We are at the end of a decade that saw significant change within the marketing research industry. If you feel like you’re running out of time to catch up on this year’s MR topics and trends, worry no more – Quirk’s has you covered! We went back to our article archive and compiled a list of the most-viewed articles published in the Quirk's e-newsletter and magazine in 2019.
Most-viewed articles of 2018
(listed in no particular order)
What exactly is the ROI of insights?
What value do you provide your organization? This is the hardest question to answer. What accomplishment can be pointed to that adds value to the company? For that matter, what is the actual value of the entire insights team? Are corporations just throwing good money away? What does the function contribute to the business results? If leaders can’t put a dollar figure on it, how can a CEO or CMO justify the function’s seat at the table? Read more.
Millennials are not parenting like their parents did
Millennials are now the centerpiece of the new family dynamic. Nine in 10 new parents today are Millennials (ages 22-38) and so if your goal is to “talk to parents” – especially parents of younger children – you need to understand how to talk to Millennials. As data from Open Mind Strategy’s Youth IQ syndicated insight tool (which surveys over 1,500 respondents between the ages of 13-37 twice a quarter) clearly conveys, Millennial parents are a cohort who is approaching parenting with a new lens, making new rules, taking on new roles and not necessarily following in the footsteps of the parents who came before them. Read more.
Tips for recognizing bad research
In 1954, Darrell Huff called out the dangers of misrepresenting statistical data in his book, “How to Lie With Statistics.” I don’t know how big of a problem bad survey data and misinformation was in the 1950s but if you fast forward to 2019, social media and 24-hour news cycles have created an explosion of content that purports to be factual. Chances are, a percentage of it is not.
As a professional market researcher, I probably spend more time reading the small print on market research and public opinion surveys than most. Read more.
Study looks at future of marketing on Instagram
As more brands are turning to social media to connect with consumers, it’s no surprise that marketers are working to utilize the many features on Instagram. Earlier this year, Social Media Today and the team from SEMrush published a survey of over 800 digital marketers in the State of Instagram Marketing 2019 report, sharing insights into what markers are doing on Instagram, what they're seeing success with and where they see future potential. Read more.
Building a behavioral science-driven organization
This is the question at the core of the insights industry. For roughly the last 20 years, behavioral science has become the accepted, recognized principle for examining this question.
But the adoption of behavioral science to transform the way large companies run their businesses has been slow. Corporate market research remains behind psychology. This is because behavioral science is a challenge to classical marketing, which presumes everyone operates at a highly rational way. Read more.
The importance of understanding advertising in different environments
Radical changes in media, technology and consumers’ lives have made it much more difficult to launch successful ad campaigns. Marketers have been particularly concerned with figuring out who has been exposed to an ad and how those consumers responded – a focus strongly connected to the big data revolution. With digital advertising now commanding close to $450 billion in annual spend, the demand for some kind of provable ROI is palpable. Read more.
A hybrid approach to ad testing
Some great ideas are born at the wrong time, before the world is truly ready for them. Webvan, the home grocery delivery service, went bankrupt in 2001 in spectacular dot-com fashion. Microsoft launched its SPOT smartwatches way back in 2004, only to close the program four years later.
Yet, when you look down at many people’s wrists today, you’ll find some version of an Apple Watch or Fitbit worn proudly. Read more.
The fair market value dilemma in health care research
Fair market value (FMV) is a challenging issue, complicating the research process and can be felt at every level of our industry. As the demand for insights increases, the pressure to control clinician compensation has also increased. This has led to a fragile push and pull; with increased demand and declining response rates, market research and sample partners are often forced to undertake complex recruits with declining or highly variable incentives. Hence, we are faced with unanswered questions, such as, what is the impact to the insights we gather? Read more.