Invited Commentary

Can you
feel the heat?
Whilst this image may not represent the
day-to-day reality of your working life in the
research sector, I want to use it to symbolise the
danger our sector is facing today in order to provoke
an action from you: Are you going to join me in
helping put out the fire, or are you going to run or
stay transfixed like a deer caught it the headlights?

Whilst you might not yet feel the
heat, or indeed see the flames,
many people in the industry I have
spoken to across the globe can at least see
the smoke and are aware that the fire has
indeed started and is growing ever
stronger. Australians are well aware that
it is easier to put out a small fire than a big
one, which is why we are advocating
action sooner rather than later.
But, what is this fire I am
talking about?
“It is the lack of trust people have in market
research which threatens to destroy our ability
to give effective help to clients by successfully
informing their decision-making.”
While I will
highlight the dangers
we are facing, my
goal is that by the
end of the article
most readers will have a “glass half full”
attitude towards the issue of trust in
market research and that at least 10
of you will contact me in order to join
the GRBN initiative to do something
about it!
To get you in the right frame of
mind to become one of those ten
people, I would like you to perform a
small visualisation exercise:
Imagine a world in which no-one
trusts market researchers or market
research companies. How would that
impact your day-to-day work? Your
business? Your career? Spend a couple of
minutes with your eyes closed trying to
visualize yourself working in that world.
Fantastic! Fortunately, we are not
quite there yet, but we might be closer
than you think, so hopefully you feel
energised to prevent that world from
coming into existence.
An incredibly low level of
trust in government
Before looking at the level of trust in
market research, let’s step back and look
at the wider picture of how people trust
institutes and other types of organisations
in general.
When GRBN looked into this early
last year* we found rather a bleak picture
with, on average across 17 different types
of organisations, only 15% of people
having a high level of trust and 24% a
low level of trust.
One of the most shocking findings
from the research was the incredibly low
level of trust in government across the
globe in the pre-Brexit and pre-Trump
world. The average for the nine countries,
in which we conducted the research,
was 18% of people having a high level
of trust and 29% a low level of trust in
government.

PAGE 18 Research News September - October 2017


Source: GRBN Trust Survey 2016*
Perhaps this low level of trust does
not explain the double-surprise of the
Brexit vote or the Trump victory, but it is
clear from the low level of trust that many
people were not satisfied with the status
quo and were open to alternative messages.
I see this lack of trust in government as one
of the key risks to democracy as we know
it. If the people have no trust in those they
have voted to lead their countries, who
can they trust? This is extremely serious
and the onus is on politicians to make
re-establishing trust in politicians and the
institutes they represent as one of their key
objectives.
Media is no better
If distrust in government was bad
enough, there is also a strong distrust of
traditional media, as well as of social media
companies. The measurement was taken
before fake-news became real news, so
I can only imagine that trust in media is
even lower now than a year ago. Again, the
onus is very much on the media companies
to proactively work to regain people’s trust.
Market research is under-
performing on trust
Perhaps it is not surprising in light of the
general level of distrust people have, but
when we undertook the research, perhaps
naively, I expected market research to
Invited Commentary
perform much better than it did… after
all our sample consisted of people who
participated in research on a regular basis
through an online panel.
If we focus on Australia, our research
showed that 10% of Australians have a
high level of trust, and 21% a low level of
trust, in market research organisations,
ranking joint 8th out of the 17 different
types of organisations surveyed, alongside
credit card and telecoms companies,
and only fractionally more trusted than
Australian-based media companies.
Looking more globally, whilst market
research has a relatively high level of trust
in Brazil and Germany, the net level of
trust in market research organisations is
significantly negative in the US, the UK,
Canada and Japan, as well as in Australia.
Source: GRBN Trust Survey 2016*
I, for one, cannot tolerate this level of
distrust in market research. In this climate,
if we do nothing, it is highly likely that
the level of trust will further decline, with
serious implications for our ability to
engage people in research, with serious
implications for our ability to deliver
accurate data and insights. A Dangerous!
situation indeed.
Exploring the drivers of trust
In the same research, we explored three
drivers of trust, which we (market
researchers, market research business
Research News September - October 2017
While I will
highlight the
dangers we are facing,
my goal is that by the
end of the article most
readers will have a “glass
half full” attitude towards
the issue of trust in
market research...
leaders, market research buyers AND
market research industry body leaders)
need to address:
1. Trust with Personal Data
Protection
As many as 8-in-10 people told us that
they are concerned about misuse of their
personal data, with as many as 4-in-10 very
concerned.
In Australia, only 9% of respondents
in our survey said that they have a high
level of trust in market research companies
to protect and appropriately use their
personal data, and as many as 31% said
they have a low level of trust.
The answers to other questions on
this topic were both enlightening and
frightening.
In Australia, less than 1-in-4 people
believe the collection and use of their
personal data by market research
companies to be appropriate – and these
are people who are already sharing that
data with us! And, almost half doubt that
their data is securely protected by market
research companies.
We are, as an industry, better than these
numbers suggest. But, we have done a
poor job at communicating this. And, the
people agree, with less than 1-in-5 feeling
well informed about how their personal
data is collected, stored and used by market
OVER PAGE
PAGE 19

research companies. Being trusted to
look after people’s data is fundamental
to a relationship built on trust in today’s
digitalized world.
2. Making a difference
It is important to step back and understand
why people take part in research. When
we looked at our research into panelists’
online survey user experience**, we found
that, whilst the financial incentive is indeed
important, other factors motivate people to
participate.
Source: GRBN Online Survey User Experience
Survey 2016**
If we understand and care about what
motivates an individual to participate, then
we have the ability to create an experience
which is beneficial to the participant, as
well as to ourselves. This mutual benefit,
or shared value, is fundamental to any
relationship built on trust.
Our research shows that most people
understand that market research benefits
business, but less than half believe that
it benefits ordinary people, either as
consumers or citizens. We need to make
much more effort to communicate the
value that our industry contributes to
society, not only on a project-by-project
basis, but also more broadly to the general
public. Here we should praise the German
research sector, which runs an annual
“market research day”, getting out onto
the street to promote the value of what we
do, and running advertising campaigns
extolling the role market research plays in
bringing new products to the market.
PAGE 20 Research News September - October 2017
Invited Commentary
You can read more
about the German
success story here.
3. Giving people a great
experience
Whilst most panelists were generally
satisfied with their experience of being
part of a panel, as many as 7-in-10 said
that they have had a bad survey experience
recently. This totally unacceptable. What
would you as a researcher recommend to
your client if their customer satisfaction
research was telling the same story? You
certainly wouldn’t advise them to continue
“business-as-usual”, which is in practice
what we are doing to ourselves. The
cobbler’s children indeed have no shoes!
Improving the survey user experience
is not rocket science and each of us has the
ability to do so. To start with, here are the
top tips from our research-on-research:
1. Get the basics right
a. e.g. short screeners, honesty about
the length and a fair incentive
2. Design for a great user experience
a. e.g. make it mobile-friendly, make it
clear and concise, make it fun
3. Close the feedback loop
a. e.g. tell people who the survey is
for and what will be done with the
results (and what is the benefit to
people like themselves)
Yes, this is not rocket science, but
there is huge inertia to change. Let’s take
mobile-friendliness. We all know many
people, especially those elusive young
adults, take surveys on their smartphone
when they participate. So why is it that
even today many surveys are not mobile-
friendly, let alone mobile-optimised?
I see at least two reasons for this. First,
the relatively cheap cost of fieldwork
online. If it is cheaper to recruit a new
person to participate than to retain or
re-engage them, then there is no financial
incentive to do this. In a world where
companies talk about millions of panelists,
there is the illusion that it doesn’t matter,
that someone will always be found to
answer the survey and fill the quota.
Second, the impersonality of online
surveys. The researcher is currently so far
removed from the person responding to
the survey, that it is easy to forget that it
matters, what the eye doesn’t see (…). I cut
my teeth with face-to-face surveys, going
out door-to-door with interviewers to do
pilot interviews. I was also lucky enough to
work for a research company with our own
call centre. In both cases, I got direct and
very blunt feedback from both interviewers
and participants on the experience my
surveys were giving. Now, researchers can
just press Send, have a coffee and wait for
the data. Nice and easy. No need to care
about the experience being inflicted on
participants.
Why should you care?
If we cannot build a trusting relationship
with the general public then fewer and
fewer people will participate. Perhaps, this
decline can be partly offset by increasing
incentives, but the effect on sample quality
will become increasingly obvious to clients
and this race to the bottom will show that
the emperor indeed has no clothes.
Maybe you don’t care about data
quality; perhaps you will care about the
negative impact you are having on your
client’s brand / corporate reputation?
Our research tells us that many people
blame the brands in the survey when they
have a bad survey experience. People are
savvy. They know that most surveys are
conducted on behalf of a company or a
brand. While many are participating in
research to try and influence things, that
 Invited Commentary

is to help companies and brands, they
feel betrayed that the reward for their
willingness to help is a bad experience.
How would you feel if you tried to help
someone and in return they treated you
badly? Not great!
Can we do anything
about it?
You bet we can!
We only have to look at the example of
Germany, take inspiration and act.
All is not lost, but we need to take heed
of George Orwell’s Final Warning:
Don’t Let It Happen. It Depends on
You! 1
What can you do?
Simply, you need to decide today to
become more participant-centric in your
thinking and actions, and to encourage
others to do the same. Whilst it is great if
you do take action alone, it is even greater if
you join forces with us to take coordinated,
collective action to increase the level of
trust people have in market research.
GRBN, in co-operation with the
regional federations and the leading
national associations, including AMSRS,
have created a Building Public Trust
Program, aimed at increased in the level
of trust in our industry across the globe by
positively impacting the three drivers of
trust I discussed earlier.
We are currently undertaking a
Participant Engagement Initiative aimed
at improving the user experience people
get when participating in research, since
there is absolutely no point in encouraging
more people to participate in research if we
are going to give them a terrible experience
when we do. We would love your
involvement in this initiative, as well as in
the broader Building
Public Trust Program.
You can read more
about both here.
Meeting my objective
for this article
• So, you’ve got this far. Are you
convinced?
• Are you convinced that we are
living and working in dangerous
times in the market research
sector?
• Are you convinced that we can
change things?
• Are you convinced that it depends
on you?
If at least 10 of you reading this
article say “yes” to all three questions
and send me an email (andrew.
cannon@grbn.org), I will have
achieved my goal.
If I fail, I promise that I will try
again. I have no interest in saying “I
told you so” once the fire of distrust
in our sector is totally out of control.

* GRBN Trust Survey 2016 ANDREW CANNON

The objective of the survey was to measure the current
level of trust in market research companies compared to
other types of organizations and to explore three drivers Executive Director, GRBN
of trust.
Fieldwork was conducted by Research Now through its Andrew Cannon is
online panel. The survey was conducted in nine countries
(Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, passionate about the role
Mexico, UK and US) in March/April 2016 with more than
9,000 respondents taking part. The sample represented research businesses have to
adults 18 plus in each country and data has been play in enabling decision-
weighted to match the population in each country on
key demographics. Netquest supported the analysis and makers to both make better
Dapresy provided an interactive dashboard, found here:
decisions and to be more
customer- (citizen-) centric.
** GRBN Online Survey Andrew is also passionate
User Experience Survey 2016 about the role national
The objective of the survey was to understand people’s
motivations for participating in online panels and how to associations have to play in
improve their user experience. promoting and protecting
Jessica Broome and Kerry Hecht led the design and the research industry.
analysis of the research, assisted by Sentient Decision
Science. Fieldwork was conducted by Research Now and Andrew has over 25 years’ experience as a market research
P2Sample through their online panels using the Decipher
platform. The survey was conducted in 12 countries practitioner on both the agency and client-side, and currently
(Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, divides his time between running a boutique research agency
Japan, Mexico, Spain, UK and US) in September 2016 with
more than 6,000 respondents. The sample was drawn in Helsinki and working as Executive Director for the GRBN, and
to represent adults 18 plus in each country. RP Translate
translated the questionnaire for the fieldwork. The report is currently President of EFAMRO, the European Federation of
can be accessed from here. Market Research Organisations.

AMSRS AND AMSRO ARE MEMBERS OF THE GLOBAL RESEARCH BUSINESS NETWORK
THAT LINKS 45 MARKET AND SOCIAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATIONS GLOBALLY.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIoAX5bI6S0 Research News September - October 2017 PAGE 21