Tracking and Social Media
Tracking studies, by virtue of the fact that they were always in field, become a convenient way to ask any and all additional questions within organisations. However, as the studies were loaded up, they became unwieldy and concomitant pressure on costs led to a reduction of sample sizes, limiting fast, reliable feedback and preventing tracking studies from delivering as they once had.
Tracking also encountered new challenges as the media and research environments changed. For example, a major need emerged in the last few years to evaluate the performance of media channels. Existing multipurpose tracking studies can provide a high-level read on two or three major media, but sample sizes and questionnaire space limit the depth of the analysis. Similarly, the broad definition of at racking sample and the limited sample size make it difficult to give detailed guidance on many digital campaigns.
One of the most recent challenges to tracking is the ready availability of data scraped from the Web. Online data—from social media in particular—provides cheap continuous feedback about brands and their marketing. Thus some advertisers have new reasons to question the value of large-scale tracking surveys.
The world has changed and research needs to change with it. Respondents are harder to reach, especially those in the most desirable demographic groups, and they don’t want to engage with long, repetitious surveys. In Nigeria, corporate and higher socio-economic targets demand a formal letter or email before they will entertain an interviewer and they are very clear in the need for the interview to be kept simple, short and in touch with the main discussion. Researchers and marketers need to adjust to this reality – Millward Brown responded to this challenge through mobile research which increased reach in many studies while reducing the traditional challenges associated with PAPI data collection.
But unstructured data from online sources will not nullify the need for structured survey data. Social media data is crucially important for certain types of brands, such as those that conduct business online, and service brands that have customer or community relationships to manage. But for most brands, coverage on social media is typically at a low-level, is often generated by a vocal minority, and frequently relates to events (marketing or otherwise) rather than to the brand itself.
While this information has value, if it is evaluated in isolation, it may present a distorted and partial view. Businesses need to know what is changing, and a self-appointed online group will not usually provide the consistent frame of reference that is needed to discern if real changes occurring. How are you probing consumers to find out what is changing in the market and matters to them? Drop me a few lines at michael.umogun@millwardbrown.com