What a year.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that a large number articles published this year focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on consumers, businesses and the marketing and insight industry in general.
Interested in checking out Quirk's most popular articles published in 2020? We went back to our archive and compiled a few of the most-viewed e-newsletter and magazine articles of 2020.
Most-viewed articles of 2020
(listed in no particular order)
Microsoft’s innovative research reveals what customers truly value
COVID-19 has thrust us all into a new world of uncertainty and adaptation almost overnight. Businesses have had to suddenly work in unexpected ways and at an unprecedented scale.
Microsoft has been committed to assisting customers as they go through these transformations by helping them to enable collaboration remotely, increase productivity across devices and help workers be more creative and efficient, all while ensuring security is protected and risk managed. Read more.
Rethinking virtual ethnography: A crisis-generated opportunity
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” – Rahm Emanuel
At its core, ethnography is rooted in our ability to observe human behavior and the interaction of humans as social beings. As practitioners, ethnography calls for us to be both insightful researchers and powerful storytellers. Read more.
Unpacking consumer elasticity in a COVID-19 world
There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we get to dive deeper into consumer elasticity (a concept I first floated over a decade ago). The bad news is that it’s relevant again because of the current economic turmoil brought on by COVID-19. Read more.
Sex in survey research
It's the most basic demographic we use to better understand targeted customers’ responses to our products and services in the surveys we conduct. It's sex. Yet our traditional, simplistic, binary method of addressing it appears radically out of touch with the times. Our survey methods need updating. This is not only to improve our abilities to better classify the marketing intelligence we collect but also to be as respectful as possible of customers. Read more.
Researchers, facing pandemic, are undaunted, ready for the challenge
Resilience is a something we’ve all had to exhibit lately, as the pandemic and its associated effects impact us in ways that seem to constantly change. Beyond the chaos visited upon our day-to-day existences, our professional lives have been upended. Most of us are now working from home, engaging with customers, colleagues and friends over Zoom calls. Sometimes that’s great. Other times it sucks. But, thanks to resilience, somehow we’re managing. That which does not kill us, right? Read more.
Presenting statistics to non-statisticians
Statisticians and data scientists have provided us with a host of powerful and sophisticated tools to help us gain insights from the data we collect. Communicating these insights to non-researchers has always been a critical challenge to market researchers. Read more.
How clear masks revealed areas for improvement in qual
As the news about Q2 spending and subsequent budget cuts rolls in, nearly everyone on the supplier side of the market research industry is asking themselves, how can we better adapt to life with COVID-19?
I looked at recent industry reports for direction. I read that buyers say their priority is getting truly insightful, actionable recommendations presented in a way that is engaging and motivating. Read more.
The diagnostic odyssey of rare-disease patients
In the rare-disease community, you hear a lot about zebras. Why? In medical school, students are taught, if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. That makes logical sense. What is the most likely diagnosis? It is more likely to be a common “horse” than a rare “zebra.” But, as you hear over and over from rare patients, zebras do exist. And physicians need to be aware of when to go beyond the horse to spot the zebra. Because the longer they suspect a horse, when it really is a zebra, the longer it will take to get to the correct diagnosis. Read more.
The value of research beyond ROI
As we start a new year, it’s time to step off the treadmill of our daily to-do list and think beyond the next deadline to see how others (partners and leaders) perceive the value of our work. With this in mind, we recently interviewed corporate researchers at Cox Automotive, asking how they view the value of the research they provide. What is their criteria for success? Below is a summary of the interviews. Read more.
How brand empathy can rebuild consumer confidence
Consumer brands, just like consumers, found themselves thoroughly disrupted by COVID-19 and look forward to the day it no longer defines what they do. But it’s hard to plan for a future when anxiety still hangs in the air and the next normal feels impossible to imagine. As tempting as it may be to limit current investments to triage, brands have the opportunity to not only keep their products on shelves, but help consumers transition back to feeling safe. Psychologists and strategists describe a population transformed by uncertainties. They, and the qualitative research field, see this as a critical time for brands to seek consumer perspectives and be part of rebuilding confidence, not just driving purchases. Read more.