NewMR Recap: What's Hot in Market Research

This morning we had the pleasure of sitting in on NewMR's lecture called "What's Hot in Market Research" presented by Ray Poynter of Vision Critical. A lot of times people ask, "What's going to be the next big thing in Market Research? What's going out of style? What can we expect in the next 5-10 years?" Today Ray addressed all these things and more. He went into what's hot, what's not so hot, what's going to be hot, as well as some speculations about what the future holds. We'll get right into it but first let us give a big thanks and shoutout to NewMR for allowing us to be the Platinum Sponsor for all events in 2014.

What's still hot?

When thinking about the future and what it holds for market research, let's not get too caught up that we forget what still works and what's still hot. Right now, traditional mobile research is still a mainstay and will continue to be for some time. In fact,

"20-30% of all online surveys are already being started by people using mobile devices." 

This is simply too large a proportion to ignore. CATI and CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) are still important, and in many countries this is the most prevalent technique. Communities are still hot And finally, let's not forget about DIY research.

What's hot?

There are a lot of topics in market research that are gaining a lot of traction and becoming the next big thing, but Ray narrowed it down to three things that he believes are the hottest things in the game right now. First, Beacons. You may know them as Apple's iBeacons, these small rock-looking objects work by using Low Energy Bluetooth to transmit signals to smartphones. Say a person walks into a Starbucks with an iBeacon. In that instant, a message will be sent to their smartphone with a coupon, survey, or marketing message from Starbucks. The possibilities for this are just endless. Ray also noted that "in the moment" research is the hottest thing. It is important to conduct research right after something happened, not days later or weeks later. This improves recall and the quality of data. Lastly, Micro Surveys are becoming very popular. Short, 2-3 question surveys are quicker and grab people's attention.

What's bubbling?

So, we've seen what's still hot and what's super hot, but what about things that are on the horizon for the next 5-10 years? Text analytics is definitely going to make a comeback in the next couple of years. Web Messaging has already proven itself in terms of popularity, but researchers have not been able to tap into this yet. Apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Line have experienced faster adoption rates than Facebook and Twitter, so there is a tremendous amount of potential for these. Research bots may also become prevalent in years to come. Twitter already admits that 8.5% of its users are bots!

What's not so hot?

Finally, what's not so hot in market research anymore? Facial coding is not so hot because it is very limited. While it does have many applications and uses, it can really only be used as an enhancement to qualitative research, not a standalone technique. Webcam qual falls under a similar category, as it wants some of the face-to-face benefits but doesn't work quite as well. Finally, some people may not agree with this, but Social Media Research is hard to filter through and provides mediocre results. While monitoring conversations in social media is important, it has not grown into what it was expected to.