Commentary
Ask, And You Shall Receive
- by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 3, 2012
A new survey from Cint shows that 62% of those surveyed said they were more likely to purchase a brand’s product if their opinion has been sought by brand in a study. The survey highlights the importance of customer insight, says the report, as over half of the 1,200 consumers polled felt more loyal to a brand if it takes the time to find out their opinion.
This global survey polled consumers to ascertain whether market research influenced their attitude towards a brand / company and their preferences regarding survey completion and incentives.
Likelihood of Purchasing Product After Opinion Request (January, 2012) | |
Likely to Purchase | % of Respondents |
Fairly of Very likely | 62% |
Not influenced | 35 |
Not likely | 3 |
Source: Cint, January 2012 | |
The majority of those surveyed, evenly split between men and women, were confident about brands’ motives for carrying out market insight, with 69% believing brands act on the market research results they achieve. In addition, 77% of consumers felt that brands listen more to what consumers want now than they did ten years ago.
New technology was by far the most popular means of undertaking market research, with over 91% stating their preference as ‘smartphone’, ‘web’ and ‘SMS’. Only 4% of those surveyed would choose to undertake market research by mail as their first choice, and only 1% would like to be surveyed over the telephone.
Bo Mattsson, CEO and founder of Cint, says: “... market research is an extremely useful tool for agencies and brands... (in addition to) understanding the needs and preferences of (the) target market... insight can reap significant rewards in terms of brand loyalty... “
Other findings of the study include:
- 55% stated that money was the most desired incentive to carry out market research for a brand, followed by free products (34%) and vouchers (6%)
- 41% of respondents believed that retail companies would benefit most from consumer insight, followed by banking (14%), travel (11%) and mobile technology (11%)
- 40% of those surveyed stated that they would only spend one to five minutes responding to a survey, and 30% were happy to spend six to ten minutes of their time completing a survey. 13% would be happy to spend over twenty minutes undertaking research
For additional information from Cint, please visit here.
Jack Loechner is the Editor of The Center for Media Research's daily Research Brief. You can reach him at jack@mediapost.com.
We aren't really going to believe consumer self reported data on this topic are we? While there is some value in the sentiment here, consumers can't even remember the TV channel they watched last night - much less how taking a survey affected their behavior. So what this does gauge are consumer perceptions of the impact of this research type. But I certainly wouldn't take any action based on this research - its fundamentally flawed.
Typically when we read about a research study and the writer jumps from “those surveyed”, to language suggesting that the findings represent the views of all consumers, we can accept it. There is little reason to believe that those who responded were any different than non-respondents in demographics and attitudes.
But when the study is about what people think about surveys, then we should not be generalizing the results. We should not be suggesting, as this headline does, that all you need do is “Ask to Receive” and that 62% of consumers will be more likely to make purchases because the brand has asked their opinion.
Unless they were being paid to to participate in a panel, those 1,200 respondents likely represent only 5%, or 10% or perhaps 15% of consumers who had been invited to participate in the study. They are a minority and on this issue represent only people who like to participate in surveys. The vast majority of consumers ignore requests for their opinions. I do believe in the capturing customer feedback ans it role in the Total Customer Experience, but suggesting that 62% of consumers (I realize the writer says “respondents”, but in tone suggest they mean the population at large) are positively influenced by a brand simply because they were asked to complete a survey is too huge an extrapolation of the data.