Not Panels, It's Engagement!

I have been reading the excellent book by Lisa Johnson recently entitled 'Mind Your X's and Y's.' You can review it as an ebook at www.simonsays.com

Read the book, it can provide a summary better than I ever could. However it does make some very interesting points about the cravings of Generations X and Y. My thinking is this - what can we utilise in this framework to make our panels more relevant to these generations - and yes, more engaging?

The cravings read like a real challenge:
- Shine the Spotlight on the user and make them the centre of the world, allow them to dream
- Raise my Pulse - provide me a sense of some adventure in my experience
- Allow me to make connections
- Give me some design candy. It is not just function it is form and design

These are just four of the challenges. Buy the book to see the others....

What can we do to take advantage of this framework?

In history, the closed shop has continually meant the same thing:

- disappointment that you cannot buy that luxury item
- you cannot get the job because you are not in the right union
- your name is not down, you cannot come in

So is it surprising therefore that the idea of a closed shop has come to the world of panels? This argument suggests that if a panel is built by invitation only then the standard of recruitment is more controlled and therefore the respondents are of a higher quality - usually contrasted with internet banners which are open for anyone to click through and join.

The principle of closed shop is a good one. In practice does it work? Two things are true in this system:

- the number of potential recruitment sources is restricted in universe. Does this impact the cross section of the populace even where the partners are carefully researched and screened?

- the closed shop recruitment partners know their earning potential after doing one campaign and have an invaluable resource to tout to other panel builders. In other words a higher percentage of the same people are present across multiple panels

I am not saying in this Blog that this is a good or a bad thing. But what I am saying is that we should not assume that it is a good thing automatically. I think that someone said recently that all decisions should be taken after some thought rather than at the blink of an eye. Well, here is a classic example.

I am off to my Public Holiday.....

et

.....Hope that you are having a good day.

Until recently the Telecom's industry was one of the key drivers of the global economy. Innovation and opportunities were seemingly endless.

One such example was the onset of broadband internet access vs dial-up narrowband connections in the domestic market. There is a simple truth here. The proliferation of new technologies has not necessarily expanded internet access beyond where it would have been. What has happened is that existing narrowband subscribers have witnessed the advantages of broadband and traded up the market. Those who were not connected to the internet still remain to be convinced (although of course that number will dwindle to some extent).

What role can the Government play to expand internet access penetration given the social and economic benefits of such a move?

My point is this. In the market research industry we have witnessed a staggering proliferation of on-line panels and on-line surveys and by all accounts this will continue for the next few years at least. But like the telecoms market, has the new technology really grown the market for the service? Are people simply trading up / changing behaviour? Are we missing an opportunity here? Of course the winners and losers in the market as with any fundamental shift is in a state of flux, but are we bringing new customers to the plate? Some will claim that they are - but are they really?

I sense that the way to resolve this in both cases is to go to our point concept - engagement.

In a future broadband era information will be everywhere. What we have currently will be available faster, in more quantity, with a greater filtering ability and be completely location free.

Are you ready for that? Am I? Is anyone? Is the Brand Manager? Is the Marketing Manager?

The consequences of this are remarkable.

Greater Efficiency. Even more real-time. But information is a double-edged sword - brands will need to hyperdifferentiate just to maintain their competitive advantage. The very concept of building a brand may change in itself. In this environment those brands that excel will be rewarded since when faced with overwhelming choice the establishment can act as an anchor. However those brands that underperform will be swept aside faster than today. Add globalisation to that and you have a world where most humans will be asking for the brake. The retreat into past forms will be part of preserving the self.

This in itself will make for a greater necessity in marketing research. Great! However the tools available will now be greatly expanded. I read the other day that the future internet could be fuelled by transmitters in cars - they are everyone so can act as Wi-Fi Hotspots! Well perhaps some research participants will be like these cars as well. With wireless connectivity their very existence is fuelling the brands and marketing of tomorrow through constant connection with remote servers. And yes, that would be opt-in.

So with this era approaching all we can do is retreat to the past. Bless Reg Presley and Love (information) is All Around Me...

2Pac! Y2K. Web2.0. Internet2.

What is it with the number two?

I read an article the other day (it could be out of date by now) that states that the Land Speed record for internet is held by the academic group Internet2 out of the US. This team transferred 1.1 terabytes of data from Geneva to Chicago in less than 30 minutes. That is 5.44 gig a second...

Perhaps this is out of date. I am sure that we can do better! The point is this: With connectivity at these speeds and beyond the quality of engagement and collaboration will be in the extreme. Distance will become even less of an issue than it is now. Researchers can collect insights at breakneck speed and work across more projects than ever before.

Yes there is a long tail - but the best of the best's share in research will grow. The technology will see to that through this kind of collaboration.

So which of the two do you want to be? Best of the best? In the Long Tail?

Maybe that is 2 hard a choice to make....

After the general consumer panel it seems that many organisations attempt to try to build other specialised panels including those with certain business segments....presumably there is a market for this.

However we often apply the same rules and infrastructure for these types of panels. Is that going to work? Is a higher incentive really going to do the job? What else do these people want to join and remain on a panel? Yes, what will engage them?

What do you think? Well that is the challenge. Answers on a postcard please. Let's share notes....

..If we think about the broadband future the number of different and potentially complimentary platforms is astounding.

Will it be VDSL? 3G? Wireless? Satellite? Cable? Stratospheric Platforms? FTTP Fibre?

What is your guess? Because it is a...guess! Now before we go off making our predictions and backing those with stock market picks I had this thought...

Every single technology shift leads to a shift in space. The dominant market and location can change based upon the winner of that above (and companies as well). The best panels and the deepest engagement may come from markets that have the most advanced networks - and that may not be the current winners since legacy systems can always hinder new investments.

Panelists access via the internet and IP connectivity. If that changes as above so does our relationship with the panelist. The panelist task will differ dependent upon the future conditions. We must be able to adapt to this change and consider new applications that will result.

So where is your money? Any predictions...?

I am off to ask Greg Proops....http://www.whoseline.net/

“An awful lot of people find each other on the Net, form communities, and create user-generated content. The next generation of leaps in technology will come from the fact that people are always connected and sharing information. Somebody says I’ve invented this, another says I’ve invented that, and they connect. The acceleration is going to be breathtaking.”
Dr Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google

Collaboration is the way to accelerate success. Recently I have been looking into the Broadband future. Either by free market or Governmental decree (or a combination of both) this future will become a reality. In some markets it already is. And the interesting thing is that a greater bandwidth will certainly accelerate collaboration.

Collaboration has four aspects (and the pre-Broadband crises):
- emotion of discussion (text alone cannot convey all meaning and value)
- context (difficult to share work and virtual documents)
- action (lack of context doesn't create action. Need to integrate communication and delivery)
- location (problems of remoteness, physical location)

Broadband and a greater bandwidth can deliver against these current crises. Virtual (emotion and action improves). Messaging (context). Wireless and Wi-Fi (location).

This is no small matter. I see a number of immediate manifestations of this:
- Virtual qualitative. Even allowing the key moderators to extend their reach across more Focus Groups thereby driving quality and insight through collaboration
- Greater reconception. The ability to bring people together in new and different ways over an extended period of time leads to greater creativity. A greater discovery. Moving from right first time, to right much more quickly.

Is that not what we need for New Product Development and research?


"In a few years, (men) will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face" (Licklider and Taylor) The computer as a communication device, (1968)

...and the second thought......

I came across this site. http://www.oddcast.com/sitepal/. Now perhaps this is a gimmick, but used in the right way I do see the potential here for a greater interest amongst my customers (panelists). I am going to try it, I see that some people already do in other areas of research!

Thank you Mr Avatar...

Jon

Today was a good day. One of those when things seem to go right. I came across a couple of things today that interested me - I wanted to share them.

I read this Blog. http://pitchmarketing.blogspot.com/ - People Power 2.0 Not Technology. Yes I agree that it is the former not the latter which has driven some of the changes we are witnessing (People driving, not technology driving).

But why is that surprising? Didn't someone back in the 1990's write about some Post-Modern ideas of the break down of the meta-narrative? The notion that people didn't believe in big ideas any more. That all universal truths were open to challenge, open to question? In what other era would we have challenged the idea that a man (or woman) went to the moon? That Pluto was not in fact a planet?

This is the paradigm shift that created TIVO and the like.

And this is what leads to the need for anticipation, personalisation and relevance as the way to deliver a foundation of engagement? Heh that sounds like the foundation for the panel?!

It began with conversations. Then we got into broadcast media. Now we are going back to conversations. It's full circle - Terry Catchpole

I was in the bookshop one Saturday afternoon. It is a habit for me. Yes, I am a geek, but it is under control! I love books. I came across a book called 'Naked Conversations' - check it out at www.scobleizer.com. It placed in concrete terms just why I am writing this Blog.

So why am I writing it? A few people have asked me this.

Well firstly it is about self-expression. I also like to have some fun along the way. It acts as a diary of memories in a breakneck speed world. But first and foremost it is about naked ideas and expressions. A forum to drive my own thinking and hopefully be of interest to some other people. Oh and if peers and yes even clients want to read it then great.

I only hope that it was worth the read. Life is too short, let's spend it on moving forwards as people and in business. If it isn't interesting then there are millions of other blogs to read.

That is what naked is all about.

This is a thought that I have had for some time. I don't know the answer (or even if there is one), but I do know that we need to have an open-mind.

I talk of the distinction between marketing and market research. During the interruption era of research, using CATI and to a lesser extent Postal and F2F, market research had to differentitate itself from marketing. Why? If we did not we would experience negative public perceptions and ever decreasing response rates.

To some extent this happened anyway. However the rationale was clear and the need was great.

The trouble I see is that we still apply this same discourse, yet the world has moved on. For many organisations nowadays key pieces of market research are undertaken precisely because they do strengthen the relationship with the brand. Customer satisfaction studies are a classic example.

Yet, as researchers we still try to separate the two. The interruption era is being replaced by permission in on-line panels of research so we no longer need to protect our response rates as we did during the interruption era (well not in the same way). In fact we have to accept that the interruption era is coming to a point of real change.

I am not saying that market research is the same as marketing (far from it), but what I am saying is that in this new era of permission (and engagement) of on-line panels, is the distinction as relevant as it once was in consumer eyes? Are we getting too caught up in the old discourse to see that there are bigger issues that now need to be addressed? Participants are free to opt-in or opt-out of marketing and on-line permission panels as they see fit.

In fact the whole notion of a separation of the two is slightly misleading. An on-line panel where people do not receive direct marketing does not exist. In fact many panels are recruited from such direct marketing traffic sites and sources, so the people recruited are far from operating in isolation to begin with. Surely this is a good thing - a person that does not receive marketing is of little use to those of us who wish to understand the effect of communications on our brand relationships.

I feel better now I said that...I am off for my Chinese Tea! Maybe we still do need to be concerned and separate, but let's have a debate, not wash it away for the old reasons. The world of marketing has changed. Have we?

I wish you all a happy Moon Festival. It is a great time of year to be in Hong Kong. The weather is mercifully very kind at this time of year as well! Ah, the sunshine.....

Currently I am working on a new panel, completely from scratch. It is in a high tech environment so it set me thinking about some of the differences that I have experienced between different panels - largely a result of cultural, social and technical differences across borders. Here are a few examples:

- China: Traffic is not a problem(!) The relationships with ISP's to deliver e-mails can be troublesome
- South China. The need for rigorous de-duplication to guard against a higher than 'average' fraudster problem
- Malaysia. The integration of three different but harmonious cultures in all communications can take extra effort. The response rates differ markedly across the race groups
- Korea. A very competitive environment for panelists. The market is so advanced that panelists actively tell you of decisions regarding suppliers and incentive levels
- Hong Kong. Traffic is a problem. Attention span is very short. Beware!

The world would be a boring place if it were all the same! I think that Marx called this the Spatialisation of time .... As we become closer together we become more conscious of the differences between ourselves.

Where is next I wonder? A Moon Festival in Hong Kong. National Foundation Day Korea.........

My last entry 'Internet Overload' seems to have sparked some reactions! Thank you for those. I cherish them. I promise to publish all comments as long as they don't abuse me and they stick to the subject!

Actually I am not surprised, I knew that this would evoke some reaction because it is a controversial issue. Don't mis-understand me (hence my explicit reference to Spam earlier). This is what I agree with:

- that mere access does not equal engagement in the internet world. Seth Godin does talk some strange stuff but I did get that!
- that infomediaries may dominate my permission to communicate over time

What I would like to look at though is the idea of 'universal' access. Have we reached a consensus about engagement and permission before we really have considered this? For example, what if overnight / a period of time, access to your panel is controlled by a Cable Company? A satellite TV company? A mobile network? What if by having a TV everyone instantly has some form of internet access? What does this mean for our panel investments?

By striking a deal with such an organisation (or yes, infomediary) I have instant access to nearly 100% of people? True, access doesn't mean engagement, but it can mean permission - and that is a stepping stone on the way to engagement.

Just a thought. The emphasis would not be on panel size but just the convergence potential for delivering mass accessibility. Permission would then reverse - consumers opt-out (like a telephone blacklist) rather than opt-in - or double -opt in as we talk about nowadays!

My mind is spinning......!

You know the visions of the future...the internet is everywhere from ordering our milk automatically, to an IP driven cashless society to an IP generated satisfaction questionnaire when I leave the burger restaurant. Maybe, maybe not...but what is true is that we need to consider the day when access to the internet becomes universal.

Now as with anything in life, 'entitlement' drives the quality of product that we can purchase, so it will of course be the case that some people will have internet privileges over others (wireless, extra security, increased speed and so on). We should not pretend otherwise. But at some point in many markets the access to the internet will approach 100%.

What does that mean for panels? If everyone has access to the internet in some shape, way or form will it just become like a register? Will an e-mail directory ever exist? I can see that human invention will lead to a business model that could deliver such a directory. I am not saying that I would agree with it, but you have to admit that it would be a welcome hit for many marketers.

Overnight access to engagement would be on a complimentary platform. This is one that we must plan for and expect. Think of it this way:

- Marketing went from corner store to mass produced and back to personalised corner store
- Will research go from mass contact to personalised contact to mass e-mail? (No, I am not talking about Spam, rather I am talking about the accessibility of e-mail accounts). Best to clarify this point before someone jumps on me!

What do you think? Stranger things have happened..... One small step for 'A' man, one giant leap for mankind....

Recently I attended a conference (well actually I was present via telephone at 4 am in the morning - but that is a whole different story). One of the key topics was how to deal with respondents to research who cheat, or who just complete the surveys to get their rewards! In short that means a lack of engagement with the process.

Look, this is not a new issue. Some people try to state that on-line is the worst offender here, but that just doesn't register to the truth. People have always cheated and they always will. That is one of the reasons that we do larger sample sizes and we quarantine respondents for a period of time so that the nett effect is negligible. But what can we do?

A 'cheat' doesn't wear a t-shirt that says cheat. You have to go and find them:
- remove people who answer the survey too quickly from the panel and from the data file
- remove people who try to register to the panel too many times. Look in China I have had the same person try and register over 140 times! When someone boasts about their panel size I don't look much beyong this as my first sobering assessment of their claim. You cannot write a macro to find them - you have to eye-scan them!
- remove people that provide inconsistencies in the survey

As well as these hard measures we also have soft measures:

- everyone terminates at the end of the screening section regardless of which condition they 'failed' and hence cannot take the survey. This prevents respondents learning over time how to pass the screening.
- we do not use qualify or screen in the invitation as it suggests that responding a certain way may get you more points!

I heard someone say recently to set up a database of known cheaters that we can all compare with. What altruism! Do we really think that we can swap personal details of panelists to enable such a mechanism? Who would control such a database and is it open to mis-use?

I guess I see so much written and spoken about this whole 'cheating' issue that I had to say something. Research has been validated, nothing is perfect, but it works and it is a multi-bllion dollar industry.

Complacency, no. Realism and pragmatism, yes.Thank you for reading.

I wanted to revisit the idea of democracy. Maybe there is something in the air - 'rogue' regimes, coups, corruption or a tunneled western view of democracy revolving only around elections. It seems that everyone has a perspective - well that is democracy after all! The key point about democracy though is not just our ability to hold a personal perspective, but also our ability to act upon that and put it into practice in some consensual way.

The key instrument (but importantly far from the only tool) to do this is through an election. I can remember growing up in the UK where a Thursday election invariably meant several things:
- working people found it a hassle to vote on a working day (given that voting was not compulsory many just stay at home)
- even when you did bother to vote the queues were so long it was almost a test of your patience and stamina, not your allegiance to a perpsective on the world

Now UK democracy is not perfect (what in life is)? I have heard similar types of arguments in the US elections as well. However at least in these markets one is free to vote their chosen way without fear of reprimand or reprisal. In some countries this is not true.

So my point here is that do we need to (post-) modernise the process of elections? Surely by electronic (read on-line) means we can do this more sensibly:

- convenient at my desktop
- secure and anonymous
- quick
- real-time results?

So we extend the elections to not just once every few years we can even vote on key issues that affect our country (earth?) each day/ each month / each year. Why not? Some people will talk about on-line literacy, on-line security, on-line access and so on. These considerations are real but they will disappear just as the problem of giving the vote to woman has! It is only a matter of time.

Is this not sensible? Why do manual hand counting of votes that can be manipulated? Have we not seen examples of this recently in selected countries? Come to think of it why not do the census via on-line distribution as well?

That is democracy in action. Updated and engaging. Not a 'hassle' and not one point in time. It will happen, and that is my ambition to do it. Not on a small scale mind - on the largest scale of all. I will leave that to your imagination!