Dialsmith

How is market research perceived from those outside the market research industry? That’s the question NewMR and GreenBook posed to social media researchers issuing a challenge to report back with both findings and recommendations. The big takeaway finding from the project was this:

“The research industry is too busy talking to itself and not busy enough talking to others.”

This finding isn’t breaking news as we’ve heard this theme pop up before at industry events and in discussion groups with other market research pros. But it does serve as another wake-up call for researchers that data and research results on their own are not compelling to those outside the research world. In order to be impactful, those results need to be integrated into a story that those outside of MRx can relate to.

A couple of experiences we’ve had here at Dialsmith are case-in-point.

One is our work with Slidermetrix and Super Bowl ad ratings. Super Bowl ads have become a phenomena in-and-of-themselves and rating (or scoring) the ads has become part of the circus. For three years running, Dialsmith has been working with media partners to offer ratings and reporting on the Super Bowl ads. Through the moment-to-moment data Slidermetrix collects, we’ve been able to share compelling stories about the ads—not only the overall winners and losers but the highest and lowest moments for each ad. And through the story, we’re able to familiarize the public with the research method and the results it can produce. Here’s a clip and results from one of last year’s Super Bowl ads:

Another example is from feedback that we hear from clients about how results are shown in our dial testing tools. Clients have told us that an added benefit to using our tools is the way the results are displayed as colored overlay lines on top of the video.

This visual presentation of results, showing peaks of positive and negative feedback laid over top of the video as it plays, makes it easier for research consultants to tell a story from the dial data that their end clients (which in many cases have marketing or creative backgrounds) can see with their own eyes and easily understand. We’ve even had researchers tell us that their creative clients have specifically requested our tools because they can see the results in real time and they get it right away.

Do you have examples of how you’ve been able to engage end clients outside the market research industry? Please share them in the Comments section below.