Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

One big challenge is Salience - i.e. looking at data about brands (mainly online but it could be through voice operated systems or media monitoring) and trying to work out how positive or negative the population (or even a target group) is to a brand.

I saw a presentation from Nectar which quotes the following problem with existing methods:

“Only 13/40 (32.5%) of robotic judgments [of salience] were passed by all three human Judges.” Source: Negative Sentiment, Mat Morrison, Starcom MediaVest

Further research from Human Digital compared salience scores across 7 methods and there was no consistency at all in scores which suggests that existing methodologies aren''t working well yet.

Solve this and you''ll do well.

Along with salience I'd add relevance, believability, trust, likability, and deliverability (in terms of solution).

We need help asking the right questions of the right target audience, and getting "true" answers to those questions. It's not about the data or the methodology; it's about getting answers to the important questions that will lead us to smarter decisions.

And we need market researchers who are sensitive to the cost/value relationship. We don't need to spend $25,000 to get an answer that's going to help us make a decision worth $5,000.

Beyond that, the answer to your question will probably be specific to the specific business or industry or situation. If it's a pricing question, the answer will be different than if it's a communications issue. Etc.

great market-focused question, Daniel! What I often struggle to find from market research are:

1) timely and high-quality data on the classic purchase funnel metrics, much like Gary has mentioned. I see a lot of data that are either high in noise (because of low sample size) or too infrequently gathered (monthly appears a great balance)

2) good content-in-context interpretation of social media metrics, much like Dawson mentioned: of the online firehose, what is not just the volume, but the sentiment and specific content topic consumers are talking about

Cheers