GRIT Sneak Peek: The Top Emerging Market Research Techniques

As part of our GRIT study, a parallel social media analytics study was also conducted, in association with NetBase, a study co-sponsor. For this exercise, NetBase used their social media monitoring platform to search public websites for comments about emerging methods – specifically, the frequency with which emerging methods terms appear, and the sentiment (positive or negative) associated with each one.  The intent of this analysis is to understand whether “online influencers” differ from self-reported feedback based on industry research, such as GRIT.

As you can see from the charts, the amount of buzz associated with Online Communities, Data Mining, Social Media Analytics, Text Analytics, and Mobile Surveys is proportionate to the percentage relationships seen in our GRIT sample (i.e., those who indicated that they have used these technologies in the past).

However, there is more buzz than actual use for Eye Tracking, Crowdsourcing, Virtual Environments, NeuroMarketing, Biometric Response, and Serious Games – that is, there is a lot of chatter about these methods, yet little use to date (most are well under 10%).

Here is the chart:

This indicates that marketing researchers are certainly thinking and talking about a multitude of emerging technologies, but have yet to figure out the ways in which they can implement many of them for marketing insights and business guidance. To understand this a bit better, NetBase also produces a quadrant map showing the “Brand Passion Index” for each of these emerging technologies. Here we see that most of emerging methods captured by the buzz algorithm are viewed favorably – at least in terms of liking – but that the two that seem to most loved are Mobile Surveys and Facial Tracking/Scanning. Mobile Surveys are one of the methods used most be our respondents (Facial Scanning was not asked in our list, but will be included in future waves). One emerging method was associated with more negative buzz: Neuromarketing – a method used by few (just 5%) in our GRIT study.

We read this as although there may be a disproportionate amount of “buzz” for some methods which have strong adherents or fans but little widespread usage, in most cases there is no “tail wagging the dog” phenomenon; the share of discussion around mobile, MROCs, social media research, etc.. is earned buzz. Researchers are using these techniques, are discussing their results online, and are planning to do more with these technologies in the near future as a result.  Of course this positive word-of-mouth is influencing others to try these techniques, but we see a distinct transition from early adopters to mainstream usage in 2012.

These changes will have a profound impact on all aspects of the market research industry globally, and we have more information on what some of those changes may be in the full GRIT report.  I will likely do another “sneak peek” at the data we collected on new human capital strategies reported by GRIT respondents prior to publishing the report. In the meantime, next week I’ll be participating in three different events where I’ll be discussing many of the findings from the study. If you can’t wait to hear more about what else we have found, hopefully you can attend those events!

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