumer blog posts might be focusing much more on call centre waiting times.
To get maximum value from this information source, the real trick is to integrate it with other research learning. For example, the results of blog monitoring services should be evaluated alongside more traditional brand tracking data to see whether online chatter is a lead indicator of trends which later impacts on mainstream category issues.
Once researchers have this data at their fingertips, the final challenge is getting this information to the person who can do something about it -- quickly. Here the need is to ensure brand marketers are able to identify brand insights, developers are made aware of conversations about product features, customer complaints are directed to customer service teams and so on. This means the study having very clear objectives at the outset, and all involved in the project having very clearly defined access privileges and roles.
ConclusionsSocial networking is not just changing how consumers interact with each other, it's also enabling new and exciting forms of market research. While these new approaches won't suddenly replace 'traditional' qualitative or quantitative techniques overnight, they're certainly a very welcome addition to the researcher's overall toolkit.
Duncan Southgate is director of global innovation at Millward Brown.