A blackberry is once again just a pricey item in the produce aisle, now that its once-dominant technological namesake, BlackBerry, will no longer be manufacturing BlackBerrys. 

This exit from the mobile hardware marketplace was far from unexpected. Although BlackBerry was an innovator and muscular market force when it introduced the earliest devices to combine email, web access and telephonic communications in a single hand-held unit, that was in the early 2000s. Starting in 2007, Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Android system quickly captured the public’s attention, affection, and purchasing power, and BlackBerry’s sales rapidly declined.

The BlackBerry’s saga resonates with MFour, because we’ve also been a pioneer in mobile technology – in our case, the development and advancement of Surveys on the Go®, the first and still only all-mobile market research app. We rolled it out in 2011 and have been advancing its functionality and utility ever since.

We work both sides of the technological street: improving the experience for the survey-takers who use the app, and for the clients who field surveys to panelists. Surveys on the Go® now has more than one million active panelists; with no recruiting on our part, membership keeps growing by more than 2,000 a day -- a word-of-mouth testament to the user experience SOTG members enjoy. 

The core premise is that the better the panelist’s experience, the better the data quality will be. People love carrying out tasks on their smartphones – as long as all goes smoothly. We make the match between researchers’ needs and the public’s enthusiasm for technologically-driven pleasures. Call it serious fun – fun for respondents, leading to serious consumer insights for researchers.

The takeaway from the story of BlackBerry is that innovators can’t relax. Sure, it’s OK to take a deserved bow for having conceived and birthed a new product, service or delivery system. But then you have to keep on innovating. There’s no basking in the afterglow of conception when you’re confronted with the never-ending challenge of optimizing the function and utility of whatever it is you’ve conceived. A BlackBerry was the coolest device you could pull out of a pocket or a handbag -- until it wasn't.

The driveshaft of MFour and Surveys on the Go® is our Labs & Engineering division. Its staff constantly devises upgrades both subtle and sweeping to ensure that our panelists will enjoy the easiest, most engaging survey-taking experience on their mobile devices. L&E also is obsessed with anticipating the MR industry’s needs – which means expanding researchers’ options for obtaining ever-richer data and insights, while minimizing the time and effort it takes to obtain them.

A leading example of our stamina as innovators is MFourDIY™, the first all-mobile, do-it-yourself research tool. We debuted it in April, and have been adding further new research capabilities since then, both on the do-it-yourself platform and in our core, custom-designed surveys. Also new this year is our app-tracking feature, which allows clients to sort and query panelists according to which apps they use. It’s one more option for identifying and interviewing the consumers most relevant to the research task at hand.

"In the mobile space you've got to always start new," says Chris Monahan, MFour's Chief Technology Officer. "BlackBerry just got too comfortable. It's about always staying on the cutting edge, and riding the wave."

This, Chris adds, is a pleasure, not a chore.

"At our core, we love technology. Like kids at Christmas time, we love the latest cell phones and new server technologies. We are geeks who love to learn and share this excitement with each other. This culture is what drives the SOTG platform. If we aren't using the latest and greatest in technology, we become stagnant."

The consequences of stagnation are very real in any business: keep moving, or you might get squished. If you need a reminder, look to the produce aisle.

What are the special questions of identity that U.S. minorities grapple with – shaping their lives, including their lives as consumers?

The MRA’s SoCal Chapter will delve into this hugely important question in its 6^th annual Multicultural Event, Thursday, Oct. 13, at 6 p.m. at the 1919 restaurant in San Diego’s Gaslamp District.

Todd Costello, MFour Senior Solutions Executive and chapter President, invites anyone who’s interested to register for the panel discussion, which is open to members and non-members alike (see details below).

“We have an experienced panel of multicultural market research practitioners speaking on the dilemma every minority person faces as it relates to acculturation vs. assimilation among U.S. Hispanic, Asian and African Americans,” Costello said.

Carlos Garcia of Garcia Research will be the moderator; other panelists are Lawrence Yeung (361 Degrees Consulting, Inc.), Gwen Young (Young Communications Group, Inc.), David Morse (New American Dimensions) and Marissa Romero-Martin (Culturati).

Admission is $45, $25 for students, and includes an open bar, appetizers and desserts.

Seating is limited and fills up fast.

Networking and refreshments are from 6 to 7 p.m.

The program runs from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Register at:

http://www.cvent.com/d/1vqzts

International Business Times, leading provider of business news and current headlines from the US and around the world, ran our report on Millennials on Money & Investing.

Click here to read the full article.

If you're at CRC Corporate Researchers conference this week in San Francisco, check out our booth #401 and let's talk mobile!

Welcome to the second of three weekly reports from MFour’s Millennial Insights Project.

This study is driven by a different idea in market research: if you want to reach Millennials, a generation that remains elusive  to researchers even though it continues to be studied to the hilt, you have to talk to them where they live – on their smartphones. This  project is the first wide-ranging, demographically representative study of Millennials undertaken solely by smartphone app, the communications/information interface with which they are most comfortable and fully engaged.

Using MFourDIY™ -- the first all-mobile, do-it-yourself survey platform --we obtained 1,000 validated responses within two hours from Millennials on the million-member active panel that uses the Surveys on the Go® smartphone app. The 30-question survey covered Entertainment, Money & Finance and Technology & Lifestyles, giving a representative picture of the U.S. Millennial population by sex, age, race/ethnicity, income and employment status.

This is Part 2, Money & Finance. You can read Part 1, Entertainment, by clicking the link at the end of this post. Part 3 on Technology & Lifestyles is coming Tuesday, Oct. 4. 

Here are some of the insights the survey delivered on how Millennials manage their money.

• Banking on the Go: 61.2% of Millennials say they most prefer to do their banking with mobile apps, and 69.1% said they’d done just that during the previous week. 82.7% had used a mobile banking app during the past month. Mobile was the most preferred banking method across all racial and ethnic demarcations, age groupings and income brackets. The groups most likely to make mobile banking their first choice were Hispanics (71.1%) and Millennials with incomes of $75,000 or more (65.5%).

• Still going to the bank, but not gladly: Only 18.1% of Millennials said they prefer to do their banking in person. But nearly two-thirds (63.9%) said they’d been to the bank during the past month. Will this generation continue to patronize institutions that don’t satisfy a strong consumer preference?

• Not  keen on personal computers: Only 12.5% of respondents cited desktop or laptop computers as their preferred interface for banking.

• But they still use them: 71.6% of Millennials said they had used a personal computer for banking during the past month – although the number fell to 66.7% for the youngest age bracket, 18-24. The younger Millennials also were less likely to use a PC to make a payment – 51.1% in the past month, compared to 61.2% of all Millennials.

• Checks face checkmate:  Only 17% of respondents had written a check during the previous week. 26.6% said it had been six months or more since they’d written a check, and 24% said they never had used a check. 87% of Millennials have a checking account -- more than any other banking product -- so maybe it’s time for marketers to find a new name to reflect an increasingly check-free landscape.

• Apps top cash: Mobile apps such as PayPal and Venmo edged cash (34.5% to 32%) as the way Millennials most prefer for transferring money to family and friends. Do not write a gift check to a Millennial if you can help it: only 10% said they prefer checks for transactions with family and friends.

• Hackers? No worries: Asked how confident they are in the security of banking/finance apps, only 9.7% of Millennials stated any concern. 62.9% were confident or very confident, and 27.4% neutral. Those who said they were very confident outnumbered those who had no confidence in app security by almost 8 to 1 (26.9% to 3.6%).

Interestingly, a recent Harvard University survey of Millennials ages 18 to 29 found that only 11% expressed trust in “Wall Street” – that is, banking and finance as a whole. In our survey, 28% of Millennials ages 18-29 said they were “very confident” in banking/finance apps. Is this an indicator that Millennials’ attitudes can change when they interface with institutions on their generation’s own, technology-loving terms?

• Asian Americans well positioned: Asian American Millennials report that they've adopted many of the behaviors  financial advisors strongly advocate. For example, 60% pay off their entire credit balance each month – nearly double the average of 31.1% for all Millennials. 

Methodology

Using MFourDIY, the market research industry’s first all-mobile, do-it-yourself platform for designing and carrying out studies, MFour fielded a 30-question survey on Sept. 10 to Millennials who make up about 60% of its million-member active panel, all of whom participate in research via the Surveys on the Go® app for smartphones and tablets. Fielding time was less than two hours for 1,000 validated responses.

Responses reflected U.S. Millennials’ demographic profile: 50% male, 50% female; 56% Caucasian, 19% Hispanic/Latino, 14% African American/Black, 5% Asian, 1% each for Middle Eastern, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans/Alaskans; 3% Other. Age brackets were 18-24 (36%), 25-29 (31%) and 30-36 (33%). The study also segmented respondents by whether they were parents of children under 18, their type of work (full-time blue collar and white collar, part-time, unemployed), and their income (six brackets from $25,000 or less to $100,000 or more).

To read our previous report, Part 1, Entertainment, click here. To view  all survey data, visit  surveysonthego.net/tracker and use these login credentials:

Username: MillennialCaseStudy

Password: MFourMillennials

To learn how you can harness MFourDIY™ and its sophisticated yet easy-to-use capabilities, tune in to one of our webinars. The next one, Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 12 p.m. PST, will give you a good introduction. The title is “MFourDIY: Getting Started." To sign up, click here.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile research as you head into the weekend. Whatever else you do, don't forget to check at the bottom for something to mobilize your spirits and get you humming.

1,000 Millennials' Entertainment Consumption

DIY Researchers: We'll Back You Up

Mobile Research: The Big Picture

And here's a Friday tune to send you hopping and smiling into your weekend.

MFour will be heading up to San Francisco Monday, September 26 through Thursday, September 29 for the 2016 Corporate Researchers Conference. If you're interested in talking mobile, look for these guys and they'll be able to help you out!

(Pictured left to right: Andrew Fang, Todd Costello, Scott Worthge)

¡MILLENNIALS!

Thanks to all who read Part One of our Millennial Insights Project – “1,000-Millennial Study Explores Entertainment Consumption.”

Now it’s on to Part Two, which will report insights into Millennials’ consumer preferences and behaviors when it comes to Money & Finance. We’ll be rolling it out on Tuesday, Sept. 27. Part Three, on Technology & Lifestyles, is coming Oct. 4.

You can explore all the data on our Project Tracker by clicking here.

User Name: MillennialCaseStudy

Password: MFourMillennials

Just to recap:

We built and fielded the survey with MFourDIY, the only all-mobile, do-it-yourself survey-creation platform. It took two hours from launch to completion on Sept. 10 to collect 1,000 valid responses from Millennials -- who make up about 60% of MFour’s panel of more than a million active members. All our panelists use MFour’s Surveys on The Go® mobile app to receive and respond to surveys.

The Millennial Insights Project generated data from respondents who reflect the U.S. adult population distribution, segmented by sex, race/ethnicity, income, age bracket and several other identifying filters. By reflecting U.S. Millennials in all their diversity, our project avoids the common pitfall of wholesale stereotyping of a 75-million member generation as a single entity.

See you on Tuesday!