On-the-go and in-the-moment

Editor’s note: Tanja Pferdekaemper is the head of consulting in the Cologne, Germany offices of Globalpark, a panel community and survey software provider.

With already-declining response rates, the market research industry entered the economic crisis in trouble and is emerging from it with a strong call for doing things different. Better, faster, cheaper. These mantras echoed over the last year and have been responded to with forays into proprietary panels and the social media community space to see how to extract insights from qualitative threads among consumers.

Another strong option? Mobile research.

The climate and conditions to support mobile research are here. High rates of mobile phone adoption? Check. Coverage? Usability? Mobile Internet penetration? Check, check and check. But the real stimulus to its application is market demand, the demand for convenience and for research respondents to be able to select the best time, place and channel through which to share their opinions.

(A definition of what we mean by mobile research: self-led participation in surveys using one’s own mobile phone via mobile Web, SMS or MMS. We do not mean moderator-assisted interviewing with a mobile [CAPI] or telephone research to mobile numbers [CATI].)

As we work to earn respondents’ trust by keeping the survey process engaging and satisfying (and not overlong and frustrating), one of the most important steps a researcher can take is to go where your audience is and operate on their terms. The mobile phone is a great vehicle for doing that.

Leapfrogged landline phones

Adoption of mobile phone technology has been amazingly swift and widespread, with some countries now boasting near 95 percent penetration. Not surprisingly, penetration of the landline telephone, a communication tool that market researchers have relied on for decades to reach consumers, is in decline. Some emerging markets have leapfrogged landline phones altogether, making the mobile an ideal route to conduct research with consumers in countries/regions such as China, India and Africa.

What this means is that those researchers relying on CATI will find it increasingly time-consuming and expensive to use the methodology to deliver the sample sizes and representation requested by clients.

In fact, many researchers are likely doing “mobile research” whether they know it or not! More and more, online surveys intended for desktop access are being taken on mobile phones - or, potentially even worse, when respondents attempt to respond via mobile Web, the surveys can’t be accessed through a mobile device.

Go far beyond

The No. 1 reason to use mobile research is convenience to the respondent. But the benefits of the channel go far beyond that. The mobile phone offers: access to people otherwise unreachable, to locations otherwise unattainable; speed, with near real-time responses and ability to react quickly to feedback; and enriched insights including in-the-moment feedback, photographs and geolocation, whether prompted through triggers like quick-response codes on ads, or self-led as is common for a diary approach.

Access. As more consumers use the mobile Web, the increasing penetration of mobile and smartphones offers new possibilities for market researchers. For example, almost all 14-49-year-olds - a key target group for advertising and media planners - own a mobile phone, as well as certain harder-to-reach audiences such as younger consumers and B2B professionals.

Younger respondents in particular engage with mobile research. This is hardly surprising given the array of devices they own and amount of time they spend on them. In fact, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a new generation of “multimedia children” was spending seven hours a day on their smartphones, iPods and games. U.K. firm Fly Research found that 95 percent of its surveys were opened when sent by text, compared to 25 percent by e-mail among their mobile panel of 18-25-year-olds.

Access also relates to where your audience is. Guy Rolfe, global mobile knowledge leader at Kantar Group, has been working with the group to facilitate ways of carrying out research in a whole range of territories. He cites East Africa as an example where face-to-face research is very expensive, and in those cases mobile either replaces or supplements the approach.

A key advantage of using mobile handsets for market research is that respondents can be reached on the move. Consequently they can be asked to provide opinions and attitudes quickly and at the point of experience. This can increase the validity of the survey results, giving pure, context-related information about experiences and emotions within a situation and in the environment where the exchange with the customer takes place. This could be directly at the point of sale, in shopping malls, retail parks and service points, at public events, trade shows or even on the road. The technique has been used by event organizers tracking satisfaction levels to measure sponsorship recall at major sporting events or for diary studies where participants send a text or photo whenever they encounter a brand.

Speed. Increasingly marketers are demanding instant feedback on their campaigns. In tests carried out on its mobile panel in 2009, Lightspeed Research found 60 percent of completed surveys were returned within 15 minutes of distribution and 90 percent within an hour - response rates simply not experienced on any other platform. Fly Research has found similar rapid response rates: on average 85 percent of responses are returned within two hours on their mobile panel of 18-25-year-olds.

In one case study given at the Mobile Research Conference 2010 in March, Linda Neville of Coca-Cola discussed how Coke researchers tracked emotional responses to messages on the product in-store, as well as advertisements, in order to update print ads.

The project used the mobile phone as one research platform to help Coca-Cola understand the various touchpoints respondents - who had been recruited through an online panel - had with a short list of specific brands.

The first stage of research involved an online questionnaire to understand people’s relationships to the brands. Then, using their mobile phones for the second stage of the project, respondents were asked to text whenever they came into contact with one of these brands over a period of a week and reply to a text containing a code frame using four simple characters.

These texts provided information, including where they saw the brand, how they felt about the touchpoint and how likely that made them to choose the brand next time.

The mobile approach met a number of the key objectives, including providing research findings in real time, which allowed Coca-Cola to quickly make changes in its ongoing “topical” campaign in newspapers as the results were analyzed. It was also able to capture experiences with the brands being measured as they happened, including photos.

Enriched insights. In addition to in-the-moment feedback, the mobile platform offers the ability to “go where no researcher has gone before.” At least, without the time and expense typically associated with it.

The mobile phone is, by nature, a personal device. As such, it allows researchers to get up close and personal to respondents. It has been found that individuals are more likely to respond to “private” questions and diaries using their mobile device than they would online or by telephone. What’s more, people are happy to send photographs and videos of themselves, brands, events, advertisements - almost anything you ask them to.

In one example, Nokia launched a project to gain a better understanding of “brand love.” Mobile research was used as one of the methodologies because it allowed respondents to capture interactions with brands and emotions as they happened. Each respondent was given a mobile phone and asked to take pictures and videos of themselves in their daily lives when they came across a brand they either loved or hated. Respondents were then able to use a moblog (mobile blog) to upload videos and pictures to the site. Selected participants were then invited back to discuss the findings and probe the idea of brand love in group forums.

Reviews are mixed

What does the research community think? Reviews are definitely mixed, and the value of mobile varies considerably across businesses. But if the recently published annual Globalpark Market Research Software Survey Report is anything to go by, mobile research is going to experience a boost soon. [Quirk’s will feature Tim Macer’s review of the report in an upcoming issue. - Ed.] Market researchers across the globe were asked to comment on the viability of mobile research. As shown in Figure 1, the larger agencies had a more optimistic perspective, with two-thirds saying it is either viable now or “increasingly viable in many situations.” Medium-sized companies and those from Asia-Pacific were more cautious, with just over a third responding positively to the question. 

These results are hardly surprising when we look at the benefits of mobile research according to those surveyed (see Figure 2). The top four are all closely related to the respondents - their convenience, encouraging them to participate, being closer to their “moment of truth” and reach. Interestingly these benefits are all quality issues rather than efficiency or opportunities for collecting new types of data.

But, before mobile research goes mass-market, there are a couple of hurdles to overcome. Data integration will become a big issue for the future. Finding ways to combine results from different methodologies will be essential if researchers are to reach consumers on the devices they use, and want to use, to complete surveys.

Online panel providers need to address the fact that online surveys will inevitably, and increasingly, be completed on the mobile Web. At present, many simply screen out respondents who carry out surveys in this way but as smartphone penetration increases, they will need to use software that recognizes the device and adapts the interface for the user. It will become increasingly important to deliver online surveys that are optimized for both the desktop and the mobile Web.

I for one hope that the future means there will be more companies using the technique and exploiting the significant benefits it offers the researcher. Panel companies are today focusing on improving the respondent experience and, as we’ve seen, the larger market research agencies see a real role for mobile research in achieving this goal.

The early users of mobile research are already learning from the world of mobile marketing, using new technologies to push the boundaries of what is possible. For example, Kantar’s Rolfe discussed examples of augmented reality used in mobile surveys at the Mobile Research Conference, and we’ve all heard the term “surveytainment.” Increasingly in our world of many personal communication devices consumers are difficult to reach, and even harder to engage with. Mobile research can play a vital part in accessing and engaging respondents for mutual benefit.

Established roots

Mobile research is still in its infancy, but it has certainly established roots in that there have been several practical applications of the methodology - a lot of lessons learned and experiences and best practices shared. For many of us, it is clear that mobiles are relatively unavoidable. But it isn’t something that should be grudgingly accepted - the opportunities it opens beyond pure data collection are abundant and it offers the chance for organizations looking to better understand consumer behavior to glean exciting insights.

Five tips for mobile surveys

1. Keep the SMS invite short (think Twitter not War and Peace).

2. Make sure you cover the costs a respondent might incur.

3. Avoid complex matrix questions.

4. Encourage active engagement - photos work well.

5. Surveys sent between 5-6 p.m. regularly receive the highest response rates.