MRIA Vue Magazine - April 2014 (Part 1)

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vue

the magazine of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association

APRIL 2014

STRATEGY IN THE MAKING –

A BRAND NEW BEGINNING

FOR MRIA

[left to right] Anastasia Arabia, MRIA President Kara Mitchelmore, MRIA Chief Executive Officer

MRIA 2014 CONFERENCE

SHERATON CAVALIER AND DELTA BESSBOROUGH SASKATOON | SASKATCHEWAN

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JOIN US Look for an amazing lineup of speakers, all under one “Living Sky” as they share “TEDx style” – plus speed networking, fun contests, gala awards, door prizes and much more – awaits you in Saskatoon!

JOIN US! Early bird ends April 30! Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and the conference website http://conference2014.mria-arim.ca/news/index.php

KEYNOTE ANNOUNCEMENTS Jeffrey Hayzlett

Jim Hopson MRIA is pleased to announce that Jim Hopson, CEO and President of the Saskatchewan Roughriders Football Club (the 2013 Grey Cup Champions!), will be a keynote speaker at the MRIA 2014 National Conference in Saskatoon.

Bestselling Author & Global Business Celebrity, The Hayzlett Group Jeffrey Hayzlett is a global business celebrity and primetime television show host on Bloomberg Television and is a leading business expert, cited in Forbes, SUCCESS, Mashable, Marketing Week and Chief Executive, among many others.

Dr. Darrell Bricker Ipsos Global Public Affairs At the annual conference, Darrell’s keynote presentation will revolve around topics explored in his most recent book, The Big Shift. Specifically, how the political, media and business elites of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal that ran this country for almost its entire history have lost their power to the West.

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vue APRIL 2014

VUE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY THE MARKETING RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE ASSOCIATION TEN TIMES A YEAR

Commentary 4 Editor’s Vue 5 Letter from the President 6

Letter from the CEO

SPECIAL FEATURE 8 The Business of Research Angus Reid

Features 10 W hy Someone You Manage Will Eventually be Your Boss Raj Manocha 12 Building a Bulgarian Marketing Research Company Elena Onbright 14 Face Off – Should Research be Outsourced?

Andrew Vincent and Donya Germain 16 Research 101: Paradigms and Methodologies Ken Kwong-Kay Wong

Industry News 19 Students are the Future!

20 QRD Day 22 Qualitative Research Registry (QRR) 23 Research Registration System (RRS) 24 People and Companies in the News 25 2014 MRIA President’s Tour 26 Chapter Chat

Columnists 28 Bright-Eyed 28 Ask Dr. Ruth 29 La Belle Vue

Book Reviews 30 A Review of Neuromarketing in Action 31

A Review of Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis

ADDRESS The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association L’association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing

94 Cumberland Street, Suite 601 Toronto, ON M5R 1A3 Tel: (416) 642-9793 Toll Free: 1-888-602-MRIA (6742) Fax: (416) 644-9793 Email: vue@mria-arim.ca Website: www.mria-arim.ca PRODUCTION: LAYOUT/DESIGN LS Graphics Inc. Tel: (905) 743-0402, Toll Free: 1-800-400-8253 Fax: (905) 728-3931 Email: info@lsgraphics.com CONTACTS CHAIR OF PUBLICATIONS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Annie Pettit, PhD, Chief Research Officer, Peanut Labs (416) 273-9395 annie@peanutlabs.com MANAGING EDITOR Anne Marie Gabriel, MRIA amgabriel@mria-arim.ca ASSOCIATE EDITOR Diane Peters diane.peters@sympatico.ca Interested in joining the Vue editorial team?

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The deadline for notice of advertising is the first of the previous month.

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Original articles and Letters to the Editor are welcome. Materials will be reviewed by the Vue Editorial Team. If accepted for publication, they may be edited for length or clarity and placed in the electronic archives on the MRIA website.

The opinions and conclusions expressed in Vue are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association.

Publishing Date: April © 2014.

All rights reserved. Copyright rests with the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association or the author.

All rights reserved.

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RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing 94 Cumberland Street, Suite 601 Toronto, ON M5R 1A3 Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40033932 ISSN 1488-7320

COMME N TARY / CO MME NTAIR E Editor’s Vue Annie Pettit

A

P

The authors in this issue of Vue know a lot about the business of research and can teach us so much. But when it comes to using Twitter for business purposes, I do have a few words of wisdom.

Nous avons beaucoup à apprendre des auteurs des articles et billets de cette livraison de Vue, tous des spécialistes de la recherche. Mais permettez-moi de vous entretenir plutôt de Twitter et de son usage dans le monde des affaires.

sk me about psychology, social media, research methods, baking or gardening and I’ll give you a run for your money.

Ask me about business and my eyes will glaze over while I dream about data analysis, survey sampling and Twitter.

Twitter is not Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and pictures of the pancake that sloshed all over the floor instead of landing perfectly in the frying pan. When used correctly, Twitter is a collection of passionate, friendly researchers sharing tips, white papers, case studies, webinars, conference agendas, and controversial ideas about all things marketing research. On this social media portal, we talk not just about social media research, but telephone surveys, face-to-face interviews, survey panels, eye-tracking, neuroscience and more. We stir up trouble by critiquing methods both old and new. We stay on top of evolving trends and new ideas, sifting out critical bits of information that we can use to make our businesses that much better. Twitter gathers a hotbed of researchers who are ahead of the curve and it’s where you want to be, too.

How can you get in on all this valuable information? It’s easy and you don’t have to tweet, not even once. First, create a Twitter account for yourself. You don’t have to use your real name or a real user photo, just create an account. Second, in the search box, type “#MRX,” which is secret code for “show me every tweet about marketing research.” Third, read the tweets, soak in the inspiration and click on the links that interest you.

After that, try out #NewMR, #NGMR, #MRMW, #insights or #consumers. Don’t fret about what it all means right now, just try it. You’ll like it!

arlez-moi de psychologie, des médias sociaux, de méthodes de recherche ou même de pâtisserie ou de jardinage, et je suis tout oreilles. Mais si vous me parlez d’affaires vous me perdez et je me mets à rêvasser à l’analyse de données, l’échantillonage et Twitter.

Twitter ne se résume pas aux « exploits » de Justin Bieber ou Miley Cyrus, ou encore à la crèpe mi-cuite qui se retrouve sur le plancher plutôt que dans la poêle. Dans notre secteur, Twitter rassemble des chercheurs passionnés et conviviaux prêts à partager conseils, mémoires, études de cas, webinaires, ordres du jour de conférences et idées originales. Nous ne limitons pas notre participation à la recherche fondée sur les médias sociaux mais parlons aussi de sondages téléphoniques, d’entrevues individuelles, de groupes consultatifs, d’oculométrie, de neuroscience et bien d’autres sujets. Nous lançons également des discussions sur les méthodes du secteur, nouvelles ou traditionnelles, suivons les tendances émergentes et les idées novatrics – bref, tout avantage qui favorise le succès de l’entreprise. Twitter est le lieu de rassemblement virtuel des chercheurs de pointe et nous nous devons d’être de la partie.

Comment accéder à tous ces précieux éléments d’information? Ouvrez tout d’abord un compte Twitter. Même pas besoin d’utiliser votre vrai nom ou d’afficher votre photo – un compte suffit. Tapez ensuite « #MRX » dans le champ de recherche. « #MRX » est un code secret qui signifie « montrezmoi tous les micromessages (tweets) qui traitent de recherche marketing ». Enfin, lisez les messages affichés et cliquez sur les liens qui vous intéressent.

Par après, tentez votre chance avec #NewMR, #NGMR, #MRMW, #insights ou #consumers. Ces lettres, qui ne vous disent peut-être rien, recèlent une mine de renseignements. Allez-y, vous ne le regretterez pas.

Annie Pettit PhD, Chief Research Officer / Directrice de la recherche, Peanut Labs Editor-in-Chief, Vue / Rédactrice en chef, Vue • Email: annie@peanutlabs.com • (416) 273-9395 • t @LoveStats Please share your opinions about Vue articles and columns, or submit your cartoons and infographics to the Editor.

La rédactrice vous invite à lui faire parvenir directement vos commentaires, opinions, caricatures ou infographies.

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COMME NTARY / CO MMENTAIRE Letter from the President Anastasia Arabia

On March 6th, MRIA board and committee members held a strategic planning session facilitated by our new CEO Kara Mitchelmore. The purpose was to set the priorities of the association for the next three to five years.

It was decided that our priorities will be:

Le 6 mars dernier, la nouvelle présidente-directrice générale de l’ARIM, Kara Mitchelmore, a animé une séance de planification stratégique du conseil d’administration et de membres de comités. À l’ordre du jour : l’établissement des priorités de l’ARIM au cours des trois à cinq prochaines années. Il a été décidé que ces priorités seraient :

1

QUALITY GROWTH

1

LA CROISSANCE DE QUALITÉ

2

MEMBER VALUE

2

DES AVANTAGES DE VALEUR POUR LES MEMBRES

3

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE

3

L’EXCELLENCE OPÉRATIONNELLE

The next steps will be a formalized written report of the plan, a structured outline with yearly priorities and resource allocations, and the development of tactics to support each goal.

Here is a sneak peak of what is to come in the report: an overhaul of our 10 core courses, new and relevant professional development offerings, changes to our board structure to become more nimble and strategic, an aggressive outreach strategy to several groups including students, lost members and new members, as well as enhanced membership benefits and much more.

During the Presidents Tour to the Chapters, I am really looking forward to discussing the plan and new initiatives to arise from the strategy session. Some of these will be easily accomplished and will be completed in the next few weeks and months. Others will require a longer term investment that will pay off in years two and three. I look forward to your suggestions of how, on a tactical level, the goals can be best achieved in your Chapter.

I am also excited for members to meet Kara Mitchelmore, our new CEO. Her strength and enthusiasm are infectious.

Many of the challenges we are currently facing are not new to Kara and she has very successfully navigated similar issues in previous positions. Her wealth of experience is now one of MRIA’s best assets.

I look forward to seeing you during the Presidents Tour. If you would like to get in touch in the meantime I would love to hear from you.

Nous passerons sous peu aux prochaines étapes, soit la rédaction d’un rapport sur le plan – précisant les priorités annuelles et l’allocation de ressources à celles-ci – et l’élaboration de tactiques à l’appui de chaque objectif.

Suit un aperçu des grandes lignes de ce rapport : une révision complète de nos dix formations de base; de nouvelles propositions de perfectionnement professionnel pertinentes; une restructuration du conseil d’administration, afin qu’il devienne plus souple et davantage stratégique; une stratégie de recrutement dynamique qui visera entres autres groupes les étudiants, les anciens membres et les nouveaux membres; et des avantages rehaussés pour les membres.

J’ai bien hâte de discuter de ce plan et des initiatives qui seront proposées à l’issue des séances de stratégie à l’occasion de la tournée des régions des présidentes. Si certaines stratégies pourront être facilement mises en oeuvre, d’autres devront attendre quelques semaines ou même mois. D’autres encore ont un horizon plus lointain et ne produiront des résultats que dans deux ou trois ans.

J’attends d’ailleurs avec impatience vos suggestions quant aux tactiques à déployer pour atteindre nos objectifs dans votre région.

J’ai également hâte que nos membres rencontrent Kara Mitchelmore, la nouvelle présidente-directrice générale de l’ARIM. Sa force de caractère et son enthousiasme sont contagieux, tenezvous le pour dit. Les défis que l’ARIM doit relever ne lui sont pas étrangers puisqu’elle a déjà navigué des eaux semblables ailleurs et qu’elle est toujours arrivé à bon port. Sa grande et profonde expérience est un atout de grande valeur pour l’ARIM. Au plaisir de vous rencontrer à l’occasion de la tournée des présidentes. D’ici là, n’hésitez pas à communiquer avec moi. Je serai, je vous le promet, tout oreilles.

Anastasia Arabia, Partner / Partenaire, Trend Research Inc. President, Marketing Research and Intelligence Association / Présidente, L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing Email: anastasia@trendresearch.ca • 780-485-6558 ext./poste 2003

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COMM E NTARY / COMME NTAIR E Letter from the CEO Kara Mitchelmore

I joined the MRIA and all I got was a magazine

Coming from leadership roles at other member associations, I’m constantly dealing with a lack of understanding of what these groups do. “I joined this association and all I got was a magazine,” is a common comment. Members sometimes miss all of the other value-added products and services that their dues help to make possible. At the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA), these benefits are substantial, and they include: Standards. Member dues are used to develop, maintain, evolve and enforce standards across the country. This gives employers and members a sense of certainty in what they can expect from individuals associated with MRIA. Advocacy. MRIA works tirelessly to be the voice of the marketing research industry, making the value of our work known and respected in the business community, as well as with the public at large. This is vital to building awareness of the importance of solid research, particularly when it drives business decisions.

Career Trajectory. Members can take advantage of MRIA being known as the “go to” association for research professionals. As the brand grows and employers begin to demand that on-staff researchers and new hires are members of the MRIA, this puts those with memberships at an advantage in the job market.

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J’ai adhéré à l’ARIM mais je n’ai reçu qu’une revue

Mes responsabilités de direction au sein d’autres associations m’ont fait découvrir à quel point le rôle de ces organismes est mal connu. Combien de fois ai-je entendu « J’ai adhéré mais tout ce que j’ai reçu est une revue. »? Or, trop souvent, les membres ne profitent pas de tous les produits et services à valeur ajoutée que leur apportent leurs frais d’adhésion. À l’ARIM, ces avantages sont pourtant considérables. Relevons parmi eux : Normes. Les frais d’adhésion servent à élaborer, faire évoluer et appliquer les normes à l’échelle du pays. Les employeurs et les membres savent ainsi ce à quoi ils sont en droit de s’attendre des personnes associées à l’ARIM. Promotion de la profession. L’ARIM oeuvre tous les jours à faire entendre la voix du secteur de la recherche marketing. Elle fait aussi connaître et valoir le travail de ses membres auprès du monde des affaires et du grand public, sensibilisant ainsi ceux-ci à l’importance capitale d’une solide recherche, tout particulièrement quand des décisions d’affaires en dépendent.

Avancement professionnel. Les membres profitent du fait que l’ARIM est reconnue comme l’association qui compte dans le monde de la recherche marketing. En effet, de plus en plus d’employeurs exigent que leurs chercheurs, tant ceux en poste que les candidats à un emploi, soient des membres de l’ARIM. L’adhésion à l’ARIM confère donc un avantage professionnel de taille.

commentar y commentaire Education. Whether it is in the form of the Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation, or ongoing professional development, MRIA builds and delivers relevant and cost- effective educational content for its members. Working with feedback from you, education programs are developed to meet the needs of a broad range of competencies and a rapidly evolving industry.

Formation et perfectionnement. Que ce soit par le biais de l’agrément Professionnel agréé en recherche marketing (PARM) ou du perfectionnement professionnel permanent, l’ARIM propose à ses membres des formations pertinentes et efficientes. Par ailleurs, la rétroaction des membres nous permet de créer des programmes de formation qui correspondent aux compétences requises par les employeurs de notre secteur en pleine évolution

Networking. While there are large research departments and research firms in the country, there are also many organizations where being a researcher can be a lonely role. Our members can attend networking events, volunteer for a wide array of committees, and support the provincial/ regional chapters in delivering additional networking initiatives. MRIA gives all members multiple touch points where they can get together, catch up, mentor and learn from each other.

Réseautage. S’il existe des entreprises et des services de recherche importants au pays, il existe tout autant de petits cabinets où le chercheur solitaire manque souvent de contacts avec ses collègues.

Or, les comités, événements spéciaux et sections régionales de l’ARIM donnent de nombreuses occasions de rencontres et de discussions à tous les membres qui souhaitent élargir leurs horizons et établir de nouveaux contacts.

As well, belonging to an association offers an additional level of professionalism to those who work in this industry. Their research and conclusions garner more respect in the market.

MRIA members adhere to professional ethics and codes of conduct, which set them apart from those who do not belong to the association.

And you get a magazine too! Who wouldn’t want to be associated with an organization that gives so much value for membership? Sign me up!

Enfin, l’adhésion rehausse la crédibilté professionnelle de ceux qui oeuvrent déjà dans le secteur, de même que celle de leurs travaux et conclusions. Les membres sont de plus tenus à de se conformer à un code de déontologie et de conduite, ce que ne peuvent faire valoir ceux qui ne sont pas membres de l’ARIM. Et n’oublions pas la « cerise sur le sundae » : la revue ! Comment résister à telle tentation?

L’adhésion à L’ARIM : des avantages à profusion à un coût fort raisonnable.

Kara Mitchelmore, MBA, FCMA, Chief Executive Officer/Présidente-directrice générale Marketing Research and Intelligence Association / L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing Email: kmitchelmore@mria-arim.ca • (416) 642-9793 ext./poste 8724

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SPECIAL

FEATURE

The Business of Research I never set out to become involved in the business of research. In fact, when I was finishing my doctoral dissertation 40 years ago, I had a decidedly anti-business attitude. After all, I was a sociologist in the early 1970s: research was supposed to be about making the world a better Angus Reid

place – not about making gobs of money. Business was for the frat boys over at the commerce faculty.

My transition from hostility to embracing the business side of marketing research and polling happened over a six-year period as a university professor, when I came to realize the extreme limits of academic research and the great freedom that comes from creating a research enterprise.

In 1979, I stepped into the world of commercial research with a $10,000 bank load from a TD branch manager whose name was Coffin (yes, Coffin!). My little enterprise was based in Winnipeg; a place with few buyers of research and little understanding of why anyone would ever want to use research tools to find out what people are thinking.

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In the years that followed I built two research companies, which together have employed several thousand staff, billed almost $5 billion and generated shareholder value of about $500 million.

My objective was never to build research businesses of this scale. In many respects, the financial success of these enterprises came as unintended consequences of several principles that have guided my decision making about the nature and scope of the research businesses I have operated.

1. Sales, sales, sales. Many research companies fail to grow for the simple reason that they don’t

SP ECIA L FEAT URE spend enough time putting their message and capabilities in front of prospective clients. When I operated Angus Reid Group (ARG – now part of Ipsos) we added some extra flourish to this by using our polling skills to generate awareness.

Research is something that most senior people in client organizations only dimly understand. When your company becomes well known, the selling process is twice as easy. When I was based in Winnipeg in the early days I learned that the only way to survive was to sell hard in other markets.

2. Hire many bright young people and quickly grow them into great researchers. Too many companies spend too much time looking for outside talent and not enough time building inside capacity. At ARG and then again at Vision Critical we have placed significant investment behind our internship programs. In many cases the young individuals we hired turned into superstars and now populate much of the leadership in research in Canada. Even today the greatest thrill I get in my work life is seeing how young people with the right disposition and lots of brains can build great careers in research. If you give them the right start you will have lifetime supporters, colleagues and friends.

3. Don’t get hung up on percentage ownership. Every so often I’ll get a call from former colleagues at a small research company who are frustrated over their inability to grow. One of their biggest problems is too much turnover among mid- to senior-level research people. This in turn is the result of very myopic thinking on the part of owners who are reluctant to give up more than 50 per cent interest in their companies.

Smart owners should be more concerned about enterprise and share value rather than some simplistic nineteenth-century notion of control. I have allowed my interest in both my major enterprises to drop well below 50 per cent while at the same time turning hundreds of employees into co-owners. When we sold ARG in 2000 these co-owners got a share of about $50 million. I predict the number for Vision Critical will be many times that. The result in both cases has been low levels of turnover and a strong bedrock for growth. And I have made a lot more money that I would have had I stopped the clock at 50 per cent.

4. Always put long-term sustainability ahead of short-term profits. To grow a research business, it is more important to have many clients than to have just one or two, regardless of the income they generate. Sure, there are always important “cash cow” clients, but over-dependency on them puts longterm sustainability at risk. If you really want to grow a research business, one client should contribute no more than 10 per cent of total revenue. And don’t be afraid to fire clients. For much of my career I had a policy of dropping the bottom five per cent of clients – not five per cent by revenue, but by abusiveness.

5. Learn the underlying dynamic that makes you successful and concentrate your focus in that direction.

In the early ‘80s when I was building ARG we were up

against many obstacles, including the fact that there were almost no companies then buying research in Winnipeg. How could be hope to compete with the larger firms in Toronto and Vancouver? We finally figured out that our competitive advantage would be speed. We would turn around surveys faster than anyone in the business. This gave us a competitive toehold in Canada, then in the U.S. and later internationally.

At Vision Critical we decided very early that in the Internet age, companies and other organizations would want to develop and operate their own online insight communities, and to do so they would need a strong, durable software platform. Building, selling and supporting these platforms became the focus of Vision Critical.

6. Finance, accounting and capital. When I first started my company I had virtually no understanding of how much good accounting could make or break an enterprise. I almost went bankrupt in 1981 because I hadn’t been tracking expenses closely enough. In 1985, I had another close call because weak accounting staff (my fault because I hired them) screwed up our cash forecast. I feel like I have earned my commerce degree the hard way! Now I know how important it is to have strong finance people and good controls. Sounds like common sense, but I’m always coming across smaller research companies looking for financial investment or acquisition that have unbelievably convoluted accounting practices.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in my career in the research business has been the realization that it is possible to pursue the objective of “doing good” within the framework of a commercial enterprise. I believe that marketing and public opinion research are more vital than ever in a world of political and commercial manipulation via big data and social media snooping. Those of us in what used to be called “survey research” have a unique opportunity to apply our knowledge and skills towards engaging, genuine and scalable dialogue with consumers and voters. I have been extremely fortunate to build research enterprises that carved off a small space where my colleagues and I have been able to explore, without commercial interruption, the unfolding drama of social, economic and political life in these interesting times. In the end, I didn’t become a frat boy, but I did learn that good commerce can facilitate good research – as well as research for good.

Angus Reid is the executive chairman of Vision Critical, one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, and Canada’s most prominent, domestically owned, player in the market research and consumer insights space. Prior to Vision Critical, Angus was the CEO of the Angus Reid Group – a company he founded in 1979. When it was sold to Paris-based Ipsos in 2000, it was Canada’s largest research and polling company. In 2010, he was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Fame. vue | APRIL 2014

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Why Someone You Manage

Will Eventually be

Your Boss

Raj Manocha

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Success in the marketing research industry today isn’t about methodology. It’s about people. And today’s emerging leaders are tech savvy, forward-thinking and looking for opportunities to carve out their own niche.

But today’s emerging leaders won’t be lying in wait forever. Look around you: someone you manage right now could become your boss someday. And soon.

One constant in the world of marketing research is the fact that the industry is loaded with talented individuals, particularly at the intermediate level. I define this group as emerging leaders: those who have been in the industry for five to ten years, in their late twenties or early thirties, and with enough experience to know what works and what doesn’t.

This group is significant in that they do a lot of the “heavy lifting” for the medium and large shops in the industry. Consider that these individuals are controlling the day-today on client relationships, executing the actual research/data collection initiatives and

are becoming part of more and more strategic business objectives.

What’s different today, versus 10 to 20 years ago, is that these emerging leaders have more opportunities to disrupt the industry and carve out their own niches.

While the industry used to be separated into two classic disciplines — qualitative and quantitative — marketing research has become inundated with a new category: technologies and products.

Communities, dashboards, crowdsourcing modules and social listening are all examples of products that have been produced to take advantage of the ability to listen to people in very new and innovative ways.

What’s more, these technologies and products are not necessarily built around a sound methodology, but are used to understand people in the places and ways that make sense for them.

So how does this relate to emerging leaders?

This group is more prone to take a chance on these types of technologies. They are the ones

FEAT URE living and breathing technology on a day-to-day basis and they’re the ones who can figure out how to fit a methodology into one of these tools instead of trying to fit the tool into the methodology.

They don’t want to be pigeonholed by a certain discipline or methodology. And, more importantly, they are the ones who can sell the idea to clients and get buy-in. Don’t fool yourselves – clients want these tools.

More and more brands today are allocating an innovation agenda for their research practice. They want to test and try.

They want to work with research companies that are willing to experiment. If you aren’t selling these ideas to them, someone else will. And there’s a good chance it will be someone from the emerging leaders category.

The other real opportunity for emerging leaders is the ability to move around or start up a new company. More than ever, there is choice. The ability to move from one shop to another is at an all-time high. In the crowded marketing research industry, talented individuals are coveted.

Loyalty to one company may last for three to five years, if you’re lucky, and that’s if you’re a great employer. The great companies are investing in these individuals and giving them much greater responsibility, while the merely good companies are letting these individuals do the same things over and over again.

Let’s be honest, the success of a great company isn’t about the methodology, the process or the technology, it’s really about the people and the talent. Nothing you produce can be great without great talent.

Many companies don’t even know the type of talent they have in house. Emerging leaders are often boxed into one job.

But their generation is full of people who have a “jack-of-alltrades” skill set.

Do you even know if some of your staff are social media junkies who could pick up social listening really quickly?

Or maybe they are part of a brand community and really understand the ins and outs of how they work. You’d be surprised what emerging leaders are capable of if you took the time to invest, nurture and grow this group in your organization. If not, you run the risk that they’ll leave for another company or start their own shop.

Creating a start-up or launching a product has never been easier and the barriers to entry have never been smaller. The idea of research has changed. Methodology and rigour don’t necessarily dictate why a company chooses to use your services.

Companies are looking for products and services that speak to respondents in ways they never could before.

Research and marketing initiatives like crowdsourcing and communities have altered the mindset of clients. Creating these types of tools and products allows start-ups to create a niche that many of the larger shops just want to enter without seeing success. It allows emerging leaders to try and be first to market while the larger shops employ a wait-see-acquire approach.

In addition to the advent of new marketing research shops, our industry continues to see the acquisition of companies as a major play in gaining a larger market share, especially in the innovation space.

I’ve personally seen two examples of employees who left large shops only to be brought back, through acquisition, and then end up managing colleagues who were previously their managers. As the market continues to mature in the innovation realm, it stands to reason that more of these scenarios could occur.

Would these two examples have turned out differently if the companies had invested more heavily in those individuals?

Maybe. Maybe the employees could have shared their innovative ideas and created a core competency in-house, instead of moving on and triggering an expensive endeavour for their employers. It’s a much more cost-effective exercise to invest in your staff and retain them, instead of replacing them and potentially having to add/replace a core competency through acquisition.

The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association believes this group of emerging leaders has a great deal of untapped value and has created a special task force to look into engaging them on a greater level.

The Emerging Leaders Task Force (ELTF) was created to stimulate participation by next generation market researchers in the MRIA and develop programming that will be specifically aligned with their needs. While emerging leaders seem to be very involved in the day-to-day of the industry, it was becoming more apparent that the MRIA needs more participation from next-generation market researchers, especially since these individuals will be the future leaders of many organizations.

Simply attend an MRIA event and chances are you’ll see many of the same faces who have been involved in the MRIA for years.

Initially, the task force will liaise between the Research Agency Council and the Conference Committee to recommend programming and events for the 2014 National Conference in Saskatoon that will encourage more next-generation marketing researchers to attend the conference.

As well, the task force will work towards a more holistic plan to engage next-generation marketing researchers via other channels with the hope of increasing interest and overall membership in the MRIA, as the future of the association lies with emerging leaders.

So, keeping an open mind, and thinking about where the world is and where it’s going, open up your mind to the fact that one of your emerging leaders could be managing you some day.

I hope you’re getting up out of your seat right now and making your way over to ask them what direction they think the company should be going in.

Raj Manocha is vice-president of AskingCanadians, an online marketing research community with access to 600,000 Canadians.

He is the current chair of the MRIA’s Emerging Leaders Task Force and is an advocate for giving next generation of marketing researchers a voice within the industry. He can be reached at rmanocha@askingcanadians.com.

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Building a Bulgarian Marketing Research Company Elena Onbright

In 1998, MAP Marketing Research was a four-year-old, full-service marketing research agency providing traditional qualitative and quantitative face-to-face data collection in Bulgaria to both international marketing research agencies and a few local and global end clients.

At that time, we started providing outsourced software development services for the Dutch agency NIPO (now TNS NIPO) on a project for a parser between CfMC and NIPO’s computer-assisted personal interviewing/telephone interviewing software (CAPI/CATI). A year later, we provided front-end and back-end development for web-based data collection: an application programming interface for the programming of computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) surveys and user interface for respondents.

In 2000, Rakina Kaneva and I, the two co-owners of MAP MR, attended an ESOMAR Congress presentation by Rob Monster. He spoke about Global Marketing Insite’s (GMI) CAWI set of tools, Net-MR. We offered our help for further 12

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development of Net-MR, initially for online focus-group software, then for a quali-quant CAWI (drag-and-drop of images), and then for online adaptive conjoint analysis (ACA).

By the spring of 2001, Monster had recognized our potential in not only conveying to software developers the needs of marketing researchers and helping them figure out how to make questionnaire programming easier, but also in providing outsourced marketing research services. We started with the quality assurance on a Microsoft survey in Japan (testing the Windows XP concept. Doesn’t that seem like ages ago?). By the autumn of 2001, we were doing all the data processing, survey programming, testing, sampling, project management and panellist support for GMI’s panels across the globe.

As any business owner hopes for, whether based in Bulgaria or elsewhere, the company grew quickly. By the spring of 2002, we had introduced day and night shifts, and MAP MR was working 24/7, 365 days a year. From seven people in 2000, we

FEAT URE increased to 19 people in the middle of 2002, doubled in 2003, reached 100 employees in 2005, and ended up at 240 in early 2007.

From 2001 to 2007, we had an exclusive outsourcing agreement with GMI, but a change in the top management of GMI in early 2007 provided us with the opportunity to amend our service-level agreement and begin to serve more customers. By 2009, our customer base had broadened and we decided to buy a Confirmit licence. Our new clients were already Confirmit users and they tended to ask us to program only their most complex questionnaires (the easy ones they would do in-house) and only Confirmit could reliably handle the complexity of such studies. We now provide programming services also on the platforms of MI Pro and BrainJuicer (a client of ours since 2009).

How we staff So far, the growth of the company seems quite similar to what might happen anywhere else around the world. But differences start to become apparent when it comes to staffing. We usually hire our staff directly out of university, sometimes even before they graduate. While there is no formal marketing research degree in Bulgaria, marketing research courses are taught in the biggest universities in the country for students of marketing and sociology. Unfortunately, schools teach very old traditional marketing research methods, and there is a huge gap between what we need in terms of marketing research and survey programming knowledge, and what the universities provide.

Therefore, since 2001, we have taught our new recruits how to program surveys creatively, what data processing is and how to do it, and last, but not least, how to provide efficient project management. Unlike some of our global competitors, we learned that the key is to never overpromise. At the bidding stage, we provide sound estimates that include enough time for quality assurance. When we have questions or doubts, we reach out to the client immediately instead of guessing and getting it wrong. When clients send us changes to the survey – and this happens in 99 per cent of cases – we change the estimated delivery time to accommodate for additional quality assurance, as one change in one question may affect many other questions and/or response lists.

Our outsourcing model is also unique. Most of our competitors sign contracts with full-service research agencies that tie a fixed number of employees of the service supplier to a certain client. The payment is then based on these designated staff numbers rather than the number of people who actually worked on any given project and the time they spent on it.

Our billing structure is different: we charge for the exact total work hours spent by our programmers on a project, and with experience as vast as ours, forecasting those is fairly easy.

for our clients via third parties. Unfortunately, we have already trained at least five staff members who subsequently left the company and immediately started working at a competitor.

In two cases, our own customers trespassed the nonsolicitation clause and recruited our staff. Why not fight for our rights in court? Well, if you take your client to court, he will not be your client any more. And, if you take an employee to court, it will be three years before the lawsuit is complete.

I have always naively believed that marketing research is a business that works with numbers to deliver correct information to end clients, only to find out that truth is very elastic for researchers, and viewed differently around the world.

So, the first serious issue we face is integrity.

The second issue we face is the “cowboys” that come into the business of providing outsourced marketing research services (OMRS). Since we program on servers that are physically outside our own country, and the product of our work is completely intangible for the tax authorities (for our customers it is very, very tangible), providing OMRS could serve as a perfect shelter for money laundering. Indeed, there are rumours of companies operating out of Sofia, Bulgaria, who provide OMRS to huge global marketing research companies and are in the grey business at the same time. I’m quite sure this is not an issue faced by most North American marketing research companies!

The cowboys on the Bulgarian market can be fairly easy to spot. They usually have no marketing research-related education and no experience in the field besides managing OMRS companies. Further, a cowboy-managed company will likely provide its clients with a bank account in an offshore tax shelter (Cyprus, Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.). They likely also pay their staff extremely low salaries and in cash.

This grey economy may not seem particularly important to westerners, but that money finances illegal activities worldwide.

The Bulgarian authorities have no means to ascertain that the money coming into the country from such accounts was actually paid for outsourcing services. The actual sources are the usual suspects in money laundering – drugs, prostitution and smuggling.

Since waiting for the appropriate legislation that applies to marketing research in the digital age might be a lost cause, I can only hope that soon the industry will realize the value of integrity in doing business. The “Enron’s” of marketing research are out there and it is up to us as an industry to make sure we don’t wait until the next big crash before we react.

Our challenges What problems did we face along the way while building our company? The biggest issue was and remains loyalty. The confidentiality agreements our employees sign alongside their employment contracts explicitly forbid them from working

Elena Onbright is the CEO of MAP Marketing Research and the ESOMAR representative for Bulgaria. She can be reached at elenao@map-mr.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @HelenOnbright. vue | APRIL 2014

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This is what happens when two researchers are told to argue an opinion they might not agree with.

SHOULD RESEARCH BE INSOURCED? Outsourcing Leads to Research That’s not Just “Good Enough”

Donya Germain

Andrew Vincent If you don’t look after your health and take responsibility for it, then sooner or later you will get ill. So too with research and insight.

We design our own questionnaires, we conduct our own surveys, we run our own focus groups; in short, we talk to our market. We have dialogue with our consumers – how radical is that? Why could it possibly be better to delegate that to someone else? If you are in a relationship you must accept the responsibility for dialogue. If you need to delegate this then what state is your relationship in?

Of course we have to invest in skills, but having in-house skills is essential. We need our people to be creative, analytical and able to interpret information objectively, and we need people to do this in roles throughout the organization. Add in an understanding of sampling (one person says you’re ill, don’t worry about it, but if three do, see a doctor), together with questionnaire design and moderating skills, we can handle 90 percent plus of all research issues we face.

It is argued that someone from the outside may be more objective or impartial, but that is patronizing. We are perfectly capable of hearing when customers are pissed off, when products need to be changed, when opportunities exist. You may think me biased but if that means we better understand our history, why we are successful, our distribution structure and the nuance of how we communicate, then damn right we are biased. We are not designing laboratory test protocols, this is real life with real people and it’s messy!

Without knowing how our organization works, how it makes decisions and what drives us, how can anyone external spot the opportunity suggested by a piece of data? Far more likely they 14

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The Case for Insourcing Marketing Research

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Who would you hire to fill your cavities, cut and polish your eyeglass lenses or run a gas line into your home? Your mother-inlaw? Your teenager? Neither of these two specialize in dentistry, dispensing lenses or gas-line fitting. You personally outsource every day to specialized practitioners that impact your life. Why then would you think you can do marketing research on your own? Why would you not hire a specialist, a supplier who can be depended on for best practices and the highest quality research?

Marketing research is a cross between science and art. While companies have ready access to automation to assist with the science side of their research, technology does not support the art.

The Science Agencies provide qualified respondents, quality execution and timely completion.

Some companies maintain their own respondent databases for research purposes. Such databases are typically branded and may even contain employees, which can lead to heavily biased results.

Supplier agencies house qualified panels of respondents representing the whole population, or can dig deeper within the panel to a targeted, exact profile to meet the research objectives.

A company may have chosen a person to administer their research across one of the readily available online tools. However, an individual without a background in marketing research methodology who is balancing research and their primary role cannot give a project sufficient priority or careful attention. A person may be exclusively dedicated to this role, but it is next to impossible for an internal resource to view the problem from the wide-angled, multifaceted lens of the external supplier.

Insourcing embeds the market and customer perspective more effectively within our organization. Colleagues who conduct research know what a customer’s home looks like, they remember the clothes they wear, what jobs they do and how they like to spend their cash. In-house researchers can recall the intonation in customers’ voices or the reasons given to a question in an online survey. This knowledge lives on beyond the project and subtly influences decision- making throughout our organisation, giving us far greater value from the research conducted than when it is spread around external suppliers.

But what about presentations? Humbug! Why would the marketing director or CEO change what they are planning after a debrief from someone outside the business, who they more often than not have never met before? Would you change your strategy on the advice of a stranger? And that’s assuming they can even deliver a strong presentation, far more likely that after displaying five charts on a PowerPoint, they are still talking about method and objectives and the audience is checking emails. No thanks, we can do a better job in-house.

Fundamentally, external research suppliers build debriefs from the data (what have we found out?) and this is how the value gets sucked out. Internal people build presentations from the end-user perspective: What is the decision that has to be made? They also build in much stronger context because they understand the core competences within the organization and what is required to succeed in the market.

Of course, because we’re doing our own thing we have to both keep up-to-date with the latest industry thinking and be ever-vigilant against complacency and myopia, but then who doesn’t? Does outsourcing your marketing research stop that from happening? Get real.

I could go on and highlight how insourcing provides far greater protection for our customers’ data or argue that insourcing speeds up the research process, or highlight how if utilized appropriately it should provide better cost/benefit, but do I really need to?

If you disagree and still want to outsource then clearly taking care of your health with the tried-and-true isn’t working for you; better get to the doctor, quick.

Andrew Vincent is the Owner of Waves Research & Consulting in Bollington, Cheshire, United Kingdom. You can reach him at andrew@waves-research.co.uk and follow him on Twitter at @Waves05.

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s don’t see the full potential or miss it completely! Further, the real insight comes from triangulation. Data taken on its own seems unimportant but when considered together creates a priceless nugget. When surveys, group discussions, sales data and anecdotal comments from our retail partners all come together and synergize, blended data generates insight that simply no one outside our organization has access to. How can this cross-project thinking ever be outsourced?

FAC E OF F

The Art From designing the methodology and questionnaire, to analyzing and telling a story from the data, the art of market research cannot be conducted by anyone other than a professional marketing researcher.

Methodology design does not come from a textbook and questionnaires do not come from an online template. To quote an old saying: “Garbage in, garbage out.” An employee with the very best intentions, but lack of experience and knowledge, will unknowingly conduct research that seems to make sense. However, once the results are in, it is clear there is little to interpret and they are left with delivering tables of simply answers to questions.

One of the biggest dangers in conducting research internally is the analysis. Although there are many online tools that claim to offer fully automated and simplified analysis, any good statistician will tell you that these functions are limited in how they can be applied and the analyst must have more than a basic understanding of the methods. Additionally, specific statistical approaches are required to analyze data from more specialized areas of marketing research, and these resources are rarely found in-house.

The most important need for outsourced marketing research is the storytelling required to address the original objectives.

Reporting and presenting must go beyond a simple delivery of data from questionnaire responses to shrewd interpretation based on experience, industry knowledge, past results and the art of telling a story that drives actionable recommendations.

Why would you be okay with just “good enough?” Outsourcing your research needs is an integral step in marketing excellence, providing you with your best shot at taking a winner to market or addressing changes required to pave the road for market success.

Canadian companies have access to Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) Gold Seal supplier agencies and Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) qualified personnel who can be relied upon for the highest quality art and science. Hire them! Use them!

To quote Monty Halls: “I swiftly discovered that there are few things in DIY that can’t be solved with a large mallet, a bag of tencentimeter nails and some swearing.” This flawed philosophy in home improvement is your average homeowner’s feeble attempt at cutting costs, forcing cookie- cutter solutions and ending up with frustration due to poor results. Without outsourcing marketing research, companies are doomed to these same fates.”

Donya Germain is the director of consumer research at ACCE International, an advocate for best practices and an active member of the Research Agency Council (RAC) of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association and several other North American organizations.

While Donya was assigned this “side” of the argument, she and ACCE lead parts of several of their clients’ internal research programs, offering the advantages of quality execution, cost effective solutions within pre-established boundaries and enhanced employee engagement.

She can be reached at donyagermain@acceintl.com and follower her on Twitter at @donyagermain. vue | APRIL 2014

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Research 101:

Paradigms and Methodologies

Ken Kwong-Kay Wong

There are many ways to conduct marketing research: they can be broadly categorized into quantitative and qualitative. Surveys, focus groups and expert interviews are some of the methods that marketers commonly use in their research projects.

Each research method has its own strengths and weaknesses, depending on the scenario and resource limitations. Students and practitioners who are new to the research field often get confused by the various research methodologies.

Here’s an overview of the basic concepts of marketing research for those who want a refresher.

Paradigm Matters To begin a research project, the first step is to identify the research paradigm that fits with your research objectives so that you can narrow down the selection of research methodologies. So, what exactly is a “paradigm?” In simple English, it is a basic belief system that guides the investigations.

Your chosen paradigm determines the researcher’s role in the research project. Research paradigms address the philosophical dimensions of social sciences and there are five competing paradigms: positivism, interpretivism, critical realism, critical theory and constructivism.

Positivism Positivism is a common paradigm for scientific research. It has been suggested that in positivism, the purpose of a research project is to discover and measure a single, true and objective reality through rigorous empirical study. This kind of research focuses on explaining causes and effects based on factual information. Positivism assumes that researchers’ values and biases do not influence results because they should act objectively as neutral observers. For these reasons it provides the foundation of perfect repeatability of statistical analysis. Moreover, positivism uses deductive and non-inductive reasoning, so it is sometimes referred to as a hypothetico-deductive research approach. In positivism, hypotheses are usually first deduced from the accepted principles and then these hypotheses are rigorously tested using statistical procedures. For this reason, positivism is mainly associated with a quantitative methodology

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such as experiments, surveys, analysis of secondary data and verification of hypotheses using statistical procedures. Researchers usually play a passive role in their research projects.

Interpretivism Unlike positivism, which focuses on objectiveness, interpretivism considers reality to be subjective and that the social world is maintained by human beings through their action and interaction. The role of research is to interpret the world through interaction between the researcher and the human subjects of the enquiry. Since different people will have different perspectives, the researcher’s own values, beliefs and experiences are often incorporated into the research design and data analysis. Within this paradigm, the phenomena of interest being measured should be considered as “tendencies” that help us understand historical events. However, these tendencies are not good for predicting future situations. Qualitative methodologies such as interviews, observation and case studies often guide the research processes in interpretivism using inductive reasoning. Here, the research is often carried out in a subjective manner, with interactions between the researcher and the participants being central to the project.

Realism Also known as critical realism, this approach assumes that there is one reality, but it is imperfectly apprehensible by researchers due to its complexity. Since social and organizational reality is complex in nature, researchers can only observe certain aspects of reality. Therefore, it is necessary for researchers to investigate the issue at hand from many viewpoints using different methodologies in a process called triangulation. Qualitative methods such as cases studies and convergent interviewing are usually associated with realism, although quantitative methods are also deployed from time to time.

Critical Theory Another research paradigm is called critical theory.

Its ontology assumes that there are complex and hidden power structures in the social world. This

paradigm recognizes that people, organizations and societies are not confined to exist in a certain state, and that social reality develops and evolves over time. The role of the researcher is to be transformative and to change the world circumstances of those subjects being studied through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies that are dialogic or dialectical.

Research on prejudice, race discrimination and civil rights often fall under the critical theory paradigm.

Constructivism Also called social constructivism, this paradigm assumes the world is made up of multiple realities that are socially based. This research paradigm suggests that truth depends on a certain belief system within a specific context. The researcher is a passionate individual who wants to discover the value that underlies the research findings. In constructivism, the various realities become subjectively known through qualitative methodology such as interviews that are hermeneutical or dialectical.

depends whether the researcher is focusing on recent or historical phenomena.

A research paradigm determines the goal of the research study, the type of research question being asked, and the extent of interference by the researcher.

The Importance of the Right Choices One thing people should bear in mind is that the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) principle applies to the field of research.

Inappropriate research design, wrong selection of sampling frame or a sample size that is too small will usually lead to analyses that are inaccurate and worthless. Always write down your assumptions clearly and make lots of notes throughout your research, especially when you start encountering problems.

This way, you can easily pinpoint the problematic error in case the final outcome is not what you are looking for. To reduce research bias, try to conduct research in a systematic way and keep accurate records of the research process and data analysis.

Table 1: Key Research Paradigms Paradigms

Approach

Method Types

Examples

Positivism

Quantitative

• • • • • •

Correlational survey Cross-sectional survey Longitudinal survey Experimental research Quasi-experimental research Ex-post facto research

• Attitude of elder shoppers towards mobile payment

• • • • •

Biography/Interview Case study Ethnography Ground theory study Phenomenological study

• The autobiography of a great female CEO

Interpretivism

Critical theory

Qualitative

Action-oriented; quantitative and qualitative

• Action research • Ideology critique

•R elationship between university students’ part-time jobs and their academic achievement • E ffect of anti-theft device on shrinkage among electronics retailers

• Study of staff turnover among male employees • Case study of a successful omni-channel retailer in Canada

• S tudy of development of online university courses during the McGuinty government in Ontario • S tudy of dropout phenomenon among immigrant high school students in Vancouver

Other Paradigms Besides the research paradigms mentioned above, there are also feminist perspectives, postmodern and participatory paradigms.

Although research paradigms are often competing with each other, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Academics have pointed out that business research often falls under one major paradigm while including elements of others at different stages during the research process.

In the original research design and subsequent data analysis phases, share your thoughts with your colleagues and research participants. Sometimes, even an experienced researcher may overlook an important point and that requires another sharp pair of eyes to identify the obvious mistake.

Key Paradigms for Business While there are a range of choices, in reality positivism, interpretivism and critical theory are the three major paradigms used in business research. Researchers who conduct positivist research use quantitative methods, while interpretivist research is often conducted with qualitative research methods. In critical research, both deductive and inductive reasoning are used to develop theory, and it is common to see field research and historical analysis being used. The selection of paradigm also

Ken Kwong-Kay Wong, PhD, is an assistant professor of retail management at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management. He has also been an instructor at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies since 2003. His articles have appeared in Telecommunications Policy, Service Industries Journal and the Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management. Ken is also the author of Avoiding Plagiarism and Approved Marketing Plans for New Products and Services. He can be reached at ken.wong@utoronto.ca.

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vue Be Heard Be Seen Be Vue’d

2014 EDITORIAL

CALENDAR

Thank you for the support you have shown for Vue magazine over the years and we look forward to counting you among our print and digital advertisers in 2014. We welcome inquiries from advertisers, authors, students and the business community.

Month

Editorial

Submisson Deadline

May

The Conference Issue – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

April 1

June

Unique Populations

May 1

July/August

C anadiana – Canadian authors, Canadian case studies, Canadian statistics, Canadian MR icons

June 2

September

Education

August 1

October

Ethics and Privacy

September 2

November

Qualitative

October 1

December

Innovation

November 3

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IND U STRY NEWS

Students are the Future!

Grace Woo Manager of Member and Board Relations

The MRIA is committed to supporting students in their quests to become great marketing researchers and we have developed special incentives for students to become members. We are also working to partner with a number of postsecondary institutions to support their students.

Through these efforts, I would like to welcome 55 new student members who have joined their future marketing research colleagues in the MRIA under the newly introduced 2014 membership for student groups. By opting to partner with MRIA, Georgian College and Humber College are helping to give their future graduates a head start in the industry. Even better, they are absorbing some or all of the costs making membership possible for more students. We all know that every ‘nickel’ counts when you’re a student!

When these student members become full members, they too will be able to help determine the future of the organization and, by extension, also the industry through those venues.

Student members have full membership access to all restricted areas of the website including job postings, membership discounts in our bookstore, and receive membership notices and student member pricing for networking events, members only meetings, as well as additional opportunities to volunteer with MRIA (which gives students even greater exposure to potential employers and other prospects), and the many other benefits MRIA has available to all members (and nonmembers at a higher fee).

The only benefits that student members do not receive are printed publications and voting privileges which are restricted, in large degree, to our professional members in the other categories of MRIA membership. When these student members become full members, they too will be able to help determine the future of the organization and, by extension, also the industry through those venues.

And now, please join me in welcoming our new student members: HUMBER COLLEGE Busola Akin-Olowore Mikayla Allen Katreena Baker Craig Banerd Adrian Barber Andrew Bell Alexandra Budurea Stefanie Commisso Tayyeba Darr Jordan Davis Anthony Dileo Lisa Fisher Laura Franklin

Michal Kowalski Andrea Lambert Michael Lloy Nosi Machobane Matthew Murray Jasmine Nathaniel Danielle Pierre Catherine Piper Brennan Roy Ben Stoller Aurora Tupas Ana Valdivia

GEORGIAN COLLEGE Rohit Chattopadhyay Vincent Cuevas Jordan Davidson Jinghua Deng Samantha Gelinas Cheryl Goreski Dawei Guo Bijou Gurung Kevin Harris Lucy Huang Jason Kang Grasmeyer Katie Cindi Keenan Andrew McCullough Arvind Mehta

McMurter Mike Julie Needler Cynthia Pan Miranda Parkin Vaibhav Shah Jennifer Stewart Amanda Vena Jiajia Wang Stephanie Wang Yuwei Xian Anna Zamurujeva Melissa Zazulak Lin Zeng Albert Zhan Haixia Zhong

If you represent a post-secondary educational institution (i.e., university or college) and would like your students to participate in the student group membership level of MRIA, please contact me at gwoo@mria-arim.ca. If you are a student and your school is not an MRIA partner, please speak to your school administrators or let us know. Students can join the MRIA individually at the regular student membership rate by logging into our portal: mria-arim.ca/portal. The MRIA and your future colleagues look forward to welcoming you.

With so many active students interested in marketing research, MRIA’s future looks bright indeed!

Grace Woo is Manager of Member & Board Relations at the MRIA. She can be reached at gwoo@mria-arim.ca.

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INDUSTRY N EW S

QRD Day David Wiszniowski

The theme of the 2014 MRIA QRD conference was creating connections. As it was my first time attending the conference, and also my first time speaking at one, I was able to truly drink in the theme of the day and go full on qualitative. In this synopsis I will be thinking back to those moments in the conference which really got me excited about being a researcher. While all the presenters at the conference would be more than enough to write about, I would like to focus on my personal experiences.

If you asked me to describe the conference in four words, those words would be stolen directly from the mouth of Naomi Henderson; “Probe ‘till you puke”. That phrase, while not necessarily representative of the conference’s theme, has really stuck with me throughout this week. Although I

am a quantitative researcher, I believe there’s a little ‘quali’ in everyone. Naomi insists that this is one of a moderator’s most trusted mantras, and thinking back, it really is. The idea embodies the desire of a researcher to learn more, to prod, to pick, and to explore the feelings and opinions of our participants. It also helps to explain a researcher’s plight; the need to continue to learn, and more importantly understand the world around us, whether it be in a healthy amount, or full blown excess.

The conference was a great experience, especially for a young researcher such as myself. Although I did have some technical issues at the beginning of my presentation, I was able to touch base with industry thought leaders, and everyday researchers as well. It truly was a connection building experience.

http://qrdconference2014.mria-arim.ca/news/index.php

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IND U STRY NEWS And the gossip! That was another thing that surprised me about the conference. So many people were discussing common research issues they face, with a very open and candid demeanour. I loved it! To understand that some of the problems I see in the research community are mirrored in the experiences of other (older?) researchers was a sigh of relief.

That is where I felt the connection between myself and others the most, in the shared desire for change within our field. I believe that the free-flowing spirit of qualitative research allows it to be the more innovative discipline of market research. I left the conference feeling inspired. And really, what else can you ask for from a conference?

Well, maybe gourmet... sandwiches. The MRIA serves up the best sandwiches around. So I guess I also learned that if you want to make amazing industry connections, you best bring some next level sandwiches.

Since it’s awards season, I’ve compiled a ‘best of ’ list, highlighting some of the more interesting and insightful segments of the conference; First, for the Most Interactive Presentation the award goes to ‘Connecting, Competing & Winning in a Challenging Business Environment!’ by Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research. Giving out free stuffed animals was a brilliant motivator and adding music to a presentation equates to conference gold.

Most Informative Presentation: ‘Connecting At the Level of Heart’ by Naomi Henderson of RIVA Market Research; you had me at “probe ‘til you puke”.

Best Window to the Client Side goes to Gail Livermore of Target, and for the most ‘qualitative’ presentation of the day, I’ve nominated Psychoanalytics by Thelma Beam, Deborah Adie Boyd, both of Research Strategy Group.

Best Newcomer…drum roll please, is myself! My speech ‘Bringing the Qual into Quant with Games for Research’ exposed attendees to an emerging methodology and I loved it.

Best Volunteers: The students from my alma mater Georgian College. Without you guys keeping me on track for time, I don’t know if I’d have managed.

Best Lunch is awarded to the MRIA QRD organizers, along with having a TV there for an Olympic hockey game which was genius, and went far to further connect everyone at the conference.

David Wiszniowski is a research analyst at Market Probe Canada.

You can contact him at wiszniowski.david@gmail.com or follow him on twitter under @dwiszard.

Video recordings of the presentations are available online – for delegate password information, contact events@mria-arim.ca

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INDUSTRY N EW S

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY (QRR) In accordance with federal privacy laws,

MRIA’s Qualitative Research Registry (QRR), or Registre de la recherche qualitative (RRQ) in French, was created to provide an ongoing, user-friendly vehicle for tracking those who do not want to be contacted or should not be contacted for qualitative research studies.

QRR is a comprehensive do not call list of those who have recently participated in qualitative research studies, those who have asked not to be contacted further, and those felt by recruiters and moderators to be best served by not being contacted. These respondents are marked as “do not call” in accordance with established MRIA Standards.

However, the ability of the system to function effectively is directly related to the co-operation received from firms who provide recruitment services. If you are a full service research firm or field supplier that is currently participating in the Qualitative Research Registry program – thank you very much and keep up the good work!

All field and full-service companies are encouraged to submit a list of their qualitative respondents for entry into the QRR system each month, including those who do not wish to be contacted.

If you are not currently participating, please get involved! If you are interested in submitting to QRR, please visit the MRIA website at http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/qualitative-research-division/ qualitative-research-registry for further explanation and guidance on how to submit qualitative research participants’ names, along with the required electronic forms.

Participating firms will receive monthly updates of respondents to be screened from qualitative recruitment samples. QRR works effectively to increase the quality and integrity of the qualitative research process, by serving as a control to ensure respondents are not contacted more frequently than is necessary.

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES HAVE SUBMITTED NAMES TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY

SEPTEMBER

2013

ONTARIO

QUEBEC

Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting Consumer Vision CRC Research Dawn Smith Field Management Services Inc. I & S Recruiting Ipsos Reid Nexus Research Quality Response Research House Inc.

Ipsos Reid

WEST Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting CRC Research Ipsos Reid Trend Research

Qualitative Research Registry submis­sions should be sent to: QRRQ@MRIA-ARIM.CA Submission templates and payment forms can be found at http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/qualitative-research-division/qualitative-research-registry-fees Rules of Conduct and Good Practice for Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007), Section C Rules Specific to the Conduct of Qualitative Research: 20. R ecruiters should provide accurate data to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such exists, on a consistent basis and check all respondents against the Registry.

21. M oderators buying recruiting services should give primary consideration to recruiting agencies which submit to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such a service exists, on a regular and ongoing basis.

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IND U STRY NEWS RESEARCH REGISTRATION SYSTEM Since 1994, the RRS has allowed respondents to verify the legitimacy of a research project; helped legislators and regulators differentiate between legitimate survey researchers and unscrupulous telemarketers, phishers and scammers; and protected the industry from unnecessary and unwanted regulation.

MRIA’s Research Registration System (RRS) has long been a cornerstone self-regulatory mechanism for the marketing, survey and public opinion research and market intelligence industry in Canada.

Combined with other self-regulatory initiatives such as our Code of Conduct and Good Practice and our Charter of Respondent Rights, the RRS has paid huge dividends in protecting the industry’s positive reputation and good name with Canadians.

All Gold Seal and Basic Corporate Research Agency members of the Association are obligated to register all of their research projects with the RRS, and Client-Side Corporate members are encouraged to require their agency suppliers to do so.

MRIA’s Research Agency Council provides strategic, policy-level oversight of the Research Registration System, and receives aggregate data-only on the System’s performance.

Questions about the Research Registration System should be addressed to Erica Klie, Manager, Member Support Services, at 1-888-602-6742 or (416) 642-9793, ext. 8727 or eklie@mria-arim.ca.

The following companies have registered research projects with the Research Registration System during SEPTEMBER 2013: GOLD SEAL CORPORATE RESEARCH AGENCIES Academica Group Advitek Inc. BBM Analytics BBM Canada Blue Ocean Contact Centers Campaign Research Canadian Viewpoint Inc. Cido Research Consumer Vision Ltd. EKOS Research Associates Inc. Greenwich Associates Harris/Decima Inc. Head Count Hotspex Inc.

Ifop North America Ipsos Reid Maritz Research Canada MBA Recherche MD Analytics Inc. MQO Research Nanos Research NRG Research Group Opinion Search Inc. Research Dimensions Research House Inc. Tele-Surveys Plus / Télé-Sondages Plus The Logit Group Inc. TNS Canada (Canadian Facts) Trend Research Inc.

BASIC CORPORATE RESEARCH AGENCIES Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting Inc. (BCCR Inc.) Goss Gilroy Inc. Nexus Market Research Inc. SmartPoint Research Inc.

INDIVIDUAL MEMBER ORGANIZATION Illumina Research Partners

Rules of Conduct and Good Practice For Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007): Section A (5) Members must uphold the MRIA Charter of Respondent Rights.

Charter of Respondent Rights, Article 2 You can verify that the research you have been invited to participate in is legitimate in one of two ways. You can either obtain a registration number and the MRIA’s toll-free telephone number for any research registered in the MRIA’s Research Registration System or you can obtain the contact information of the research director who is conducting the study.

http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/research-registration/research-registration-overview

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n To read more news online, or to submit your “People and Companies in the News,” s imply fill out our online form at http://mria-arim.ca/news/people-and-company-news.

n The Vue editorial team reserves the right to select and edit your submission for appearance in Vue. n MRIA is neither responsible for the accuracy of this information nor liable for any false information.

SSI Announces Chris Clarke as New Chief Marketing Officer Elevates General Counsel Ashlin Quirk to Company’s Leadership Team Clarke has more than 28 years of marketing, communications and technology experience. Previously, he was a marketing executive with SAP responsible for leading brand communication and demand generation program development, strategic planning, audience research and field marketing efforts globally. He also led business-to-business advertising for American Express, and has worked at a variety of advertising agencies managing a broad range of blue chip global accounts and brands.

Visit SSI at www.surveysampling.com dunnhumby to Buy Ad Targeting Firm Sociomantic Retail analytics giant dunnhumby is reportedly close to buying Berlin-based ad targeting and retail retargeting firm Sociomantic Labs for an estimated $175–200m. Founded in 2009 by former Admeld CRO Jason Kelly, Sociomantic provides real-time retargeting and prospecting, stream-based data management, and dynamic ad personalization, to enable clients to reach new and existing customers with individually priced and personalized display ads. Websites: www.dunnhumby.com and www.sociomantic.com Now Monkey Slots Neatly into Office OfficeReports, a data analysis and reporting overlay within Microsoft Office, has now been extended to integrate directly with DIY platform SurveyMonkey. Data gathered from SurveyMonkey can now be directly integrated into PowerPoint presentations, to enable researchers to build tables and charts in PowerPoint while surveys are running, and at any time link a survey and update all tables and charts with the latest data.

Websites: www.officereports.com and www.surveymonkey.com Multi-platform eye tracking software firm The Eye Tribe has introduced a cloud-based platform called EyeProof, allowing users to collect and analyse data on where people look on a web site or ad, from multiple devices and locations simultaneously. Founded in 2011 and based in Copenhagen, Denmark, The Eye Tribe offers a system that can calculate where a viewer is looking using information from their face and eyes. The new EyeProof platform

has been developed to gain a ‘richer view’ of how people actually engage with web sites and ads. Website: www.theeyetribe.com Former Nielsen MD Takes Top IRI France Role Retail data giant IRI has appointed former Nielsen France MD Olivier Humeau as Managing Director of IRI France, from 31st March. He will replace Philippe Cabin Saint Marcel, who left at the end of last year to become MD of Ipsos Marketing in the country.

Website: www.iriworldwide.eu Gartner Buys Software Advice Research Service Technology research and analysis specialist Gartner has acquired Software Advice, which offers a software review, comparison and research service to help buyers choose the best products for their organizations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The firm is headquartered and employs one hundred people in Austin, Texas and also has an engineering team in Cordoba, Argentina.

Websites: www.gartner.com and www.softwareadvice.com SSI Launches ‘Miles for Thoughts’ B2B Panel Data collection and sampling solutions provider SSI has launched a business research panel called ‘Miles for Thoughts’, open to members of the Free Spirit loyalty program run by its new partner, Spirit Airlines. The Miles for Thoughts panel will enable Free Spirit members to receive relevant surveys, share their opinions about products and services from companies around the world, and get rewarded for their time with Free Spirit miles. Bob Fawson, SSI Chief Access, Supply and Engagement Officer, says the new partnership greatly increases his firm’s business sample capacity, especially among younger business professionals.

Website: www.surveysampling.com Research Now Healthcare Launches Autoimmune Panel in North America As a result of the launch, researchers now have access to a targeted audience of over 80,000 deeply-profiled panelists in the U.S. and Canada who have been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis or Psoriasis. This is the third market research panel based around therapeutic areas to be launched by the company. Research Now

People and Companies in the News generously sponsored in 2014 by:

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IND U STRY NEWS Healthcare also provides deeply-profiled panels consisting of diabetes and arthritis sufferers. Visit www.researchnow.com Sizmek Gains MRC Accreditation for Viewability Metric Digital ad management company Sizmek has received Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation for its ‘viewable impression’ verification metric, which determines whether a web site viewer actually had an opportunity to see an ad as the advertiser intended. Sizmek says the award follows previous MRC accreditations for display, rich media, and digital video ad impressions, as well as ad campaign data for unique reach and average frequency. Website: www.sizmek.com Yahoo! Snaps Up Social Media Data Firm Vizify Search engine giant Yahoo! has bought social media data visualization specialist Vizify for an undisclosed sum. Following the acquisition, the firm’s product will be shelved as the team of five joins Yahoo’s media product division in San Francisco. In December, Yahoo! acquired natural language processing technology start-up SkyPhrase, which develops technology to enable computers to understand human language and intentions. Earlier in the year it made three other social media services acquisitions: Beijing-based analysis firm Ztelic, polling service GoPollGo, and recommendation firm Jybe. Websites: www.yahoo.com and www.vizify.com ComScore Rolls Out MMX Multi-Platform in Spain Digital audience measurement specialist comScore has rolled out its MMX Multi-Platform tool in Spain, to provide unduplicated accounting of audience size and demographics across multiple devices. In Spain, comScore says 60% of the digital media population now accesses the Internet from more than one device, underlining the need for such a solution.

Website: www.comscore.com

Nielsen Investors Plan Billion Dollar Share Sale Nielsen has announced that a group of its shareholders is planning to sell 30 million shares of common stock, with a possible value of around $1.4bn. The sale is being handled by Valcon Acquisition Holding on behalf of affiliates of The Blackstone Group, The Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Thomas H. Lee Partners, Hellman & Friedman, AlpInvest Partners, and Centerview Capital. Nielsen was taken private in a $10bn buyout in 2006, and in 2011, the firm announced it was preparing to take the company public in an initial public offering (IPO) for around $1.64bn or $23.00 per share.

Website: www.nielsen.com Ipsos Launches ‘Overnight’ Innovation Service Innovation and forecasting specialist Ipsos InnoQuest has launched a new service to test ideas and deliver a snapshot of quantitative consumer feedback in around eighteen hours. Ipsos claims its new ‘InnoQuest*Overnight’ solution is the first overnight idea screening service in the industry. Drawing on a representative sample of consumers, the tool provides quantitative idea testing of up to 100 ideas in less than 24 hours. Website: www.ipsos.com FTC Clears Final Nielsen / Arbitron Hurdle Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has determined that Nielsen’s acquisition of Arbitron was not anticompetitive. In a final order settling the charges, the Commission has reiterated that Nielsen must sell and license for at least eight years certain assets relating to Arbitron’s crossmeasurement platform, to an FTC-approved buyer. Related to this, it is now seeking public comment on Nielsen’s request to sell its LinkMeter technology and related data rights to comScore as part of the consent order. Website: www.nielsen.com

HELLO

EVENTS MARK YOUR CALENDAR

my name is

Catherine Dawson, CMRP Vancouver, BC Insights West

• • • • •

What is your hidden talent?

Baking (cakes, cookies etc.), although anyone who works with me or knows me wouldn’t say that it’s all that hidden!

What occupation did you aspire to? My earliest memory of an occupational wish was when I was no more than 3 or 4 years old…and it was to be a mouse! Sheesh, glad that didn’t pan out.

My first job was: Ice cream jockey at Swensen’s Ice Cream Parlour, the summer I was 12. Wow, did I eat a lot of ice cream!

A researcher I admire is: Daniel Gardiner, recently retired professor at UBC Sauder School of Business Why I became a market researcher: Daniel Gardiner, who taught the Introduction to Market Research class I took, inspired me to become a market researcher. I went on to do a Directed Study in market research with Dan and it just clicked; this was the career for me!

MRIA Excellence in Research Awards Submission Deadline is April 15, 2014 May 15–18 AAPOR Annual Conference Anaheim, CA June 1 TTRA Conference Paper Submission Deadline June 8–10 MRIA National Conference 2014 – Dig Deeper & Discover Saskatoon, SK June 10 MRIA Gala Awards Dinner Saskatoon, SK September 28–October 2 CASRO Annual Conference Four Seasons Denver, Denver, Colorado

September 7–10 ESOMAR Congress Nice, France 2014 MRIA President’s Tour April 3 – OTTAWA Lunch April 15 – HALIFAX Lunch April 24 – TORONTO Evening event Apri l 25 – MONTREAL Lunch April 29 – VANCOUVER Lunch May 2 – CALGARY Breakfast May 7 – WINNIPEG Lunch For more information and to register, visit https://www.mriaportal-arimportail. ca/mpower/mpp/welcome.do

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BC CHAPTER The BC Chapter is offering two events in April.

There will be a qualitative research class with Claire Booth of Lux Insights on April 24. Stay tuned for details on the MRIA website BC Chapter page.

The BC Chapter will also host a lunch on April 29 as part of the MRIA’s 2014 National President’s Tour featuring MRIA President Anastasia Arabia and MRIA’s new CEO Kara Mitchelmore. The lunch will be held at Steamworks Brewing on Water Street in Gastown.

Please visit the portal to register.

A dvertising research strategist Majid Khoury led a seminar for members of the BC Chapter on March 5. Khoury’s seminar was titled “Using Research for Better Advertising.”

PRAIRIE CHAPTER Len coffee anyone? The Prairie Chapter will be hosting lunch time workshops on how to conduct “Lean Coffee” and innovation game sessions in April. “Lean Coffee” and serious (or innovation) games have their routes in Lean Thinking and are related to Lean Production, Lean Software, Lean StartUp, etc. The “coffee” part reflects the sharing of a good cup of coffee among friends. The workshop will be a “how to” session applicable to all qualitative researchers (client side or research agency), whether you have conducted hundreds of focus groups or none. These are great techniques to use with colleagues, at conferences and select client groups. Please visit the MRIA portal to register. The workshops will be held in Winnipeg and Regina.

May will also be a busy month with half-day morning workshops on mobile quantitative research (Regina on May 6 and Winnipeg on May 7), led by Rebecca West, vice-president, marketing research services at Civicom Inc. Following the workshop in Winnipeg, Prairie Chapter members can meet with MRIA President Anastasia Arabia and new CEO Kara Mitchelmore on their Winnipeg stop of the 2014 National President’s Tour. Whether you are a new or longstanding member, this is the time to raise your views, comments and concerns. Please visit the MRIA portal to register.

TORONTO CHAPTER The Toronto Chapter will host a speaker event “Research in Social Media What You Are Missing” on April 24 at the Marriott Hotel. The event will feature Michael Sloboda, president of Magic Eye Consulting, who has created advanced techniques to integrate online/social surveys with print and social media content analysis. Topics will include: an overview and basis of social media; microsegmentation of social media; finding communities; influence and influencers; and measuring. Special Guests are Anastasia Arabia on her President’s Tour and Kara Mitchelmore, new MRIA CEO. Please visit the MRIA portal to register.

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M RIA Open House. (L-R) Amy Charles, Stephen Popiel and Grace Woo.

CHA P TE R CHAT OTTAWA CHAPTER The Ottawa Chapter’s February 20 event – “Driving Innovation in Mobile Survey Research and meet the Marketing and Business Intelligence Research Class (MBIR) OF 2013-14” – showcased the connection the chapter is actively building with students and academia.

Keynote speaker, Lori Reiser of Advanis Jolicoeur worked with the Algonquin College MBIR students to design and launch a mobile survey that was open everyone who registered for the event. The students provided a brief synopsis of the data and their findings.

A lot of credit has to be given to Advanis Jolicoeur, Algonquin College and the MBIR students for letting us promote this

K eynote Speaker Lori Reiser begins her presentation on “Driving Innovation in Mobile Survey Research” to the Ottawa Chapter on February 20.

collaboration of industry and up-and-coming market researchers.

The event was capped off by the MRIA Ottawa Chapter Bursary for academic excellence being awarded to Selina Zhang.

Reiser’s presentation focused on innovative techniques and current best practices in mobile survey research, and its potential applications in our industry.

S elina Zhang, the recipient of the Ottawa Chapter’s bursary of academic excellence speaks with Anda Carabineanu, (right), the program director for the Ottawa Chapter.

F aculty, Advisory Committee and MBIR students from Algonquin College share a moment at the Ottawa Chapter seminar on February 20.

Members and guests are welcome at all MRIA events: Check our online calendar at http://mria-arim.ca/events-awards/calendar for more information on all events and how to register. Members receive emails directly with event updates, so please check your inboxes for instructions on how to register for all upcoming events!

MRIA Portal: https://www.mriaportal-arimportail.ca

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COLUMNIST S

Bright-Eyed Dylan Cody Insightrix Research Inc.

Ruth Corbin, CMRP CorbinPartners Inc.

In my last column, I spoke about how my years of higher education did not fully prepare me for my career in the market research industry. As I thought about the differences between university and my current career, one of the research tools I had in mind was market segmentation.

Dear Dr. Ruth:

Because of my background in statistics, my firm quickly exposed me to segmentation analysis. Perhaps I did not take the right courses, considering that while I was in school I had little knowledge of what a career in market research would entail, but I took many stats classes and was never exposed to this type of analysis. Now that I have worked with segmentation, I have some questions about the best approach.

I am still new to the industry, but the way that many traditional segmentation studies are conducted seems odd to me. When we attempt to segment people based on answers to behavioural questions, it seems that we are missing something. Behaviour, I think, would be best studied by doing and observing, not by asking. I understand clients have limited budgets and running fullscale behavioural observation research is not practical, but could we look more closely at ways to better study behaviour?

I think segmentation needs a firm mix of both rich qualitative observations and sound quantitative data in order to make it truly robust.

A mix of video diaries and attitudinal surveys would really wow any client if well-executed and clearly presented.

You might be thinking that these points are obvious… maybe they are, but as a fairly new market researcher, I find them fascinating. Being exposed to traditional segmentation analysis in the work place has not made me think of barriers but instead has opened my eyes to a world of possibilities for doing some really cool analysis.

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Ask Dr. Ruth

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My firm has been working for a Community Council in Ontario that opposes bike lanes on one of our main thoroughfares. (We are in no way related to Rob Ford’s reelection campaign.) The Cycle for Cities advocacy group has conducted a survey claiming overwhelming support for bike lanes among taxpayers in the community. We told the Community Council that we believe that survey to be junk science.

Besides writing an editorial about it in the city newspaper, we also intend to submit a formal complaint about its poor quality to MRIA. Can we expect MRIA to take up our cause, and sanction the MRIA member company who did the survey for Cycle for Cities?

No-Spin City Dear No-Spin: You’re in luck. MRIA has just upgraded its complaint resolution procedure to answer all your concerns. MRIA’s new complaint resolution procedure is overseen by an independent arbitrator. A complaint against a member company can only be made in reference to MRIA’s published Code of standards and guidelines – the Code forms the outer limits of the scope of what complaints can be heard by MRIA. Your phrase “junk science” does not appear in MRIA’s Code, so you would have to translate your concerns into Coderelated issues of reliability, validity, or integrity of the research process.

Please note the following important feature: In submitting a complaint, you must first agree to a confidentiality and non-disclosure arrangement. That means you can’t discuss the complaint in public or convey that a complaint is being made. So you will have to choose between your newspaper editorial plans and your complaint plans.

The arbitrator will first encourage the parties to resolve the complaint through mediation. If mediation is unsuccessful, a hearing will take place in which both parties may submit evidence and arguments. The process is governed by an orderly schedule.

It’s not a legal process, but it is a formalized objective process befitting a self-regulatory organization like MRIA. There’s even an appeal stage possible if either party thinks there has been a compromise to objectivity or due process.

If your complaint is found to have merit, then the consequences for the MRIA member (whose work has been found to contradict the Code) may become public. That is, the confidentiality provision for taking part in the process is only in force until a decision is made that the complaint has “succeeded.”

Whatever the outcome, you won’t find MRIA taking up your “cause” as a political matter. MRIA’s interest throughout the process is strictly about scientific and professional integrity. Want to know more? Call CEO Kara Mitchelmore at 416-6429793 ext. 8724. d.r.

Dear Dr. Ruth: I used to think correlation implied causation. Then I took an MRIA statistics course, and now I don’t. The course helped, right?

Outliar Dear Outliar, You’re just messing with us, right? d.r.

Please send your questions for Dr. Ruth to rcorbin@corbinpartners.com.

La Belle Vue Julie Fortin SOM inc. (Québec) Gérer la réputation, c’est bien; écouter, c’est mieux!

J’arrive de Cuba! Ah, la mer des Caraïbes, le soleil, la chaleur… et la malbouffe.

En consommatrice avertie, j’avais pris connaissance des commentaires des consommateurs sur le site TripAdvisor avant mon départ. Un hôtel paradisiaque, me suis-je dis, même si j’avais noté plusieurs plaintes concernant la nourriture.

Or, les réponses systématiques et bienveillantes du directeur de l’hôtel m’avaient convaincue qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’un réel problème : « Je suis désolé que vous n’ayez pas apprécié notre nourriture, car 90 % des gens qui commentent ici en sont satisfaits », disait-il par exemple.

C’est donc avec confiance que je me suis envolée vers le paradis, persuadée que notre bon directeur avait réglé le problème. Sur place, j’ai compris que ce dernier s’occupait davantage de l’image de son établissement que des nausées de ses clients.

La gestion de la e-réputation est fondamentale pour une entreprise hôtelière, mais elle n’est pas suffisante : les lacunes soulevées par les consommateurs risquent de rester lettre morte. C’est là que la recherche marketing à l’aide des médias sociaux prend tout son sens, à condition bien sûr que l’on reconnaisse aussi ses limites, en particulier celle de la représentativité : les commentaires sur les médias sociaux ne sont pas représentatifs de l’ensemble de la clientèle. Aussi, même s’ils sont minoritaires, les commentaires négatifs peuvent être symptomatiques d’un problème plus profond.

Alors de grâce, cher directeur, cessez de justifier votre inaction en évoquant la grande satisfaction de vos clients sur un site de voyage… et écoutez plutôt ce que les clients déçus ont à dire. Je vous suggère également d’aller vous promener dans la salle à manger de votre bel établissement. Vous y constaterez que de nombreux plats demeurent intouchés et qu’il n’y a rien de tel qu’une étude rigoureuse sur le terrain pour dégager des pistes d’amélioration.

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BOOK

REVIEWS

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A Review of

Neuromarketing in Action

By Patrick M. Georges, Anne-Sophie Bayle Tourtoulou, Michel Badoc, Published by Kogan, 2013 Reviewed by Prasanna Bidkar The authors believe that the bias in statistical methods can be eliminated by use of neuroscience and understanding of the cognitive processes. The rationale is that people can give wrong answers on a survey out of privacy concerns or other reasons. However, it is almost impossible to falsify PET scans or MRI images.

Chapter 1, Marketing and its Limitations in Understanding Human Intelligence, highlights the current problems in traditional Marketing.

Marketing decisions are based on data from surveys. These data are often analysed by rational employees who are trained in logical and analytical reasoning. While these data may establish correlations between a demographic and choices, buyers also base their decisions entirely on an impulse and simple things such as the label color or the location of the product along with other emotional reasons, which may not be captured in the survey. For example, we hardly see coffee placed next to cakes and cookies. However, Neuromarketing research may show that the smell of cake can evoke the desire for coffee (Memory by Association) and make customers buy coffee placed next to the cake on an impulse.

Chapter 2, Neuroscience as a Way to Discover the Secrets of Human Intelligence is theoretical and readers from non-medical background can feel overwhelmed by the information on brain anatomy and the chemical process in the brain.

The authors also discuss the mechanisms people use to judge products as good or bad, along with how different decision making mechanisms kick-in depending on different stimuli. A salesperson can use the information to influence a sale and people in general can perhaps spot the tactic when they face a salesperson next time. The chapter has a lot of information, but the historical interlude disorients the reader, before the authors

focus back to the various brain functions and mechanisms.

In part 3, Improving the Efficiency of the Marketing Action, the authors discuss the six stages, from external stimuli to the buying decision, that customers go through and show how to influence them in each of these stages. Chapter 8, Be Moving, shows how to keep the customer engaged after you have their attention. The authors explain that the salesperson must maintain an optimum stress level in customers to keep them interested.

The last two chapters in this part discuss various applications of cognitive optimization techniques in designing products, organizing the shopping experience, and structuring the communication between customers and sales teams.

In summary, the book gives enough information about neuroscience and cognitive processes to understand the Neuromarketing concept. Readers from Marketing domain will get to learn the theory behind product placement, colors and scents used in the retail areas and equip them to spot these techniques in the real world. The book is a good read for anyone who works in the retail industry and constantly interacts with customers.

The principle is: understand how the brain responds to different stimuli, and expose people to the stimuli that trigger the target desires and emotions. The departure from traditional marketing is – “Listen to what your customer is thinking, not what she is saying.�

Prasanna Bidkar is co-founder and partner at RightMix Technologies, and regularly blogs on social media and technology for small business owners. He can be reached at prasanna.bidkar@gmail.com.

BO O K R EVI EWS

A Review of

Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis Reviewed by Larry Rockoff The focus of “Now You See It” by Stephen Few lies at the intersection of data analysis and visualization. As described by its subtitle, “Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis,” the author’s purpose is to explain how visual charts and graphs can complement the process of data analysis by allowing the analyst to perceive patterns in data. Filled with many illuminating graphics, this book is well-researched, persuasive and just plain fun to read.

The tone is set in the introduction when the author states that “despite… the construction of huge data warehouses that we can access at incredible speeds, the business intelligence industry has largely ignored the fact that intelligence resides in human beings, and that information only becomes valuable when it is understood, not just when it’s made available.”

The book is divided into two main sections, followed by a summary of new trends in the field. The first few chapters presents general concepts of visualization and the basic elements that are common to all types of graphs. This addresses basic aspects of perception and how we perceive and respond to different visual elements. One particularly useful chapter covers the basic ways in which analysts can interact with data, such as by sorting, aggregating or applying filters.

With this background in place, the second section of the book delves into specific areas of analysis, including time-series, ranking, deviation, distribution and correlation.

For each topic, the reader is shown typical analysis scenarios and treated to an informed discussion as to the most appropriate charting techniques for that purpose. For example, in treating time-series analysis, the author focuses on the value of line charts, but also covers the use of radar charts, box plots

and other other miscellaneous charting options. Consideration is given to the use of logarithmic scales, running averages and lagging indicators.

One of the strengths of this book is that it is not specific to any particular piece of software. Graphics are taken from many different software packages, such as Tableau and Excel, but the author doesn’t get bogged down in the specifics of how to create charts.

The focus is much more on the big picture of the value of visualization. There is the occasional mention of some of the limitations of visualization, but that type of discussion is kept to a minimum. All in all, as an evangelist for visualization, the author makes a compelling case for our increased awareness and use of visualization techniques in one’s analysis toolkit, and this book is an excellent vehicle for exploring that topic.

Larry Rockoff is the author of “Microsoft Excel 2013 for the Business Analyst” and other computing titles. For more information on his publications, please visit larryrockoff.com.

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