Reading Joel Rubinson’s excellent post over at his ARF blog, recalls some futuring I’ve been doing around the likely evolution of the industry.
Rubinson takes a look at the evolution of the ad agency and applies this evolutionary footpath to MR with media buying the analog to the data collection side of the business and creative [...]

Tom Ewing has an update to his thinking regarding Millennials in MR.
There was such a great response to his question (Are the kids alright?) that he revised and extended his remarks.
It is worth reading the comments.
I maintain that there is plenty of young talent in the industry, but that these talented folks in their 20s [...]

The Research Industry Trends (RIT) Report is coming soon, and it promises to be quite revealing.
Tom Anderson promos the RIT a bit over at Next Gen Market Research. It’s worth a look.
The top two concerns are:
1. The non-representative nature of online samples
2. Quality of online sample is worse than most believe
Clearly these [...]

I have believed since the late 1990s that there will eventually be a merger of market research with the more future-oriented “strategic foresight”. In fact, you can read my thinking about this here. (See pages 8 and 16.)
A new Boston Consulting Group report supports this thesis.
You can read it all here.
But, I highly [...]

Ian Lewis has an exceptionally good piece in March’s Research World.
Ideally, it should be read in tandem with his January Quirk’s piece titled “Ten keys to increasing the impact of research” and with his comments on this website.
Although I highly recommend that you read (and re-read) Ian’s piece in Research World and draw [...]

Eyetracking for research purposes is still in its toddler phase. We are getting great data, but are learning how to interpret it.
Until now eye tracking was mostly done via a computer screen with a built in eye tracking device at its base. This worked very well, but it required the participant to sit [...]

The Honomichl 50 Rankings are out as of late last week.
AMA members can read the full report here.
GreenBook has some good topline coverage here.
Key points:
1. 2009 US revenue for the top 50 fell 3.5%, with Harris Interactive dropping 24% and Gfk (-11.7%), Synovate (-12.4%) and Ipsos (-7.3%) all struggling through this recession. [...]

Over at Forrester’s groundswell Josh Bernoff details his profiling technique for a market’s social technology behavior.
This appears to be a solid profiling technique and useful in understanding where a market is regarding social media.
Click here for the chart.

Will 50% of the work being done at market research firms today become “unnecessary” in three years?
Marshall Toplansky, President of WiseWindow, explores this question and scans the horizon of market research in a new MRA Alert article. For those MRA members, I highly recommend reading Toplansky’s article titled “Measuring the Future of Market Research.”
Reading [...]

As most market researchers know, MROCs are “market research online communities.” But, since “market research online communities” is such a mouthful, most have taken to the acronym “MROC.”
After a series of great discussions with several peers in New York, I began thinking about the MROC name and brand. With my flight delayed on [...]

One of the challenges that vexes the market research industry is a perceived lack of respect among the buyers of its product.
Advertising Age pondered this issue on September 24, 2007, and it is worth a read. The author, Jack Neff, does an exceptional job of spelling out the isues at hand.
Key quote:
“It’s a [...]

In my analysis of plausible market research futures, one that I come back to frequently is what I call the “epidemiology future.”
By this I mean the application of memetics to marketing campaigns utilizing research and testing techniques.
Memetics is the application of the viral analogy to the world of ideas. The idea is the virus [...]

Joel Rubinson’s blog recently noted the concept of “mental marketplaces.” As opposed to physical markets for a specific product, “mental marketplaces” are all the companies and brands a consumer associates freely with a particular space. This is exceptionally interesting.
So, for example, Rubinson writes that:
“The ‘mental marketplace’ changes the rules of competition; your brand [...]

In the Research Industry Trends Report 2009 Leonard Murphy asks two important questions:
1. “How long can a healthy industry operate on low margin with insufficient resources? The strain is already apparent as many shops have closed their doors since 2008.”
2. “What should be done to support a perception that research is a [...]

Perhaps the finest summary of the challenge the industry has in regards to its gravitas is Greg Rathjen’s piece in the December 2008 edition of Quirk’s.
Here, Rathjen asks, “When do we stop identifying with Rodney Dangerfield?”
It is well worth a read here.
Key quote:
“I suppose what I am building up to is my own reverse [...]