MFour will be attending the 5/18 AAPOR conference in New Orleans. Come say hi!

MFour will attend the 5/1  TMRE in Focus conference in Chicago. We'll see you there!

MFour just finished up at the Big Data Innovation Summit 2017 in San Francisco, where our Chief Product Officer and Director of Panel Michael Smith presented on first-party advertising measurement. Great job Michael!

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile.

Big Data + Mobile Survey Panel = Human-Dimension Insights

How To Avoid Stepping on Big Data's "Hidden Landmine" 

Candy Means Love on Mother's Day. Can Big Data Tell You Why?

And here's a Friday tune to get you revved up heading into your weekend.

Mother’s Day is Sunday May 14, and when marketers and brand managers come to work on May 15, they'll already have reams of Big Data to sort through -- including comprehensive numbers on sales and revenues for each gift item in their product lines.

What they won’t know is why one brand of gift-boxed chocolates raised its market share by 5%, while a leading competitor experienced a commensurate decline. What did one brand do right? Where did the other fall short? How and why did consumers make those particular choices for their moms? And why candy instead of flowers or fancy toiletries?

Big Data – quantitative information that pours in from passive tracking of consumers’ digital footprints – won’t tell the story of “why this brand and not the other.” It won’t reveal why candy got the nod over flowers – or vice versa. And it won’t be able to give insights into how satisfied boxed-candy customers were with the product itself.

Savvy insights professionals will want answers to those questions about motivations and satisfaction. Big Data will take them part way there -- by helping them frame the right questions about the human dimension --  the "why," the "why not," and the "how satisfied." 

Exceptionally savvy brands and retailers won’t wait until after the fact, but will be on the case right away, seeking insights into shoppers' emotions and motivations during the weeks and days leading up to Mother’s Day. Some will be able to use those on-the-fly, real-time insights to make effective adjustments in messaging, pricing and product placement.

MFour combines advanced survey-app technology and an engaged all-mobile panel of more than one million active members to take you to the real-time Point of Emotion® where consumers decide what to buy, and how satisfied they are with what they've bought. For those attending the Big Data Summit in San Francisco, Michael Smith, Chief Product Officer and Director of Panel, will be talking today about how to make Big Data work in tandem with data obtained through mobile surveys to generate a 360-degree understanding of both the “what” and the “why.” His talk, focusing on combining Big Data and survey data for mobile ad measurement, begins at 2:30 p.m. If you can’t be there, don’t worry – you can schedule a one-on-one live demo with an MFour representative to talk about how mobile surveys can work for you. Just click here.

Big Data promises to be a goldmine, as long as consumers don’t think they’re getting the shaft.

That, in essence, is the message of a study by Boston Consulting Group that assesses opportunities and risks of Big Data's ability to compile an exhaustive digital record of consumers’ quantifiable activities in shopping, customer service contacts, social media and more.

The study concludes that the human dimension has to be respected, even as marketers and brands move to make the most of the data they can collect at every touchpoint in their customers’ daily digital pathways.

Humanizing Big Data is important to Michael Smith, MFour’s Chief Product Officer and Director of Panel. He’ll give a presentation Thursday at 2:30 p.m. at the Big Data Summit in San Francisco that explores how advertisers and brands can gain deeper insights by surveying mobile panelists who, thanks to Big Data, have been identified and validated as actual recipients of mobile ads.

Getting back to Boston Consulting Group’s article, “Bridging the Trust Gap: The Hidden Landmine in Big Data” – well, the headline is right on point.

The opportunities are immense: BCG “conservatively estimates that trusted uses of big data and advanced analytics could unlock more than $1 trillion in value annually by 2020.” But, the article cautions, “recent BCG consumer research has uncovered a previously hidden obstacle to successfully unleashing this enormous opportunity: data misuse.”

Meeting the letter of the law for consumer privacy isn’t enough, BCG researchers say. People don’t care about legalisms – they want to be treated fairly and respectfully, trusting that their data won’t be misused. Most consumers’ don’t mind having their data tracked, so long as it’s used to improve a company’s products or services, or to give back desired and agreed-upon benefits such as discounts and useful product information. But “data misuse occurs when consumers are unpleasantly surprised upon learning that data…has been used in new ways…outside the purpose for which it was gathered,” BCG’s authors note. The “research suggests that consumers’ reaction to data misuse…can cause them to reduce their spending with a company by about one-third.”

It’s telling that Boston Consulting Group obtained these insights by surveying 8,000 consumers worldwide about their views on how their behavioral data is used. It’s a reminder that you can’t ignore the human dimension. Big Data can deliver unprecedented efficiencies in ushering shoppers to the point of purchase. But capturing motivations and emotions to truly understand consumers will always be an indispensable part of the process. Talking to real consumers is still the best way to find out whether their expectations are being met – and what consequences ensue when they aren’t. If you've got questions that need answers from real consumers, please get in touch at sales@mfour.com. We'd love to have a conversation about how advanced mobile data solutions can get the job done. 

Are Big Data and survey-based research destined to be enemies? Michael Smith, MFour’s Chief Product Officer and Director of Panel, doesn’t think so. That’s why he’ll be delivering a presentation at this week’s Big Data Summit in San Francisco that lays out how Big Data and consumer surveys can be allies. Michael will be talking about how to bring them together in a “both-and” partnership between numbers and people, instead of thinking in reductive “either-or” terms. If you’re going to the conference, Michael’s presentation is Thursday, April 20, at 2:30 p.m. And if you’re not, here’s a quick rundown of key points.

How Big Is Big Data?

• Humanity has been compiling information at least since the dawn of writing some 5,000 years ago
• And because of Big Data, 90% of that information has been recorded in the past two years

What Big Data Does

• Collects vast amounts of consumer information from multiple inputs
• Uses data-based assumptions to model consumer behavior

And Doesn’t Do

• Can’t give you the human dimension – the “who” and “why” behind the “what”
• Thoughts, feelings and motivations require answers from real people

Finding the People Inside the Numbers: Follow the Mobile Footprint

• Each mobile device has a unique code, known as an Advertising ID
• Advertisers get the code for each phone that receives an ad
• To unlock the human dimension, match Ad IDs to real, live mobile panel members 

What’s Next? Getting To Know Them

• Are your mobile ad recipients really the audience you paid to reach?
• Use aggregated mobile panelists’ demographic profiles to get the answer
• Survey matched ad recipients to go beyond Big Data – ask "how" and "why"

The Name of the Game: Consumer Insights

• Identify actual mobile ad recipients, sorted by age, income, ethnicity and more
• Identify actual app users, then survey them for insights
• See how they use your app and experience your brand – or a competitor’s
• Get reliable ad metrics – effectiveness, content evaluation and lift

Now that you’ve seen how Big Data and survey insights can be happily married, it’s time to explore how the combination will work for you. Just contact us at sales@mfour.com.

When does a consumer research provider not have to lift a finger to recruit qualified, validated survey-takers?

When its survey technology and commitment to giving panel members the best experience possible generate so much natural, unsolicited word of mouth that consumers line up to participate in its clients' studies.

MFour’s latest unsolicited recognition comes from the financial news website FX Daily Report, which singles out our Surveys on the Go® all-mobile research app as one of the “10 Best Mobile Apps To Make Real Money on Android.”

The article aims to save consumers time and frustration by guiding them to the best app experiences that carry monetary rewards. Its recommendation describes SOTG as “a good survey application you can use to earn extra money for your opinion on products.” Significantly, the article notes that panelists provide demographic data when they download the app. This is a crucial targeting advantage for consumer insights professionals, because the detailed demographic profiles already on hand allow you to find and survey the panelists most likely to qualify, saving you time and expense. SOTG's active panel of more than one million members is the nation's biggest all-mobile research panel, stretching across all demographic groups researchers need for valid data and reliable insights.

We’re honored to make FX Daily Report's list. But what thrills us most is the unsolicited ratings and reviews we get from SOTG members who leave their comments at the App Store and Google Play. In both stores, Surveys on the Go® consistently commands user ratings of 4.5 stars out of 5, and it is rarely out of the Top 100 Lifestyle apps on Google Play. The ratings aren’t just for show. When consumers enjoy great experiences on their phones, they become engaged. And an engaged panel is the indispensable fulcrum on which market research turns.

A recent comment by panelist Tashee Paul sums it up: “The surveys are real, the payout is real….I did surveys online [and] did not receive money. This app [I] received money first time I used it.”

Thanks to all our panelists, and to all members of the business media and the insights community who recognize the significance of app-based, advanced mobile research.  For more on how Surveys on the Go® can work for you, contact sales@mfour.com to set up a demonstration.

One way to think about Big Data is to think about a day at the races – not the Marx Brothers movie, but a real racetrack where real horses run.

Every track has its regular bettors, and the ones who regularly win are the ones who are motivated and patient enough to take a Big Data approach writ small. What are the horses’ records? What were their recent times? Ditto for the jockeys. What do the data say about how weather and track conditions affect each horse and rider? Handicappers who can systematically crunch those multiple data streams will have the best chance of beating the odds.

The horse race for the consumer dollar isn’t all that different. Big Data, when properly sorted and analyzed, gives business decision-makers all the relevant information about past performance they could ask for. Next they try to draw correct inferences about the future – what bets to place next on products and packaging, price discounts or brand messaging.

But, turning back to the racetrack, think of what those data-rich bettors could accomplish if they could talk to the horses. They’d get unique insights into the next race that would make a winning bet much more likely than one based on past performance data alone.

Luckily for business decision-makers and insights professionals, you can talk to consumers if you know how to speak their language and approach the right ones at the right place and time. Survey data from well-designed mobile studies gives you testimony from the horse’s mouth about what consumers are thinking, feeling and planning to do today and tomorrow, and why they want to do it. They’ll let you know how their past experiences inform their present thinking.

There’s a lot to know about how to choose the best solutions for obtaining the “who,” “why,” and “how” to go with Big Data’s “what” and “when.” Michael Smith, MFour’s Chief Product Officer and Director of Panel, will explain how to do it in a presentation at this week’s Big Data Summit in San Francisco. Michael will be speaking Thursday, April 20 at 2:30 p.m. on how to combine Big Data with demographics and survey data from real mobile consumers. He'll give a rundown on  how to match the Big Data brands and advertisers have amassed to an engaged, representative panel of validated individuals whose profiles and opinions can be accessed on the smartphones that are today’s essential information and communications tools.

With its quality all-mobile panel, innovative, app-based research technology and consistency of service and outcomes, MFour has the horses. Contact us at sales@mfour.com and we’ll talk about how to get you saddled up and on track to bring home the insights you need.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile.

• Mobile Ad Measurement 101 – the Power of Device IDs 

• Mobile Ad Measurement's Too Important for Half-Measures

• MFour's Growth Surge Attracts $5 Million in New Funding

And here's a Friday Tune to help you parade into your weekend.