Comments on Pigs Don't Fly: + Your Research Is Wrong

Well if you've done a marketing degree lately (at ...

2009-08-25T13:42:09.398+10:00

Well if you've done a marketing degree lately (at least at Monash - go team) the lecturers will have told you much the same as what Zac has confirmed here. People participate in focus groups etc. for the money and free food/booze.

@ Scott

I definitely agree, the best way to find out about your target markets is to find a dedicated and passionate group of individuals.

Spend a bit of time finding and engaging these people. The best thing is, you shouldn't need to incentivise them because these people want to participate! (Malcolm Gladwell talks about 'Mavens' in his book The Tipping Point, these are the sort of people you want to try to find).

There's an advertising agency that did something similar to this recently by engaging marketing uni students to do research for them. The uni students got heaps of practical experience out of it and the agency got awesome results. Win-win.

@ Nic Hodges Unfortunately all I have are insight...

2009-08-21T12:09:37.863+10:00

@ Nic Hodges

Unfortunately all I have are insights into my experience, but maybe someone should do some research into it... ;]

Firstly Zac, it's always tempting to make insightf...

2009-08-21T10:04:15.724+10:00

Firstly Zac, it's always tempting to make insightful conclusions based on a sample group of one (or, in this case, three).
But whenever any client, colleague, or random begins telling me what their wife/sister/daughter/friend thought of an idea/campaign/product, I zone out.

Yes, you're not the only ones screwing with research. But this is why these companies use large pools of people, to reduce the variance to become as close to negligible as possible.

Having said that, I'm not saying I wholeheartedly endorse this sort of research, but I wouldn't overestimate the impact you're having on it. ;)

Exactly why qualitative data should never be consi...

2009-08-21T08:52:34.919+10:00

Exactly why qualitative data should never be considered a luxury "add on" to quantitative data like online surveys. It takes more thought and time to collect but that's exactly why it's more useful - you can usually weed out the Zac Martins. ;-)

@ Scott Interesting comment, particularly given y...

2009-08-20T17:59:03.761+10:00

@ Scott

Interesting comment, particularly given your background!

A really good point. On the few times I've done something that interests me, or given a product that I'm actually passionate about, I will put in the effort to do it properly if I know it will make a difference. I'm passionate about the product and brand, so why wouldn't I?

As much as i hate agreeing with sweeping generalis...

2009-08-20T17:46:26.996+10:00

As much as i hate agreeing with sweeping generalisations based on the actions of one person and their close friends (can you tell i used to be a reasearcher?), I basically agree.

So what's the solution?

Before anyone suggests it, a new age of self-confessed gurus with no experience or backing to their crazed theories is not a solution.

To be moderately serious, how about researchers forget about sample sizes and stat validity and just ask people who give a crap questions that they want to answer...and gee maybe even feed the results back to them (not useless charts, genuine client actions) so they know someone actually listened (assuming they did that is).

just a thought...

Second James' request.

2009-08-20T15:54:43.034+10:00

Second James' request.

@ James Rose I'll DM you on Twitter.

2009-08-20T15:12:46.429+10:00

@ James Rose

I'll DM you on Twitter.

Care to share the websites you use for the other U...

2009-08-20T15:03:18.906+10:00

Care to share the websites you use for the other Uni students reading this?

Hahaha so true. I can just imagine... "So, why do...

2009-08-20T14:55:39.962+10:00

Hahaha so true. I can just imagine...

"So, why do you smoke despite knowing about the health risks?"
Uni student pauses, takes a drag from his free cigarette. "Because I want to DIE. Next. Do I get another cigarette?"

Later, on Mad Men...