The Zoo that is Market Research #MRA_AC #MRX

The 2011 MRA annual conference hasn’t even begun and we’re off to a great start! The National Zoo is just up the street where three MRA attendees have already flagged me down, a 7-eleven for my urgent slurpee attacks, and a park with walking trails out back. I’m already wishing my SO had come along.

The Omni Hotel itself is gorgeous and it has gigantic chandeliers, ballrooms fit for royalty, a lovely garden, a pool being closely monitored by an MRA tweeter, and a bird feeding station being closely monitored by me.  Oh, and there are lots of pubs and restaurants nearby if you’re into that kind of stuff.

Enjoy this slide show of some of the animals at the zoo and the hotel grounds. I’m off to prep for my 3 hour workshop tomorrow, the Mobile Mixed-Mode Research Workshop. If I don’t see you there, be sure to catch up with me during a break. Just leave me a message at the Research Now booth in the tradeshow.

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Shh… The Secrets of Spammers Revealed

Image via Wikipedia

I have a dilemma.

For some strange reason, one of the things I love most about my work in social media research is eradicating spam from data. I get a high from watching record counts decrease, not increase, because I know when I look in the spam catcher, it will be full of the right stuff. Free drugs, fake celebrity tapes, twitter bots. I’m drooling just thinking about it. Me need more spam.

There’s one thing that I would love to share with you but I can’t. I would love to tell you all the nasty secrets and tricks that the team at Conversition has learned to identify and kill it. I’d love to show you what screams out to us, “This is spam!” But I can’t. Because if I show you, then I show the spammers and I can’t stay ahead of them if I give out my secrets.

So in the meantime, take pleasure in my pleasure. Spam may knock on our door but the door is triple bolted and eight giant-toothed dogs are barking fiercely behind it.

Researchers Discover The Sixth Sense #MRX

Image via Wikipedia

Taste, scent, sight, sound, and feelings. There’s five right off the bat.  Researchers cover these five senses quite thoroughly in surveys, focus groups, and social media research.

Do these chips really smell like dill pickle? Are they too salty?  Do they look golden brown? Do they make a satisfying crunch sound when you bite into them? Do they feel greasy?

Six things that terrify me in market research #mrx

1) Graphing the mean, median, and mode for a research audience and worrying that people won’t know the difference
2) Having to explain why RDD is not a true random sample
3) Opening a survey link and seeing typos in the very first sentence
4) Surveys with 5 grid questions, each of which is 20 items long
5) Tiny toddlers dressed as researchers begging at my door for candy
6) Social media research conducted without regard for sampling, weighting, data quality and validity

BOO!

clarita from morguefile

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Why market researchers can never be marketers

Why do people share their opinions with market researchers?

Market researchers are Guardians. We look out for the rights of our research participants. Whether participants know they are part of the research (e.g., observational research), whether participants know what their rights are, and whether participants have misunderstood what their rights are, market researchers are expected to know those rights and uphold them.

Market researchers are Advocates. We speak out when we fear that rights are being infringed. We work towards creating and building rights so that all research participants are treated fairly and respectfully.

Market researchers provide Sanctuary. Research participants know they can share their true feelings, whether hateful, loving or disinterested, and know there will be no backlash, negative consequences, loss of privacy, lack of respect or any other inappropriate interactions. They are safe to speak freely within our space.

Market researchers do not Sell and do not Market. There is no sanctuary if participants feel they will be targeted based on their opinions. Sugging (selling under the guise of research) and mugging (marketing under the guise of research) tear down the walls of the sanctuary. And once torn down, building them back up is a monstrous task.

These safeguards of guardianship, advocacy, and sanctuary have resulted in market researchers being given special legal rights to interact with consumers in ways no other professions can.

I don’t doubt that some market researchers could be excellent marketers. If that’s the path that brings you joy, then by all means seek it out. But to bring the worlds of marketing and market research closer together, for admittedly they are already very close, is very scary.

Thanks to a non-twitter user for unknowingly inspiring this post.