Kantar's Profiles Blog

“You need to allow smartphone respondents into your survey!" Those of us in the business of survey design and panel management have been telling researchers this for years now, but we need to show you and not just tell you why.

In our latest Q&A, Chris Stevens, Chief Research Officer at Lightspeed, reviews some of the sticking points around this. 

Today’s consumers already have a voice online; they publish opinions, build their own sites, post videos and share content. Technology is enabling an increase in mobile activity – allowing people to connect everywhere and at any time. Because of this, it stands to reason that that the way we’re interacting with respondents is shifting. Market researchers are now facing the challenge of being on the consumer’s terms and competing for time with them.

According to a January 2017 Pew Research report, the vast majority of Americans – 95% – now own a cellphone of some kind; the share of Americans that own smartphones rose to 77%, up from just  35% in Pew Research Center’s first survey of smartphone ownership conducted just six years ago. And recently, MediaPost cited Cisco's Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast (2016 to 2021) which reported, “that by 2021, more members of the global population will use mobile phones -- 5.5 billion -- than have bank accounts at 5.4 billion, running water at 5.3 billion or landlines at 2.9 billion.” There’s no doubting that mobile is now mainstream, but online surveys still outrank mobile surveys in digital data collection methods according to the latest GRIT Report.

2016 marked an amazing year; I had the pleasure of meeting, re-connecting and working across many different countries and cultures. My experience revealed that having local market knowledge facilitates greater business-wide alignment on key goals. From Singapore to India; Australia to Hong Kong, each location showcased a distinctive, colourful culture. However, even through all this uniqueness, I encountered a common need: a deeper understanding of consumers. One can see why local brands are so successful in many cases, while global brands are constantly challenged in gaining significant market share.

Recently, at one of her concerts, Adele called out a fan for having their phone in front of their face for the entire show. She told the fan to be 'in the moment' and enjoy the concert. While I haven’t been lucky enough to score a ticket to an Adele concert, I recently attended the 2016 Market Research in the Mobile World North America conference. You may wonder what the connection between these two things is…however, there is one.

We understand that changing a tracker can be a daunting prospect, but with more than 50% of panellists now registering via tablets and smartphones, it is essential that trackers are designed for today's technology. By excluding or limiting mobile and tablet responders, you could be missing out on the full scope of your target audience and their valuable insights. Here are simple, but game changing tactics that we recommend when reviewing your tracker.

Mobile phones provide an ideal method to collect and understand consumer behavior. Given their ability to capture real time responses, there are endless opportunities with mobile market research that we can utilize or further develop. As researchers, to capture authentic and honest input, we must implement best practices. Marketing researchers need to think mobile and consumer, first.

Real time insights and predictive analytics build better strategies and better business performance. As we re-write the rules of marketing research, data has become the digital fuel to deliver genuine insights. However, as industry stakeholders, we must capture data that is insightful, not invasive.

This year’s CASRO Digital Conference concentrated on the collective knowledge of research in the digital space with a focus on three key areas: implementing Mobile First, focusing on the panelist experience and the emerging importance of video.