Can the CPG industry speed up its delivery of store inventory to sustain profitability? And can the consumer insights teams for brands and retailers speed up their delivery of CPG data to meet the unavoidably punishing deadlines that come with the breakneck pace of today's on-demand mobile commerce? 

The rising demand for speed, the intensity of deadline pressure, and the huge stakes involved are documented in a recent study by the Grocery Manufacturers’ Assn. (GMA) called “How CPG Supply Chains Are Preparing for Seismic Change.” A key takeaway is that producers of consumer goods face increasingly intense pressure to deliver products faster, and to a more diverse array of outlets, including the warehouses of Amazon and other e-commerce sites as well as traditional bricks-and-mortar stores. Retailers, the report says, are enforcing delivery deadlines by imposing fines when product shipments don’t arrive on time. All for the sake of ensuring that shoppers will be buyers, not non-buyers.

Understanding non-buyers is crucial in any context, and Path-2-Purchase™ Platform gives the consumer insights teams of CPG brands and retailers an unprecedented opportunity for fast insights. Here's how it works:

• Researchers can track where validated U.S. consumers are now, and where they’ve been in the past, across 12.5 million U.S. locations, including all outlets of the top 1,000 retailers.

• Immediately target mobile surveys to any relevant consumer profile, with the ability to build custom segments based on who panelists are and where they’ve gone. 

• Identify and use proprietary mobile GeoIntensity^® and GeoNotification^®  technologies to approach consumers who sometimes go to your own store, and sometimes to a competitor’s stores.

• Talk to targeted shoppers instantly in-store or just after they’ve left, while the experience and their emotions are still vivid and unimpeded by recall bias.

• Identify non-buyers in the exit interview, and explore why they bought nothing, or didn't buy all the items they had intended.

• How big a factor is unavailability, as opposed to pricing? Did the shopper ask for help finding the product? Does the data point toward delayed or incomplete product delivery? Answer these questions and you'll give your decision-making research stakeholders a road map to reducing non-buyers and the lost sales they represent. 

For a productive conversation about Path-2-Purchase™ and how to use it for insights into non-buying behavior, just get in touch by clicking here. And to see the GMA’s report on CPG supply-chain issues, just click here.

Reed Gubernick (L) and Laura O' Campo

Here are some thoughts well-worth passing along, from Steve Seiferheld, Director of Market Research for the U.S. Division of tobacco-products company Swedish Match. They’re from a recent edition of Quirk’s Media’s ongoing Q&A feature, “Conversations with Corporate Researchers.”

What stands out is Steve’s willingness to call out complacency and inertia in the market research industry with a clear, strong voice. He’s rightfully adamant about the need for insights professionals to bolster their self-confidence about their importance to their organizations. To which we would add that confidence starts with an unshakeable self-assurance that the technological tools and data sources you’re using are state-of-the-art.

A lack of confidence in your tools and the data you've obtained with them is likely to color your presentations to decision-making stakeholders. Conversely, smart, specific recommendations  grounded in confidence that your data is state-of-the-art will go a long way toward earning you a respected spot at the decision-making table.

Take it away, Steve Seiferheld – and thanks!

• “We continue to focus on the same tired, in-the-weeds issues without being able to construct a simple story on how to move a business forward. Twenty-five years ago we were worrying about how to weed out bad survey respondents. Today, we are worrying about how to weed out bad survey respondents. Why?”

• “…let your objectives drive your methodology, and never vice versa. I choose the methodology that will make it easiest for my target audience to provide the type of feedback I need.”

• “Nobody seems willing to point out how we are our own enemy. Our industry needs voices to steer us toward being leaders in our organizations. Swedish Match values me because when I present, my key findings tell people what to do. Other researchers hurt our industry by worrying more about Likert scales and eye-tracking than how to acquire more customers and improve profits.”

• “Repeatedly I encounter corporate researchers who see themselves as subservient to marketing, sales and other functions. We cannot expect progress until researchers shed that mentality. My role is just as important as anyone else’s. I understand the consumer better than anyone else in my organization and understanding the consumer is vital to ensuring a company’s success.”

May 25, the day the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect in the European Union, is the day the consumer insights industry finally is being forced to become absolutely serious about data sourcing and data quality. At last, consumers who provide the data are being accorded the respect and fair and honest treatment they’ve always deserved. And that's good news for all consumer insights professionals who care about quality, and not just about filling quotas. 

GDPR’s impact on market research providers and buyers will be felt beyond the EU, because companies that collect data from consumers in EU countries must comply, regardless where they are based. Apple isn’t waiting: 9to5Mac reports that it's banning apps from its App Store if they don’t comply with a policy prohibiting publishers of iOS apps from providing consumers’ location data to third parties “without explicit consent from the user."

(For the detailed rundown you need on GDPR’s significant implications for the market research industry, attend the upcoming webinar, "The GDPR Survival Checklist for Market Researchers." It's happening May 31 at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern; to sign up, just click here.)

Meanwhile, U.S.-specific regulations similar to GDPR are in the pipeline, notably the California Consumer Right to Privacy Act of 2018, which will be put to a vote on the November ballot. The new law requires any company that collects data from consumers in California to disclose what’s being collected or sold, while giving each individual the right to opt out.

These new consumer rights are not a burden, but an opportunity for market research – and here’s why:

• It has long been obvious that data quality can't be achieved unless researchers are truthful and transparent with the consumers they rely on to provide the data.

• Treat consumers well, which most definitely means obtaining their informed consent to be surveyed or have their physical and digital journeys passively tracked, and they will reward you by upholding their end of the bargain with willing engagement and thoughtful survey responses.

Market research should have happily embraced this fundamental principle long ago, as soon as research methodology began its migration to digital space after having previously engaged consumers primarily by telephone call and face-to-face interview.

Instead, it has become commonplace for data providers and buyers alike to sacrifice quality for quantity in the race to keep completes coming from a public that’s increasingly reluctant to participate knowingly in online consumer research. Third-party, questionably sourced data can be a tempting short-cut for researchers who are desperate to make their projects feasible. But the industry has to do better than that, not just to respect the consumer, but to know precisely where the data is coming from. If you aren't in command of your data's sourcing, you're less likely to command respect as a fully credible and authoritative contributor to the process of making informed business decisions.

The beauty of GDPR for consumer insights is that it signals the end of cutting corners on data validation and data quality. GDPR means having to engage honestly and directly with first-party consumers, who now will have the explicit right to be treated as they’ve always deserved: as informed and willing research partners instead of mere “targets” for data extraction. 

What does this mean to the actual task of performing consumer research, and serving the clients who rely on it?

• First, the flow of passively-tracked data is likely to be severely constricted for many suppliers and their customers. Consumers are becoming more aware that their locations and behaviors are being observed, and that they have a right to opt out.

• Second, companies that purchase third-party  data will need to pay closer attention to how it’s being sourced. They’ll need assurances that the consumers providing it have received disclosures and have given consent, as required by the privacy laws. And if those assurances and verifications are lacking, the responsible, GDPR-compliant approach will be to shun data from those sources.

• Third, brands and companies that need consumer data will now have to focus on the quality of research participants’ survey experiences. Industry resource GreenBook has repeatedly documented, and with rising concern, how panelists’ experience has been a secondary consideration, at best, for many consumer insights professionals. Now, in keeping with the consumer-first spirit of GDPR,  it’s time for the industry to truly earn consumers’ cooperation and consent by guaranteeing the good experiences and fair rewards that will make them want to opt in instead of tuning out. 

MFour welcomes the new privacy and consent laws because they’re the same rules under which we’ve always operated. We’ve recognized from the start that in research, as in retail, the consumer must come first. A quality experience for our research participants translates into quality data for our clients.

Transparency is built into our dealings with the more than 2 million U.S. consumers who have downloaded Surveys On The Go^®, the pioneering mobile app MFour launched in 2011 to bring consumer research into the Smartphone Era.

• For example, rather than track consumers' movements surreptitiously, or obtain merely technical, legalistic consent via fine print in the app’s terms of use, our policy is to give our app-users regular reminders that we would like them to turn on their devices’ location features. 

• We make sure they understand that, in return for letting us keep track of their whereabouts, they are more likely to qualify for location-based surveys whose cash rewards are especially attractive.

• The proposition is clearly stated, and the decision is theirs to make. It's what fair-dealing with consumers in the research realm demands: always making it clear that they have agency over their data and participation.

• If a consumer who uses Surveys On The Go^® would rather not be tracked by location, that’s fine; that person remains an app-user in good standing, and is still eligible for studies that are not location-sensitive. Personally identifiable information is always kept confidential and not shared with clients or anybody else.

To see what it takes to win consumers' trust in the research experience and gain their informed consent, you can visit the iOS App Store and Google Play, then search for Surveys On The Go^®. Many consumers have left comments about their experiences with the app, and more than 70,000 have quantified their opinions by giving SOTG a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5.

So the days of dubiously sourced, catch-as-catch-can data acquisition are dwindling. Now the Digital Era is edging closer to maturity, and the Wild West mentality that has allowed some data collectors to play fast and loose with transparency and consent has nearly run its course.

Like it or not, market research, too, will be forced to focus on how data is sourced, while emphasizing the consumers' right to transparency about how and why their data is being collected. The realization will spread industry-wide that data quality comes first, that it doesn’t come dirt cheap, and that it doesn’t come from just anywhere, but from reliable, validated, first-party consumers who are being treated fairly and transparently, and having quality research experiences.  

Vardan Kirakosyan is MFour's Vice President of Research Solutions.

To go deeper into GDPR and its implications for the insights industry, remember to sign up for our webinar, "The GDPR Survival Checklist for Market Researchers," presented by Vardan Kirakosyan of MFour. It's happening May 31 at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern. To register, just click here. 

Golden State is America’s team in the pro basketball playoffs, but not by a landslide.

With the pro basketball season approaching its climax,  MFour sought consumer insights on viewership and team loyalties from more than 5,000 Millennial and Gen Z fans nationwide who are watching the league playoffs. Asked who they’re rooting for, Golden State was a fan favorite in 21 states, Cleveland was the top pick in 18 others, Boston won 7 states, and Houston just one – its home state of Texas.

A plurality of fans in Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah said they were watching the playoffs, but not rooting for any of the four semifinalists.

In the nationwide popular vote, fans were rooting for Golden State over Cleveland by a narrow margin of 27.5% to 25.7%, followed by Boston (20%) and Houston (15.5%). Golden State enjoyed coast-to-coast support, sweeping ten of the 11 Western states in which the majority of fans had a rooting preference, but also winning the South and pulling support from two Midwestern and two Northeastern states. Cleveland enjoyed fan support in all regions except the West, where only Montana fans opted for LeBron James and company.

In a nationwide survey of 5,032 Millennial and Gen Z respondents who are interested in pro basketball, 82.1% said they are frequent watchers as this season’s league playoffs near their climax. That includes 65.6% who report watching “nearly every game,” and 16.5% who said they’ve watched every game.

Frequent viewership ran even higher in states that are home to the four teams still in contention: Texas (94.7%), California (90.6%), Ohio (90%) and Massachusetts (88.5%).

But viewership also was intense among respondents living in some states that don’t have a pro basketball team, let alone one that’s still in the playoffs. That includes 93.7% of respondents in Virginia who said they have watched every game or nearly every game; 89.3% in Washington state, 84.7% in Kentucky, and 83% in Missouri. Survey respondents were ages 13 to 40.

As the conference finals continue with Golden State against Houston and Cleveland against Boston, rooting interest is fairly evenly distributed: 27.5% of respondents want Golden State to repeat as champion, 25.7% are for Cleveland, 20% for Boston and 15.5% for Houston. An additional 11.3% said they are watching but not rooting, since the team they wanted to win the championship has been eliminated.

Golden State owed its favorite-team status to female respondents, 38.8% of whom said they were rooting for the champs to repeat. Men, who made up 87.6% of all respondents, actually gave a rooting edge to Cleveland over Golden State, by 26.2% to 25.9%. 

Fans in Massachusetts appear to be the most deeply-invested in their home-state team, with 84.8% saying they are rooting for Boston. Among Ohioans surveyed, 78.3% are pulling for Cleveland.  Meanwhile, Golden State commands loyalty from just 53.1% of the Californians surveyed, and Houston has the rooting allegiance of just 44.8% of the respondents from Texas.

One big difference is that Boston and Cleveland each has its home state to itself, while Golden State and Houston both share their states with other teams – three others in California, and two others in Texas.

But even Massachusetts and Ohio residents who aren’t rooting for their home-state teams are rooting for somebody: not a single respondent from either state said he or she had no rooting interest at all. In California, 8.6% of fans said they’re continuing to watch the games even though they have no rooting interest, and 9.2% of respondents from Texas are watching but not rooting.

As for their views on individual stars, 40.7% of all respondents predicted that James Harden of Houston will win the league’s Most Valuable Player award, followed by 39.9% predicting LeBron James of Cleveland and 8.5% predicting that Kevin Durant of Golden State will take the honor.

The basketball fans surveyed also are heavily oriented to other professional sports: 87.5% said they are interested in pro football, 62.6% have an interest in baseball and 38.6% are fans of ice hockey, where the playoffs also are approaching a climax and competing for viewers. Professional soccer commanded interest from 30% of the basketball fans surveyed, and stock car racing had a 21.6% share.

Most of the fans who are watching the basketball playoffs said their interest doesn’t extend to the celebrity news surrounding one of the players, Cleveland center Tristan Thompson, whose relationship with reality TV star Khloe Kardashian reportedly is in jeopardy. Only 39.5% expressed an opinion as to whether the couple would stay together; 60.5% chose the answer, “I really don’t care, I have better things to do with my life.”

Methodology: The study was conducted May 10-14, fielded to validated, first-party U.S. consumers ages 13 to 40, who participate in research using MFour's mobile survey app, Surveys On The Go^®. The 15-question survey was begun by 17,972 consumers nationwide, of whom 5,076 met qualifying criteria; 99.1% of qualifiers completed the survey. Mean completion time was 2 minutes, 59 seconds. 

Here’s a statistic consumer insights professionals might consider memorizing: Pew Research Center now reports that 20% of adult Americans rely solely on smartphones for their internet access. That’s up from 13% who reported relying on mobile phones alone in a Pew study in 2015.

Your own data needs to be representative across whatever demographic you’re trying to understand. Which means you need to reach the public where it lives. Just as railroad stations gave way to airports as the main hubs of physical journeys, personal computers are giving way to mobile for consumers' digital journeys. That’s especially true for crucial, traditionally “hard to find” Hispanics, African Americans and young-adult consumers. Reaching out to them on a personal computer for consumer surveys is barking up the wrong device. Data from Pew studies conducted in January, 2018 and in 2015 shows why:

• Hispanics: 35% are now smartphone-only, up from 23% in Pew’s 2015 study.

• Ages 18-29: 28% are smartphone-only, up from 19% in 2015.

• African Americans: 24% are now smartphone-only users, up from 19% in 2015.

• Whites: 14% are smartphone-only in 2018, up from 10% in 2015.

• Age 65 and older: Even among these slower adopters, smartphone-only use is now at 10% of the senior population, up from 7% in 2015.
  

One obvious takeaway is that in order to reach the representative slices of the public that market research requires, it has be done with mobile. But what you need to know is a bit more nuanced than that. We'll tell you why in our next blog post, so stay tuned. In the meantime (or at any time), you can have a personal, one-on-one info session and demo on state-of-the-art mobile research capabilities, simply by clicking here. 

Consumer insights professionals need to understand today’s consumers in their natural environments, and by now they know that means reaching them on mobile.

Recent readership statistics reported by the Assn. of Magazine Media affirm just how big and necessary the mobile ecosystem has become for anyone who needs to engage consumers. The study shows that mobile devices continue to achieve separation from desktops and laptops as U.S. consumers’ choice for magazine content.  

• The association's Brand Audience Report for March says that 32.2% of the month’s 553.6 million magazine readers arrived via mobile, up 8.5% year over year.

• Only 11.6% of magazine site visits occurred on PCs, down 8.9% from March, 2017.

The report also shows that, of the five most-read publications, three received their greatest audience share from mobile. And all five attracted far more readers on mobile than they did on PCs. Here are the comparisons:

• WebMD Magazine: 59.1% of 60.8 million March readers were mobile; 21% arrived via PC.

• Allrecipes: 60.7% of 46.2 million readers were mobile; 19.9% PC.

• ESPN the Magazine: 43.7% of 96.5 million readers were mobile, 25.7% PC.

• People: 36.8% of 78 million readers were mobile; 8% used PCs.

• AARP magazine: 14% of 49.4 million readers were mobile; 7.9% used PCs.

In fact, of the 116 titles for which the Assn. of Media Magazines provided comparisons, only five attracted more readers on PCs than on mobile: Automobile, Car Craft, Flying, Hot Rod and Street Rodder.  Prestigious titles in which mobile access dominated over PCs include The Atlantic, Car and Driver, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, Fortune, GQ, Money, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Time, and Vogue.

Print readership + subscriptions to digital editions of print publications retain an overall lead, according to the study, at 51.3% of total magazine readership. However, that category continues to drop, with a 1.7% year-over-year decline compared to mobile readership's 8.5% rise. This suggests that established mag readers and, perhaps most important, new readers, are turning to mobile.

The key takeaway for market research and marketing is that following mobile consumers into their natural environment is crucial to growth for virtually any business. Which is exactly what MFour has been urging since 2011, when it pioneered mobile market research by introducing Surveys On The Go^® as the nation’s first all-mobile research app.

For insights professionals who are ready to dive into mobile, these are the questions that need fast, authoritative answers: 

• What are the best practices in mobile market research? 

• What are the most advanced capabilities for obtaining the most relevant, accurate and insights-rich data?

• What sample quality and representation should I expect?

• In going mobile, does gaining access to consumers mean having to dumb down my research and sacrifice data quality?

You can get all these answers and more by setting up a one-on-one demo that will focus on meeting your projects' specific needs with proprietary, mobile-only research products such as Path-2-Purchase™ Platform and MFourDIY^®. Just get in touch by clicking here.

The new Path 2 Purchase™ Platform  powers unprecedented consumer insights opportunities by giving researchers new ways to visualize observed behavioral data and enrich it with validated, first-party survey data.

The key that opens the door is continuous tracking of mobile consumers’ journeys through space & time.

• By “space” we mean 12.5 million U.S. locations, including all stores of the top 1,000 retailers.

• By “time” we mean always and continuously, because Path 2 Purchase™ never sleeps.

• Whose movements are being tracked? Members of the nation’s largest all-mobile panel.

• Why are they special? They form a uniquely engaged, first-party research audience who accurately represent the entire population of U.S. smartphone users.

More than 2 million consumers have downloaded Surveys On The Go^®, the proprietary consumer research app that powers Path 2 Purchase™ and  other MFour offerings, including MFourDIY^®. The panel grows by about 2,000 new arrivals each day, strictly by word of mouth.

Another fact worth knowing: churn for the average online panel is nearly ten times greater than turnover among Surveys On The Go^® users.

Here’s more about how Path 2 Purchase™ works, and what you'll be able to accomplish: 

• Surveys On The Go^® users agree to turn on their devices’ location function, knowing they’ll receive opportunities to take location-based surveys and enjoy reliable cash rewards.

• Tracking their journeys through retail space, coupled with validated demographic and ethnographic profiling, creates unique targeting possibilities.

• Path 2 Purchase™ users get access to a dashboard that enables them to choose among more than 200 demographic and ethnographic criteria.

• You select which consumers to track, and which ones to survey, using special GeoNotification^® alerts, to learn the “why” behind the “where” of their day-in, day-out journeys.

• The data you’ll see as you play with different time/place/profile combinations on the Path 2 Purchase™ dashboard is pulled instantly from an exhaustive Consumer Knowledge Center, where all the location data coming from all those phones is continually stored, sorted, and updated by the minute.

• As you view each combination of space, time and profile, consumer segments you hadn’t even considered might well jump out at you and point the way to surprising new research possibilities.

• For example, who has been to a Walmart four times over the past month? Who are the Walmart-rejecters who never go – and do they shop at Target instead?

• Does a certain profile group prefer shopping on weekday evenings, or is it more likely to go to a Walmart or Target during weekends?

• Path 2 Purchase™ lets you identify them, then go a step further by surveying them about why they do what they do, with an incidence rate of 100%, because you’re only targeting the exact validated consumers you need to talk to.

To summarize, this is right-place, right-time location research on steroids, enabling you to be absolutely certain of consumers’ paths through space & time, then reach out to them at the optimal place and time: when they’re currently in a store, or just after they’ve left. It’s the ideal workaround to eliminate recall bias. It’s the way to exercise your research mastery.

To schedule a Path 2 Purchase™ demo and learn more about how it will help you capture the specific insights you need, just click here.

Will your brand’s social media ads stand a chance when the consumers you need to reach are glued to cute-puppy pictures and Taylor Swift videos?

Watch “Ad Measurement, Attribution and Lift,” the latest installment in MFour’s Expert Event Webinar Series, and you’ll learn how to answer that key consumer insights question with a definite “Yes.”

It’s a brisk, 25-minute look at the most advanced advertising research capabilities, as Vardan Kirakosyan, MFour’s Vice President of Research Solutions, and Senior Research Consultant  Allyson Wehn walk you through new ways to test and measure your ads by first identifying the real consumers you need to study, and then seeing how they respond when they receive the ads in their actual social media news feeds.

You’ll come away with these important insights:

• Why third-party profiling data doesn’t work and needs to be replaced to avoid substituting inferences for actual consumer realities.

• How behavioral location data first validates, then puts you in touch with, the real consumers whose observed interactions and survey feedback will help you avoid creative mistakes and maximize appeal and lift.

• How to inject your ads into these validated consumer groups’ actual social news feeds, to test whether they really are capable of commanding their attention and driving awareness and intent to buy.

“With the tools we have available, advertisers and researchers can become comfortable with change,” Kirakosyan sums up. This webinar is your introduction to those tools. To watch it now, just click here.