Off the grid, out of reach

Editor’s note: Pablo Smith Ogarrio is vice president, business development, at Directions In Research Inc., San Diego.

As researchers have stated emphatically over the past few years, the Latino population has become a major force in the U.S. economy. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there will be 47.8 million Latinos living in the United States by next year, representing 15.5 percent of total U.S. residents. This number is expected to double by the year 2050 to 102.6 million, representing 24.4 percent of the total U.S. population. Along with this dramatic surge, U.S. Latino purchasing power is also supposed to increase significantly. According toHispanic Business, U.S. Latino purchasing power stood at $870 billion in 2008 (9.3 percent of total U.S. purchasing power), and it is projected to reach as much as $1.3 trillion within the next 10 years.

As a result of these compelling numbers, we as market researchers need to figure out how to reach out effectively to the ever-growing Latino community so that we can provide our clients with the most accurate research results.

Up to this point, the most common quantitative research technique has been landline CATI phone interviewing. While this method of research has been quite effective and offers reliable results, it is becoming increasingly more challenging to reach certain segments of the population who no longer use landlines. In fact, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) estimated that 22 percent of Latino adults lived without landlines in 2008. Therefore, in the year 2009, we must ask ourselves what steps we need to take to connect with those members of the Latino community who are effectively “silent” and thus unreachable in our studies.

One possible way to reach Latinos without landlines is cell phone research, which has gained considerable attention recently within the industry. This type of research certainly has potential because Latinos rely more on their cell phones than the average American. According to the 2008 Pew Internet & American Life Project, 56 percent of Latinos said they used their phones to send or receive a text message, play a mobile game, send or receive e-mail, access the Internet, play music, instant-message or get a map or directions, compared with 50 percent for African-Americans and 38 percent for whites.

In addition, cell phone usage is especially high among younger Latinos, a demographic that market researchers are often striving to reach. Latinos aged 18 to 34 use an average of 1,200 minutes per month, compared to 950 minutes for the general population, according to San Francisco-based Telephia, which provides syndicated consumer research to the telecommunications and media industries.

Though there is no conclusive evidence as to why Latinos use cell phones more than the general population, several studies have indicated that there are cultural factors at play. For example, Latinos tend to have larger and stronger family connections, which spread across the country and often into Latin America. As a result, they need to use their cell phones more often to stay in touch with family and friends.

As a Mexican-American myself, I can attest that the great majority of my Latino friends and family rely entirely on their cell phones to reach me and none of them currently have landlines. While my circle of family and friends certainly do not constitute a scientific study, it does speak to the prevalence of cell phones amongst Latinos.

Given the fact that Latinos use their cell phones frequently, it seems logical that market researchers would benefit from using cell phone research to connect with those Latinos that are underrepresented in our studies. It is more probable that conducting studies with cell phones in conjunction with landlines would yield a more accurate representation of the Latino community. However, before taking steps in this direction of cell phone research, we as an industry must address several challenges:

Legal obstacles

In 1991 Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which makes it illegal for solicitation calls to be made to wireless phone numbers without clear permission from the individual to whom a number has been assigned. Telemarketers cannot randomly call cell phones without prior consent. However, since we are only gathering opinions without the intent to sell, we as market researchers are exempt from this rule. Given that many Latinos already struggle with living in a country where their native language is not officially spoken and often prefer to remain under the radar, going through all these tasks to fulfill the requirements of the TCPA might be perceived as burdensome to many Latinos.

Cell phone sample

On top of the challenge of having the TCPA in place, it is already difficult to locate a representative sampling of Latinos, some of whom live in the shadows due to various personal, economic and legal reasons. And when we are able to locate a representative sampling of Latinos, we also face other challenges, such as defining interviewing and calling parameters, working with cell phone providers to find appropriate numbers that can be dialed for research purposes, not being able to screen for disconnects and not being able to pinpoint geographic locations of cell phone numbers.

Financial concerns

With cell phone research, there are financial challenges that need to be overcome for both the researcher and the survey participant. For the researcher, cell phone studies can be much more costly than landline studies. For example, researchers must always manually dial respondents, as outlined in the TCPA guidelines, which prohibit auto-dialing. As a result, researchers must spend more money and time on training research interviewers for cell phone studies which have significantly more rules and regulations than landline studies.

Likewise, Latino respondents also incur costs in cell phone studies. Many Latinos have tight budgets and elect to use cell phones that have pre-paid minutes. Thus, if they consider participating in a study, they have to think twice about whether they want to use their cell phone minutes. And, of course, if researchers should decide to provide financial incentives to overcome this hurdle, they then pay more money out-of-pocket for a cell phone study versus a landline study.

Safety

Unfortunately, because people use cell phones in all different types of locales and often use cell phones while participating in other activities, safety becomes an issue. For example, if a Latino respondent were driving a car or watching children at the pool while responding to a survey, their attention could be diverted from the activity they are doing and accidents could occur. Researchers certainly do not want to be held responsible for injuries while a respondent participates in one of their surveys.

Accuracy

When people talk on cell phones, they often speak in public places where the level of privacy may be compromised. For example, they might be speaking on their cell phone at a relative’s home or out on the town with friends. As a result, respondents may not be as forthcoming with answers that they may feel are sensitive in nature. Of course, an interviewer can attempt to ascertain whether the respondent is in an appropriate place to take a survey, but the researcher has little knowledge of whether the respondent is being truthful.

Not underestimate the value

In closing, though there are many challenges to Latino cell phone studies and more investigation is needed, we as an industry should not underestimate the value in pursuing this type of research. We need to stay on top of the curve and push ourselves to figure out how we can best utilize cell phone research to our advantage.

Already some of the dilemmas mentioned above may have some solutions. For example, we can all work on training our interviewers to ascertain whether respondents are located in appropriate locations where personal safety is not an issue. Others hurdles, however, like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, are likely here to stay for some time and will require more work on our parts to overcome.

No matter what the future holds, it will be interesting to see where our industry goes with cell phone research, or perhaps, in this particular case, where the Latino community takes us with their cell phones.