In conjunction with our international research issue, we asked Lane Weiss, QMRR’s West Coast representative, to put on his reporter’s cap during his recent trip to Europe and bring back some perspectives on European marketing research. He chose as his interview subjects Gerhard Unholzer, a retired member of the board of directors of Infratest Burke AG, Munich; and Carlos Harding, director general, IPSOS, Paris.
With offices and affiliated companies around the world, Munich-based Infratest Burke is a full-service firm specializing in strategic and tactical marketing, and research on public policy, customer retention and personnel development. Paris-based IPSOS, with offices throughout Europe, is also a full-service firm, specializing in advertising, media, customer satisfaction and social research.
QMRR: What are the most popular research techniques in your respective countries?
Gerhard Unholzer: People in the United States may be surprised to hear that face-to-face interviewing is feasible and very popular in Germany. About 45 percent, as of 1996, of the interviews done here were face-to-face. Telephone interviewing is growing in popularity, now that telephone penetration has reached acceptable levels. It took a long time for the development of a reasonable figure for households with telephones. Only in the mid-’80s did the telephone penetration reach 80 percent. Since then telephone interviewing has grown quite a bit. In 1996, 44 percent of the research was done with telephone interviewing. In 1995 it was only 30 percent.
Long-term, we will run into problems similar to those in the U.S. Response rates are dropping. We can still live with it but you can see it, in five to 10 years, becoming a problem.
We see a trend toward access panels, an approach that European research buyers are still not used to but American buyers are. We still have to educate our European clients to get used to that type of data collection system. We never had to use access panels, for example, because we never needed them. It was so easy to get data from face-to-face or telephone.
Carlos Harding: Telephone interviewing is more popular in France, relative to other countries, but that doesn’t mean that other techniques are rejected. I don’t know what the split is, but I would estimate it to be about 40 percent telephone, 60 percent face-to-face. With more people working during the day, telephone gives you more flexibility in contacting them for research when they’re home. Qualitative research is very popular. It is different than what I would call Anglo-Saxon qualitative research. There is a strong school working with projective techniques, something that is maybe closer to consulting work than just collecting data on limited numbers of interviews.
Are there research techniques which aren’t used often, perhaps due to cultural reasons or privacy concerns?
GU: We don’t do much mall interviewing, because we have very few malls! We have similar discussions regarding invasion of privacy here in Europe as you are having in the U.S. Laws have been drafted which would have nearly made it impossible to do telephone interviewing. Fortunately that didn’t come to pass. But it is an ongoing discussion.
In certain cities, door-to-door interviewing becomes more difficult due to crime concerns. So it’s not so much invasion of privacy, it’s fear of crime and the tendency to the one-person household. It’s difficult to contact them because they are at work or out at night.
CH: In general, French people like to answer polls so we don’t see the level of refusal that exists in the States, where people don’t answer the phone or use answering machines to field the calls. I think that people like to participate in product testing because they feel they are providing their opinion in order to produce a better product.
What are some trends you’re seeing in research? Is technology having an effect?
GU: We see panels becoming more popular. Also, laptop computers are replacing paper-and-pencil research to a large degree. We had used laptops for a long time but we used them only for specific approaches like conjoint analysis. Now they are used for the usual day-to-day research. It has replaced 50 percent of our paper-and-pencil interviewing. It has all the advantages of being more precise and faster because of the speed of data transmission. It is also much better because if you have the right programs you can check for mistakes during the interview instead of afterward. It’s faster, it’s better, it’s much more effective.
CH: Technology is becoming more and more important in research. Certainly the use of laptops is becoming more important, not only in home tests but in many other types of data collection. It is a very strong way to lower the cost, to speed up the transmission of data. Laptops with multimedia capabilities are excellent for testing advertising, enabling respondents to clearly recognize sounds, advertising and colors. We also see panels similar to those of National Family Opinion and Market Facts in the States becoming more popular, particularly for product concept testing.
Are there government restrictions in Europe on conducting research that U.S. marketers should be aware of?
GU: In Germany, fortunately until now, there are no restrictions. There have been attempts with the European initiatives to make life miserable for us. As the marketing research trade groups are doing in the U.S., we are lobbying to make them understand the difference between direct marketing and marketing research, because some high-level politicians don’t understand the difference. They just see the word ‘marketing’ in marketing research and after that there’s no differentiation in their minds between research and selling.
What tips or guidance would you offer U.S. marketers who are going to conduct international research?
CH: The first thing to understand in international research is that nothing is black and white. Never take for granted things that seem to be evident. The same language, the same word, can have very different meanings.
Research companies and clients have to have a partnership. Rather than saying, ‘Here is what I want done, please do it this way, the way I am used to doing it,’ clients should be open to trying new methods. You have a wider spectrum of methods to use in Europe. To try to impose one method is difficult because there may be better options.
GU: First, look for a research firm who is able to do the research, draw samples, organize field work, one who has expertise in that market you’re working in. If you are a car manufacturer, for instance, you should buy research from a company that understands research and the auto industry. Without this expertise, the research company might not be able to understand what the client is looking for. You must consider the local brands. Take the beer market in Germany. We have more than 1,000 brands. The biggest company has a market share of 5 percent, so you have to know these markets, you have to understand these local brands and their importance. If you think of nationwide categories you might take the wrong approach.
A client should ask advice at two steps in the process: at the very beginning, for example, when drafting a questionnaire, ask the research company about their opinion; and at the other end of the project, when you get the data, ask their interpretation to get the benefit of their local knowledge and expertise.
Translation is also important. Simply translating your questionnaire into German is very problematic. You end up with German which is not very German. The same thing happens if you try to translate a German questionnaire into English. It looks English but it isn’t. The syntax is different.
I have seen it with global companies that are pressing to have the same questionnaire all over the world. It’s fine to standardize but you must know how to do it. Standardizing does not necessarily mean you have the same word in each language.
If you are buying research in Europe, and have a multinational product, it’s important to find a research company that is already familiar and knowledgeable about all or at least the most important European countries. It’s very exhausting for a non-European marketer to go country by country to find out what type of company to use in each country. It’s time-consuming and requires a lot of experience. It’s easier for a European firm to organize a European survey throughout the countries and these agencies should be able to point out if there are differences in the countries you’re researching in.
Have you noticed any misconceptions that American marketers have about doing research in Europe?
GU: It depends very much on the client company’s history of doing business here. If they have worked here before, they understand the markets and understand the countries. If they don’t have a lot of experience, people sometimes look at Europe as if it were the United States, as one country with various states. To look at Europe that way causes big problems!
People may overstress the differences in culture and overlook huge differences in market conditions, from the presence of local brands to the distribution system, which are very different from country to country. Regional differences exist as well, between Eastern Europe, for example, and Western Europe. These differences are more important, in my belief, than so-called cultural differences.
Looking at the rest of Europe, people have been overly optimistic about Russia and how big the market is and how quickly it will grow. After some economic and political problems, it’s now stabilizing. The first investors were hurt. This disappointment takes time to wear off.
Russia is a market that is coming back and will start being a market for other products. It was immediately a market for cigarettes and fast food, but for sophisticated products - telecommunications, technology - these are the future markets. The other central European countries will come along.