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Our March 2011 newsletter focuses on conjoint research, which we consider to be one of the most clever and powerful techniques of survey research. Why? Because it allows us to build working models of decision-making. Conjoint works by presenting people with scenarios that are more like the real-life trade-offs they always make. For example, instead…
One might think that with evolving technologies, the old-fashioned ways of doing research, like using paper and pencil, might disappear. But it turns out that paper surveys are not dead, and here is a nice example that dramatically illustrates their value. As newly-appointed director of market research for the American Marketing Association in Chicago, I…
Yesterday nearly one hundred marketers and researchers met in Chicago to talk about new directions in marketing research. Our topic: Measuring the Un-Measurable. The event was organized by the AMA’s market research group in Chicago, headed by Joe Hopper, president of Versta Research. The event brought together professionals from companies such as Cargill, Allstate, US…
After spending $65 million and previewing the show over sixty times since the end of last year, the producers of the new Spider-Man musical in New York are turning to focus groups and surveys in hopes that market research can do something…anything…to save the amazing Spider-Man from destruction. Last week, theater critics roundly panned the…
Last quarter we wrote about Magic Numbers in Market Research—those arbitrary rules of thumb and cut-off points we use when quoting things like minimum samples sizes or how many people to include in a focus group. Presto! Like magic, the issue appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago, this time related to…
Research can be powerful for PR efforts because new data and analysis often help anchor a story with facts and figures that have a deep interest and appeal to readers. But if the research is not clearly designed to support key messages in your PR plan, you may find yourself apologizing to managers for a…
The technology to field surveys via mobile devices has been around for a while, but has not yet gained much traction (and for good reasons). But with smartphones now proliferating at a remarkable pace, we may be in for a change. Deloitte released their 2011 IT and technology predictions last week, arguing that smartphones are…
Unless your company has a department dedicated to it, market research can be a hard sell because higher level executives may not believe in the value of research. At Versta, we have a certain sympathy with these executives. In our view, market research in and of itself has little value; it is the outcomes of…
In a recent survey we fielded among B2B decision-makers, respondents told us how much they liked participating in the study compared to other research studies they have done. They said it was “real” and interesting because it was confronting them with questions that reflect the kinds of decisions and trade-offs they make every day in…
Contrary what a methodological purist in the social sciences might recommend, we often design survey questions with scales that have no neutral midpoint or don’t know option. For example, we sometimes use scales that look like this: Rather than this: Or this: Why? Because survey respondents tend to over-use neutral midpoints or don’t know options.