What's in a (brand) name?

Oral-me? A Malaysian-made toothpaste is raising eyebrows due to its suggestive brand name. "Manufacturers should think twice before naming their products." Kuala Lumpur-based advertising executive Martin Voon asked if the manufacturers understood the product name while coining it.

"I'm shocked. These kind of words are normally found on a spoof, but this is an actual product."

"I'm glad I don't have children as it would be difficult to explain that it is a joke," he said.

Kieran Sharkey, an English teacher at a college in Sabah, said the name did not carry a positive connotation.

"With all the information available to the younger generation, I feel that they can interpret it wrongly."

Pro Dental B Corporation Sdn Bhd executive director Sunny Saw saw nothing wrong with the name as it was connected to oral care.

"The name is just to show that it is an oral product."

MarketTools promises to clean up panels

According to an article on Research Live, the US based MarketTools launched TrueSample, a system designed to ensure better online panels by eliminating fraudulent respondents.

The system follows a three-step process:

1. Checks of prospective panellists to ensure they are who they claim to be by verifying the information they provide against what MarketTools calls “extensive databases with objectively validated consumer demographics”. Tests have seen as many as 20% of people turned away from the panel at this stage, the company said.
2. Digital Computer Fingerprint. This fingerprint allows panellists to be cross-checked against other panel members and other panels that have signed up to use the service, stamping out duplicate respondents in studies that utilise multiple panels, and preventing respondents from taking the same survey more than once. Use of TrueSample to date has seen around 3% of respondents fail this test at the outset of each survey, the company said.
3. Data validation technology should spot fraudulent behaviour by correlating survey completion time and response patterns. Activity flagged as fraudulent includes the usual: speeding, straight-lining and ‘satisficing’, but in addition those found to have engaged in such activity will have their computers’ "digital fingerprints" blacklisted.

TrueSample would be available in the US this quarter and was on track for a release in the Europe during the third quarter. It is already in use on MarketTools’ own ZoomPanel and on panels operated by partners Luth Research and Greenfield Online. The TrueSample launch comes within a month of a similar product release from Peanut Labs, called OptimusID.

Why do some panel sources cost more than others?

I've addressed the issue of panels and panel providers before. But I cannot emphasize enough that you should check and understand what type of online sample you're purchasing for your online survey. Online Access Panels from companies like SSI, GMI, ToLuna, CIAO/Greenfield, but especially also from niche market panel providers vary greatly in quality and this affects price. You should screen the panel sources you use and check them to see if they meet your minimum expectations of panel quality.

• Non marketing panel – so you avoid education effects from advertising campaigns influencing the results of research
• Diversely recruited panel – that sourced respondents are derived from a lot of different locations and in different ways to ensure an attitudinal spread in the panel population
• No excessively high rewards – as this tends to result in panellists that are money/discount sensitive, which in turn can affect their research responses
• Actively seek to exclude professional respondents – both through their recruiting (not using professional respondent sites) and through active management (screening and deleting straight lining respondents)
• Well managed to avoid sampling biases – regularly cleaned and scrubbed to remove non active panellists, consistently updated and profiled, panellists are not over-used, sample eliminations are available to avoid education effects from past research participation

As a general rule panels that include a combination of online and offline recruiting are more costly to develop and tend to attract a premium price in the market. This is because they minimise the biases associated with online recruiting alone.

Did you know? Shift happens....

You may have seen the previous version, or perhaps even this one too... I find it quite "inspirational" although some may say that asking the questions is easy, it's all about providing the answers.... take a look. Did you know... ? It's the official update to the original "Shift Happens" video from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, this June 2007 update includes new and updated statistics, thought-provoking questions and a fresh design. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com -- Content by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, design and development by XPLANE

Reality Check: what you see isn't what you get...

Several marketing blogs linked to these briliant examples of deceiving today's consumers. If you haven't seen it, check it out!

The original German site Pundo3000 has a comparison of werbung gegen realität based on comparing photos of food packages and the foods inside. They’ve taken 100 (sometimes incredibly odd looking) German food products and given us a direct comparison of their packaging next to what was actually inside.

Of course nobody expects their Microwave menu to be as totally filled with fresh food as is portrayed on the box, but shouldn’t it at least be approximately the same texture?

The video gives you the idea, obviously.

Help my data doesn't align...!

Have you ever been there...? You did everything right: you convinced your client that online data collection is a valid method for the study, he seems ready to move his -- let's say -- offline tracker to an online method. You've prosed a parallel study to identify changes directly resulting from a shift in data collection method and to you will assess these findings when considering a move to online research. And now the data between the offline and online research does not line up. What to do? Here are four steps that will help you and your client...:

1) Understanding the type of difference

The first step in dealing with the different results is to look for the type of differences:

• Type 1 difference: shift in results but no fundamental change in the overall conclusions and recommendations.
• Type 2 difference: shift in the results and a fundamental change in the overall conclusions and recommendations (e.g. different concept ranking, significant results in brand awareness between brands, etc). So as a first step we must check if the conclusions and recommendations differ between the offline and online results. Remember it's all about you supporting the client in their business decisions, and if the decision will be the same, the difference in data collection method does not matter, right?

2) Explain the difference

You now have to interpret the differences found: in case of Type 1 differences you should comfort the user of the research that several reasons exist to explain the differences, but they are relatively little and did not influence business decisions. In case of Type 2 differences: we should distinguish between those type 2 results that we can easily "live with": they are not key-indicators and are not hugely important for business decisions, and those type 2 results that really differ and influence business decisions. Once we divided the Type 2 differences into two groups, we can move to the next step:

3) Which data is closer to reality?

For those Type 2 differences that are really key for the project, we must now check which results (the offline or offline results) are closer to reality: which results are actually a better representation of the market? This could be a combination of variables: general ones such as age, gender and education or region, or more specific ones to the category: category use in the P3M. Perhaps you have actual market shares to compare? Perhaps sales figures? Is none of this available, well, together with the client you can evaluate which figures are more likely to be representing reality.

4) Calibration of results

We will now have to decide how we are going to calibrate the results between the two methods. Generally speaking, the approach towards existing data is the following:

1. before, or during the transition from offline to online data, parallel testing is done to measure discrepancies caused by the change of method.
2. For a limited amount of time (couple of months, up to one or two years, depending on the old data available) the new online data will be weighted towards the old existing offline data for those variables where the parallel test proved a change in results.
3. Once enough online data exists, once your client feels comfortable and has gotten used to the different new level of the online data, the above exercise will be done again, this time weighting the offline historic data towards the new online data. This should allow for the historic offline data to be still used in the future.

Drop me a line to let me know if the above is helpfull !

Please secure my concept!

All of you who are dealing with online concept testing heard the question: "how do you secure my stimulus material in your online survey?". I am sure you've all come up with the appropriate answers to your client. Either you use specific software tools to secure graphic material in online surveys, or you actually designed the tool yourself within your company.

Using JavaScript, it is common practice to ensure that respondents are discourages from copying the images within a survey. The advantages of using such techniques are:

• Disabling the use of the right click button to prevent the “copy,” “save,” and “print” functions.



• Restrict the ability to print from the User’s toolbar.



• Attempting to print a page results in a blank page printing.



• Security is delivered without requiring any specific view program.
  
  

But there simply is no way to completely prevent a respondent from saving images, there are limitations. A savvy internet user may still save the images: The respondent may use “Print Screen” to get a picture of the image. However, when using Print Screen the entire screen is saved, including template headers and footers, forcing the respondent to edit the saved image. The image may also be saved using the “Save As” from the browser toolbar. The tools do not prevent the respondent from viewing the source code which contains the link to the image. However, this function is disabled if the respondent is using an Internet Explorer browser to take the survey due to the use of a secure survey link.

So what to do?

Other non software related measures to secure graphics and video include:

• Excluding certain cities / zip codes / regions from your sample (perhaps those where competitor employees are living / working). E.g. should you be doing an online Kraft concept test in the US, why not consider to exclude the home-town of P&G



• Obviously you should always have the "security screening": excluding certain professions (e.g. marketing, press, certain industries related to the product)



• Excluding certain e-mail accounts (e.g. no panellists that enrolled in the panel using an e-mail address of the a certain company will be invited)



• Showing graphs and images for only a couple of seconds (to limit the time of actually taking a picture of the screen with a mobile device or photo camera)

I am not in favour of sending out Non-disclosure agreements to panellists prior to any certain research: this will only trigger more attention!

In the end, should you have found the perfect software, it is still possible for malicious respondents to simply take a picture of the screen with their camera or mobile phone!

Fact remains that no 100% guarantee can be given, but remember: this is valid for other field work modes too, right? Any ideas?

Three Essential Panel Quality Checks

In GMI's latest email Newsletter, three essential panel quality checks are given: a handy guide for any user of online panel as a source of market research. In fact, the three checks are probably more comprehensive than using the more complete, yet bulky ESOMAR 25 questions ESOMAR has defined for online research buyers on panel quality. On the other hand, I think that GMI document is covering all the notional basic checks regarding panel / data quality, but I think I'll dedicate a futre post on that topic... Here are their three checks: CHECK 1: PANEL RECRUITMENT AND INCENTIVES

• Ensure minimum response rates. Your panel provider should require their recruitment partners to provide willing, active panelists who will secure a minimum response rate for your research studies.
• Pay only for good panelists. Your panel provider should not compensate their recruitment partners for fraudulent panelist registrations. They should have systems in place to track which recruiting partners provide fraudulent panelists, and strictly enforce contractual measures to demand a refund of the recruiting fees paid.
• Review panelist redemption files. Your panel provider should regularly create and thoroughly review panelist redemption files to detect any suspicious member account activity.
• Engage panelists with profiling surveys. Your panel provider should regularly revamp each of their profiling surveys, and provide an incentive to their panelists for completing each one. This not only contributes to keeping panel profiling information up-to-date for future research studies, but also helps continuously engage the panel.

CHECK 2: PANEL REGISTRATION

• Enforce panelist login restrictions. Your panel provider should require their panelists to log in using their email address, and create a strong password with a particular type of / minimum set of characters.
• Prevent panelists from changing personal information during registration. Your panel provider should not allow their panelists to change some of the personal information they provide during the registration process. This will prevent fraudulent panelists from creating accounts in multiple geographic regions with varying demographic attributes.
• Store and compare account creation and changes. Your panel provider should be in a position to record a snapshot of every account created upon registration, and store that information in a secure database. Subsequent account changes made by panelists to their personal information should prompt another snapshot, so information can be compared between the two steps.

CHECK 3: OVERALL PANEL HEALTH

• Strictly enforce panelist account removal policy. Your panel provider should decrease the rating of panel members who have incurred an infraction, and remove those fraudulent panelists from the panel after a set number of infractions. Block fraudulent panelists without warning. Your panel provider should delete those panelists who act in an egregious manner from the panel, and block them from opening a subsequent account.
• Remove suspicious email addresses, domains and IPs. Your panel provider should permanently block a panelist suspected to use multiple email addresses, domains or IPs from accessing the panel.
• Detect speedsters. Your panel provider should have checks in place to filter out responses provided by speedsters – panelists who complete a survey faster than the established minimum time threshold.
• Keep bots and scripts at bay. Your panel provider should have technology solutions in place to prevent bots, scripts or other programs from creating or editing panelist accounts. This technology should also be used during account registration, account login and before a panelist submits changes to the personal information stored in their account.

Can big companies act small?

During lunch, I came across a post from last week of AttentionMax's blog with the title: can big companies act small? In short, Max concludes that being big has many advantages, but acting small is not one of them. And yet, I happen to work at a research company who prides itself for being "the biggest small company" in the industry. And although not officially our pay-off, it is shared throughout the company and even our CEO uses the buzzline in interviews. Looking at our business, clients tend to fall into different categories.

Some are highly centralized — the global decisions are made in one or two locations. For those companies, they probably want to deal with a supplier who could mirror that. It is possible to deal with someone who doesn’t have a global network but I think there is a level of reassurance in working with a group. Would these be best served by TNS or GfK?

There are other clients who have a decentralized approach but they still might have preferred or recommended suppliers so although it’s not strictly leveraging the global power of a research group, it’s that sort of reassurance again that they’ll be able to do the same kind of job. Probably smaller local research shops would be the first choice for these clients...

The ideal is, a client wants to work with a local boutique where he knows everybody and he has a very strong personal relationship and that boutique somehow magically has global capabilities.

And that last situation in a sense is that what Synovate is trying to create, that level of service and that level of intimacy, not just with client relations but for staff. In fact Synovate is cited in the marketing's guru 2007 edition of "Marketing Management" (by Philip Kotler) as a successful example of branding and building a global business. The fact that Synovate has no global head office is mentioned too:

Synovate's identity doesn't emanate from a central head office but involves and reflects all of our people across the world. Ask any of my colleagues where our headquarters is and the reply will be "we don't have a HQ" ... "We can work in any location"... "We have Centres of Excellence all over the world"...

It's this type of believe that makes us believe that we are the biggest small research company in the world and this will help us build our business. So what do you think, will our strategy eventually work out to service clients best by offering the best of a global company and of the small...?

Drop me a line...

The real professional respondent? Bloggers!

"I believe bloggers and their ideas.

They are my friends and will tell me the truth,

unlike advertisements..."

an anonymous online respondent

We all know that consumers are controlling the online environment. Brands need to think about facilitating user-created actions and the Spanish start-up company Bloguzz may have found a valuable way of facilitating this.

Market research solution for analysing blog content have been around for quite some time now. One of the more known tools is Nielsen's BuzzMetrics. But companies to market their products by using bloggers who test and evaluate their products, that's an entire different ball game.

The Spanish blog of Netquest made me aware of Bloguzz. They link bloggers who enjoy writing about new products and services on their blog with brands who'll give them products and services to test. Even better, the company also ranks the blogs (in terms of popularity) helping their customers to distinguishing the real important blogs. On top, Bloguzz emphasizes that certain code of conduct exist with bloggers interested to guide “the conversation” on blogs. So Bloguzz is actually facilitate what today is already being done by some media agencies and PR companies.

Once companies start "incentivizing" consumers to post biased opinions on their blogs, I guess we could call them the real professional respondents...