Perils and Pitfalls of Social Media for Research

Perils and Pitfalls of Social Media for Research

It’s been four years since the AMA convened a panel of thought leaders in market research to ponder questions about how social media fits into research practices and methods.  An excerpt of our discussion was published in Marketing News in 2010.  Last month, another top industry group (AAPOR) released its Emerging Technologies Task Force report…

Old Marketing Poltergeists: They’re Ba-a-a-a-ack!

Old Marketing Poltergeists: They’re Ba-a-a-a-ack!

A couple of weeks ago we highlighted the top tier marketing research priorities identified by a select group of corporate executives who are members of the Marketing Sciences Institute, and who represent the corporate-user side of marketing research.  Every two years they vote on where to direct the institute’s research funds for academic research. Not…

Execs Vote on Top Research Needs in Marketing

Execs Vote on Top Research Needs in Marketing

Every two years marketing executives from more than 60 corporate members of the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) vote on the most important marketing topics they need to understand better.  They represent companies like Kraft, Colgate-Palmolive, Bank of America, Nielsen, and Walmart.  MSI—a think tank, of sorts, whose mission is to “bridge the academic and business…

How to Succeed with Biased Samples

How to Succeed with Biased Samples

Leading practitioners of survey research now agree that online polling and other forms of non-probability sampling can work.  The key is to give careful attention to the survey protocols, data collection, cleaning, and back-end weighting so that ultimately the sample being analyzed matches the population you want to know about in as many relevant ways…