Connections 2011

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• Brainshark, including their cost-effective myBrainshark offering, can provide a great way of communicating research, and selling services. Their 2-minute value proposition is available here. I would certainly go along with their marketing proposition that it is “the Easy, Free Way to Make Online Video“. In October 2011, they launched their free SlideShark app which is designed to allow Powerpoint presentations to be viewed on an iPad – very useful for those ‘over a coffee’ sales contacts. It feels a bit like the approach that Apple takes with iPhones/iPads/iTunes in that one ID and password work with multiple applications.  Just one current limitation is that our embedded dashboards in Powerpoint do not work when shown this way.  For clues about how to make research presentations more impactful, here is a nice tutorial by Glenna Shaw on The Gestalt of Slides, an eSlide presentation about Death by Powerpoint and the Presentation Zen blog.
• Civicom provides the technical services, but not the samples, to conduct a wide range of virtual survey approaches, at an affordable price, right around the world. Civicom is our main supplier for virtual in-depth interviews and virtual focus groups, where respondents are directed to our virtual meeting room. In addition, they are also leading-edge suppliers of online communities, audio diaries, video journals and for studies conducted using mobile phones. Relevant to running private online communities, on June 1 2011 they announced that their MultiMedia discussion board facility Chatterbox would be free for self-directed projects. The rapid development of smart phone technology, including the video capability of the iPhone 4, offers enormous new opportunities for virtual surveys.
• ClipStream provides the technology for including multi-media stimulus material, such as photos or videos, within an online survey. They have a range of technical solutions to maintain the confidentiality of test materials. A great advantage of using video for new product development is that the concepts can be tested directly from CAD, and on an ongoing basis.
• Deschamps Market Research, run by Lisa Deschamps, has provided excellent project management support and, with her bilingual capabilities, is well-placed to assist with Canadian qualitative fieldwork.
• Medefield is a leading supplier of international doctor samples. They now also offer an online qualitative facility, MedeQual.
• Moor Consulting was started formally in 2010, yet I have worked with James and Ursula Ambler for many years for project management support and design.
• Research Now is a company we have used many times over the last ten years, and offers international online consumer samples, with rigorous field disciplines, for quantitative projects. In my last study with them, I was extremely impressed with the quality of their questionnaire programming. More recently Research Now has been expanding into mobile and social media research, facilitated by buying Peanut Labs in 2010, and Conversition in 2011. Annie Pettit, VP Research Standards Research Now, outlined how to successfully combine panel, mobile and social research in a 30-minute webinar of August 31, 2011 (available, with registration, here).
• Ronin is particularly strong at providing sample through a mixture of phone and web samples. They have also demonstrated a strong ability to co-ordinate well with other fieldwork sample suppliers.
• Sequentia Environics, based in Toronto and San Francisco, is a software and services firm which helps companies develop successful social marketing strategies. July 2011 has been a busy month with the launch of Interpreter, their social marketing measurement tool. The same month, they also announced a collaboration to build communities with Reddit; positioned as being an alternative to focus groups. Jen Evans is an expert on how to measure and track digital relationships. Drawing a metaphor from baseball and the film Moneyball, she believes that “scoring in marketing is about how a consumer progresses through a relationship with a company or brand” – something we believe is a powerful concept (see Case Study 3).
• SPSS is a leader at providing statistical analysis software, and we use their software for viewing and editing data sets, running tables and undertaking advanced statistical analysis. The key new features ofIBM SPSS 20, released in August 2011, are a new geographical map feature, faster tables and more advanced modeling capabilities for customer satisfaction type data (a recording of the Aug, 17 2011 webinar, introducing SPSS 20, is available here).
• Strata Research UK is the research agency of Seven Stones healthcare advertising (run by an old university friend, Alex Perryman), and they offer a unique quantitative tool to reveal unconscious brand preference with their IAT test. In January 2011, Louise Tamblin joined from Kantar Health to head their research team.
• Transcription Global is a key outsourcing company for qualitative content analysis. As it becomes the norm that qualitative interviews and group discussions are captured digitally, it is a seamless process for them to use their experienced analysts to listen and build the content analysis during the fieldwork period – and for it to be completed soon after all interviews are finished. If logistics allow, one analyst will be used for the entire project. Given how close the analyst would then be to the subject after listening to all the interviews, you may consider asking Donna Twose of Transcription Global to quote for getting the analyst to write the report, or presentation, on the project.
• Verve is a leader in the development and implementation of On-line Brand Communities. They have already assisted several large blue chip companies in the consumer and business to business area with the aim of gaining a more immediate and intricate insight of customer needs. While the focus of their work has so far been outside of pharmaceuticals this could change! Verve’s new MD, Andrew Reid and Allan Bowditch, Director Pharmagems Ltd, presented an interesting paper for the 2011 EphMRA Conference held in Basle on June 29. Below is a quote from the EphMRA review of the presentation:“Via such communities, they explained, dedicated groups of users of a particular brand or market are continuously in touch with the brand and one another, responding to company initiatives and starting conversations. Apparently, many potential communities exist within healthcare (patients, carers, nurses, GPs, payers, sales reps, and more) and in terms of applications, market research is just the start; online communities can also support marketing, product development, sales, customer support, HR and management.”