Communications measurement guru Katie Paine asks in a recent post if it’s the end of the world as we know it for market research.
Katie writes:
“Since I started working in measurement and market research, we’ve essentially seen phone surveys come and go as viable sources of information, and my prediction is that we will see the [...]

Recently Alastair Gordon has asked “who’ll own MR in 2020?”
By this Gordon means to ask which players will dominate the market research industry.
His thesis is that the answer changes based on the year, but that one probable future is the rise, and ultimate dominance of the sub-contracting firms upon which full-service shops often depend. [...]

Is what we currently think of as the market research industry building the future of its business, or is innovation more likely to come from outside the traditional players?
I’m inclined to believe that major innovation will not come from the large players and will come mostly from outside what we think of today as “the [...]

Although this site is dedicated to the future of market research, now and then it’s worth pointing out what is unlikely to be part of the future.
One current element of market research that is not probable or preferred is the LONG survey.
Bad Research; No Biscuit covers this issue thoroughly here.
Yes, long surveys are bad research, [...]

Nigel Hollis’ recent piece on management dashboards is well worth a read.
In a nutshell, Hollis finds that these dashboards, as good as they are, are heavily focused on past performance and generally lack functionality that helps the user understand how well they are doing in working to achieve a given set of goals. As [...]

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 [...]

The Research Industry Trends Qualitative Research Report was recently released and it is worth a thorough read. The report is a summary of learnings from 6 focus groups conducted among research buyers (3) and research providers (3).
The report is a follow-on from the useful survey data it collects. I’ve written about this survey [...]

In a previous piece I wrote that:
“Where does (MROC) Variant 3 end up? One possible future is a global “cool” community operating by member invitation only that enables trendspotters to identify the most bleeding edge trends in fashion, entertainment and consumption in real time. Members would post videos of their newest purchases and offer dreamscapes [...]

Simon Chadwick of Cambiar and an Advisory Board Member at Research Voice was good enough to give us 45 minutes of his time and offer some fresh thinking on trends in the industry and market research in 2019.
I highly recommend reading the full interview on the interviews page or below.
Interview with Simon Chadwick
Robert Moran: What [...]

As many have noted, one of the trends in research is “participant engagement.” Concerned that fewer individuals will want to engage in market research as participants, the industry has decided to take a hard look in the mirror. It hasn’t been easy.
Kevin Lonnie has explored this issue, notably in MRA’s Alert Magazine (Ocober, [...]