The Future Place Blog

Are Europe and North America ignoring MR in Asia Pacific?

I have just returned from the ESOMAR APAC conference in Melbourne, a well organised, stimulating, well-attended conference. I have attended something like six of the last ten ESOMAR APAC’s and I have noted some interesting developments.

The first trend is the rise of China within the region. Most of us are aware of the statistics that point out that China is the rising economic giant, a combination of its population size and the speed of its economic growth, but experiencing the growing impact, confidence, and contributions of Chinese delegates at ESOMAR’s APAC Conferences brings this home in a very real way.  The common references to that powerful quartet the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) probably distracts our attention from the degree to which China might soon be outstripping everybody other the US (and will overtake the US in a growing number of key areas over the next four years). The other BRICs are all interesting, especially India, but I do not think that they are anything like as significant to the world as China.

The second trend is the growth in local (i.e. Asia/Pacific) innovation, sometimes focused on ideas developed from regional/unique perspectives, others reflecting the growing strength of the region. Ten years ago, most ideas in the region originated from North America and Europe. That pattern is changing. Ten years ago speakers from Europe and North America were almost automatically assumed to be relevant experts, now they are increasingly viewed sceptically, having to prove that what they have to say is relevant to Asia Pacific.

The third trend is the declining role and attendance of Europeans and North Americans at APAC Conferences, just at the time when the importance of Asia Pacific is set to grow rapidly. I make attending events in Asia Pacific a priority, not because I think I have information to take there from Europe, but because I want to learn from this dynamic and exciting arena.

However, not everything is rosy in the world of Asia Pacific Conferences. The two biggest  issues are cost and  the English language. The cost of attending an ESOMAR APAC Conference, especially in a location like Australia, is equivalent to the entire year’s salary for some researchers in the less wealthy countries in Asia Pacific, this makes it hard to get a broad base of attendees and makes it even harder to get young researchers to attend.

The second problem is the English language, which is both assists and impedes progress. The upside is that English is the common language of market research in Asia Pacific and facilitates common learning and discussion. However, English also confers a major advantage on native speakers, for example Australians, and this language skill is often overlaid on cultural  differences. The ‘typical’ ‘Anglos’ (e.g. North America, UK, Australia, New Zealand) are willing to engage in robust debate, advancing their claims, and taking criticisms as part of the process. Would-be speakers from some of the other cultures in Asia Pacific are less assertive, less happy with shouting about their own benefits, and less inured to criticism (note this is a generalisation, I believe it to be true of many speakers from Japan, but much less true of many of the presenters I am familiar with from India).

My feeling is that ESOMAR needs to find ways of tackling the cost issues, helping people from lower income situations to be able to attend. I also think that there needs to be a process of ensuring that a certain proportion of the speakers are not ‘Anglos’. Perhaps the answer to part of both of these issues might be a combination of technology (e.g. remote attendance) and organising local events which would act as feeder events, with the ‘winning’ presentation from a feeder event being funded to attend the main ESOMAR APAC event. I think that it would also help if ESOMAR APAC had a larger number of presentations, perhaps by adding an informal extra day to the Conference, with a much, much lower cost, perhaps building on the barcamp model?

Next year the ESOMAR event will be in Shanghai and I would suggest that anybody who wants to find out more about the fastest growing region and the next economic giant should be there.

 

Some thoughts on The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research

ESOMAR Congress, ISOs and Standards

For me the most contentious presentation at the recent ESOMAR Congress was one by Bill Blyth and Judith Passingham which addressed the issue of standardisation. Bill is a committed and articulate proponent of standardisation and initiatives such as ISO. I hope I am not doing Bill and Judith a disservice when I paraphrase their argument (I disagree with them fairly substantially, so I need to be careful not to create straw men).

Their case seemed to be:

a)    Most market research we do now is based on principles and thoughts that date back 40 to 70 years and that this adherence to traditional techniques and values has facilitated the development of a $30 billion global industry.

b)    In a modern global market MR needs to provide the sort of service that modern businesses demand, including standardised services that can delivered in a reliable way in, for example across 30 countries, and outputs that can be interfaced with other business intelligence systems within companies.

c)    Initiatives, such as research ISOs, are an essential part of creating a product that will separate ‘real’ market research companies from other suppliers of superficially similar information, in the context of large and or global clients (which is something like 80% of the MR business).

I think that opponents of this view need to realise that its proponents are concentrating on something like 80% of the current market research business, i.e. the top few hundred buyers, almost all of the research being international, and almost all of it quantitative or similar (e.g. automated data collection).

My view has moved on slightly as a result of hearing the presentation. My key thoughts are:

1)    The reasons market research is very similar to 40 and 70 years ago is because we have wasted chances to grow the business in the past. If MR had taken a bigger share of website testing, credit checking, analytics, benchmarking, and direct marketing when we had the chance we would today be a larger industry with a wider range of tools.

2)    If we narrow our definition of what is and is not market research, we will continue to lose opportunities. For a while this might enable MR to grow in absolute terms (in line with global economic growth) but MR will continue to shrink as a proportion of Business Intelligence.

3)    Standardisation is at its most effective when dealing with data collection and data processing, especially in connection with quantitative data. If a client buys a 30 country survey they want to be sure that the same standards are applied in each country, that the same checking has been applied, that the same processing methods have been used.

4)    It seems to me that the ISO and standardisation debate is about dividing the research process into the ‘mechanics’ and the insight and then concentrating the process heavily on the mechanics. This may suit the large agencies, for whom nearly all their money comes from the mechanics. But it is alien to research providers who concentrate on interpretation, insight, advice, and consultancy.

5)    It seems to me that in a research process standardisation runs the risk of not answering those problems that are amenable to standardisation. There are two views about measurement. A) If you can’t measure it then you can’t manage it. B) If you can measure it then it does not matter very much. I believe the truth is somewhere in between the two, but closer to B.

I think some elements of the push towards standardisation are fine, such as not cheating, accurate tabulation, ESOMAR’s questions for panel owners, codes of conduct etc. However, I think that beyond these relatively obvious areas they are at best a waste of effort and at worst they will limit the growth and change of market research.

I think that if the push for ISOs continues and is successful, most market research will be done by companies who are not part of the MR community and who will not be signing up to MR ethics, codes, or ISOs.

Twitter and the ESOMAR APAC Conference in Bangkok

The next ESOMAR APAC Conference is going to be held in Bangkok from April 25 to 27. The conference is already shaping up to be a great event, the programme looks good, lots of key people have already signed up to attend, and there is an interesting social network for people planning to attend.

One event at this year’s Conference is a Twitter event, which is being organised by myself and a group of key co-authors.

The description of the event in the programme is:

“And Now For Something Completely Different!

This Interactive event will illustrate how Twitter is changing the face of research for some. Join in and lean about Tweetference, TwitterWalls, and TweetUps. Decide for yourself whether it is fad, fetish, or the future! Listen out for more news on how you too can be involved in this project, follow #ESOMAR”

The team running the project, and who have written the background paper are:

Amber Coulter (The Research Agency, New Zealand), Angela Gao (SSI, China), Bill Zuo (SSI, China), Daniel Alexander-Head (Colmar Brunton, Australia),  Prashant Hari (Colmar Brunton, Australia), Shizue Vieira (Fem Marketing House, Japan), and myself (Ray Poynter, The Future Place, UK).

Some of us will be at the Conference, others will be chipping in from our home countries, and on the Tuesday morning we will presenting what we have learned during the run up to the conference and during the first day.

One of the challenges for this project is that not everybody follows Twitter and in some countries Twitter is not available, for example China (although China does have other microblogging services).

To help focus attention we have created a group on MRSpace which amongst other things reports the latest Twitter posts about #ESOMAR. You do not have to join MRSpace to check out the group, but you would have to join if you want to post your thoughts and views.

Our ambition is make this ESOMAR APAC the most externally viewed and tracked ESOMAR ever, even more than the Online Conference in Chicago last year. In effect we are creating a Tweetference to expand the impact and reach of the conference.

There will be Twitter reports, a Twitter wall, Tweetups, and events. If you have any suggestions about the best way of involving more people, please post a comment here, or on MRSpace, or simply Tweet it with a tag of #ESOMAR.