Editor's note: For his annual contribution to our international research issue, our West Coast ad rep/roving reporter Lane Weiss stayed close to home, traveling to Montreal to speak with Elaine Rioux, president and CEO of Montreal-based Contemporary Research Centre.

Lane Weiss: What research methods are most commonly used in Canada and in the province of Quebec? 

Elaine Rioux: Telephone is the biggest, followed by focus groups and then all of the other techniques such as mall research.

Is Internet research becoming more popular?

There is a slow increase in Internet research. It is far from taking over any of the standard methodologies. But it is very feasible.

What are some of the ways you see the Internet affecting market research?

The No. 1 effect I have seen recently in going to research conferences in the U.S. involves incentives. Telephone is the biggest research method here in Canada and we are used to doing studies for which we don't pay respondents, unless it's medical and you have to provide some kind of incentive. What Internet research is doing is creating this pool of cooperating respondents who expect to get paid in some fashion or another. It may not be actual money but they may earn points, for example.

Do language issues have an effect on conducting research there? If so, how do you compensate for those effects?

The official language here in Montreal is French so there is an effect because you have to think about simultaneous translation, you have to use a local moderator because you have to have someone who can speak French. The rest of Canada is in English. A lot of people feel that if you have a translation from France you can bring it here but that doesn't work. French there and French here are very different, just as the English in North America is different from the English in Britain.

Do you often conduct some interviews in French and some in English?

Absolutely. It depends on where you are doing the research. If you are doing it solely in Montreal, it's going to be in French. If you are doing it in the rest of Canada, it will be in English.

Do clients specify that interviews must be conducted in French or in English, or does it depend on the subject matter that is being researched?

We have clients, mostly our American clients, who will call up and want to do research here in Montreal and they want us to get English-speaking respondents and nine out of 10 times we'll say no because you're not getting the true representation of this market. It would be like going to Toronto and trying to find French-speaking respondents. You're not researching the right people, so we as researchers are not doing you a service by letting that happen.

If you are talking to someone in Quebec about the new packaging for Tide soap, for example, it doesn't make sense to do the groups in English. Why are you forcing people to use English when their advertising is in French, the TV is French? If you want to know the Montreal market, the Quebec market, you have to do the research in French.

What are some of the problems facing marketing research in Canada and around the globe?

Certainly the same things are having an effect here in Canada as in the U.S. The pool of respondents that are ready to do any kind of research is getting smaller and smaller. As all the polls are showing, cooperation rates are down so it is making it harder and harder to do research. It's making it more expensive because of the cooperation rate.

Are there privacy laws in Canada that make it difficult to conduct legitimate marketing research? Does telemarketing have a damaging effect on legitimate research?

First, on the privacy law issue, right now there is nothing specific. But we have to be very careful and keep an eye on what is going on in the U.S. and go to conferences such as those put on by CMOR [the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research]. Canada is very influenced by what goes on in the U.S. So if it becomes an issue in the U.S., it may later become an issue in Canada.

CAMRO [the Canadian Association of Marketing Research Organizations] is keeping an eye on that. It could become an issue because telemarketing has been a problem since the beginning due to the effect it has on respondent cooperation. People are getting more calls at home and you say no and yet the telemarketers persist. There has also been sugging. It has made people leery.

How has the consolidation in the market research industry, both in the U.S. and around the world, affected the industry? Is consolidation helpful or harmful?

Personally, I think it is helpful. I don't think we really have much choice. Look at the other industries outside of research that are consolidating. The smaller organizations are getting hurt, but really for research companies to be part of the game long-term, they have to look at what clients want now. They want service quicker, they want to deal with one person. With larger firms, they get to call one person and they can handle the entire world for them. That is an added value. Plus at the same time, if you can form partnerships with other firms, you can help your clients. If people are doing business here in Canada, I want them to call me or another firm here because we can understand all the nuances and differences in our cultures.

Do your clients have reasonable expectations about what they can do with or learn from marketing research? Do they make effective use of the information they obtain from research?

I think the majority do, but like anything, you have clients who want the sun, the sky and the moon and they don't want to pay for it. There are those who, when you get the information for them, it's not the answers they want to hear. But I think you get that in any kind of business. You have reasonable and you have unreasonable. The majority are reasonable.

What things could marketing research companies be doing to help their clients make more effective use of marketing research data?

There will always be a few clients who don't listen, just as there are bad researchers who fudge the data and hurt us all. But the people I have been fortunate to work with are coming up with great ideas. I see more partnerships forming with the end-user client and the actual consultant/researcher. And I think everybody has something to gain by that.

Have you seen trends in the use of marketing research in Canada? Are certain kinds of companies or industries doing more or less research, or doing research for the first time?

Our volume has decreased but the number of clients is the same. The U.S. economy definitely effects the Canadian economy. Probably about 35-40 percent of our clients are in the U.S. They're just doing fewer projects. We often will deal with U.S-based research firms who need a Canadian partner and as their business volume has decreased, that of course effects us. At the MRA conference in June in Washington, I talked to other research firms who said that their volume was good but not where their expectations had been. Everybody is worried.

As for trends in the kind of research being conducted, I have seen more and more companies wanting to get closer to consumers and see how they live and use products. It's like all the reality-based TV shows that are on these days. I call it reality marketing research.

Are the research departments in the client companies growing or shrinking? Are client companies looking at research providers as consultants in information management, or still just as data-gatherers?

In the '90s, there was downsizing and companies went the consultant route and cut down their marketing research departments. They are still doing that; they are not increasing their MR departments. So there hasn't been any great change. If a company is set up so that they use a marketing research firm just as a data gatherer, and the client company is going to do the analysis themselves internally, they have stayed with that mentality.

But if you are smart as an end-user company, you are using someone on the outside to conduct your research because you are going to get an unbiased opinion, hopefully, and get the true facts and have someone really analyze it. When you depend solely on internal people, you aren't getting any fresh ideas or an outside perspective.

Do you think more companies will rely on a global marketing approach or will they tailor their marketing efforts, and by extension their marketing research efforts, to each country?

It's fine to be global, but everybody needs to listen to each individual country. When we are educating our clients, we say it's great to be global but there are distinctions. In Canada for example, Quebec has always been culturally very different from everybody else. But you have that in the U.S. as well. What works in New York won't necessarily work in Paris or Beijing. When you are globalizing you have to get good advice from within those different countries.