Kantar's Profiles Blog

There is a lot going on in the world of market research. I have many clients who depend on us as their partner in fieldwork; we act as their hands and feet when ensuring that their fieldwork is executed with a desired quality standard, in budget and on time. In this rapidly changing environment we need to excel in all deliverables, and we depend on our people, technology and (sampling) sources to do so. The best package for clients is the preferred partner to work with in the market that has the ability to hit all the marks well. This means that with our client’s high frequency of projects, we need to excel on a daily basis. We are only as good as the delivery of our last (few) job(s).

According to a recent GRIT Sample Report* presented at SampleCon in January, 81% of industry buyers and sellers believe traditional panels are dying. At the same time, over half believe traditional panels are the gold standard. Traditional research panels do bring advantages that yield data quality; perhaps most important, they are not associated with loyalty programs. Rather, panelists are sequestered solely for the purpose of taking surveys which minimizes bias. Other important benefits include validation of people’s identities upon registration as well as extensive profiling that can be used not only for targeting, but also to shorten surveys by appending data. Double opt-in panels also facilitate the integration of behavioral and attitudinal data sets. 

A recent blog from Lisa Wilding-Brown likened panels to “the polar icecaps of the industry.” It referenced grabbing an ice cold beverage for the read and this was spot on - I found the article refreshing.

Why? Because another panel leader bluntly and accurately outlined the key issue for panels today - that surveys are no longer fit for purpose. We know more than 50 percent of panellists are engaging via their mobile devices, yet they complete only 2 percent of studies on these devices. What’s more, there is nearly double the drop off rate compared to PC users.

This blog post was originally published on GreenBookBlog.org.

Are the best days of online research panels behind us?

Research fieldwork methodologies come and go. Postal panels, central location interviewing and CATI all had their moments, but are now outmoded. By all indications, the peak of online panel research was more than five years ago when we had large, responsive, deeply profiled panels. Today, panels are less responsive; respondents do not remain in panels as long and two key benefits of panels, sample selection and panel profiling processes, have largely been replaced by lower quality dynamic pre-screening and respondent allocation algorithms.