BrainTrust Query: How will social media transform consumer research?

By Joel Rubinson, chief research officer, The Advertising Research Foundation

"Research Methods are now years behind the consumers, and falling farther behind," Leading Advertiser

In 2003, accountability was thought to be the differentiator in market research; in fact, consultancy, leadership, insights were listed as necessary but undifferentiated. The shift in research strategy in only five years is profound...from an emphasis on report card accountability metrics to becoming a learning organization that puts the human at the center of marketing thinking.

There are three primary reasons that the emphasis on learning is emerging now:

1. New marketing questions. The human is now in control in an "always on" world of long tails of media and purchase choices, and where social media leads to information and opinions spreading like wildfire. Marketers now have a partner in managing their brand in a world where push marketing turns into pull in a blink of an eye, for example, where TV advertising leads to search as people are often media multi-tasking. In this world,marketing teams are seeking new ways of connectingtheir brands to people. These initiatives will require new mental models, which will lead to new tools and metrics, but first, we must re-learn the consumer.

2. New mental models are emerging. Science has taught us that humans are different than we thought. Neuro-science, anthropology and behavioral economics have painted a totally different picture of how people absorb messaging, retrieve memories, and make decisions from what was believed only five-10 years ago. We have learned that "think-feel" is one word, that people often use fast and frugal heuristics (rather than elaborate trade-offs of attributes) to make decisions, and that one of those heuristics is based on copying from others in your "tribe" accelerated by social media which has connected people more than ever before). Those current research tools that only capture a piece of what matters based on this new learning must evolve.

3. New data feeds, notably social media are now available that allow us to "listen" to naturally occurring conversations and behaviors...to hear the unexpected. These insights come at us like a continuous river, changing the cadence of research. Now, "listening pipes", as Pete Blackshaw from Nielsen Online calls them, go beyond "push surveys" to include social media conversation, search, digital analytics, customer interaction in the "brand backyard", interactions at retail, and managed communities. At our San Francisco conference on Research Transformation, Charlene Li referred to the rise of "activist consumers". She and Pete Blackshaw agree that these consumers demand to be heard.

So, if an enterprise wants to put humans at the center, it must become a learning organization to anticipate the human's next move. This is the research function's big opportunity...its moment in time.

Discussion Questions: How will social media transform consumer research? How must research methods be redesigned to capture these changes in the consumer, their communications, and their purchasing drivers?

[Author's commentary] Many of these insights were gleaned from the creation last July of the "Research Transformation Super-Council." Members include advertisers (General Mills, Levi Strauss, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Subway, Unilever), research providers (Nielsen, TNS, Motivequest, Keller Fray, Kantar) and media companies (ESPN, Razorfish, Digitas, Vivaki.) The subject has also been the focus of two ARF Industry Leader Forums in New York and San Francisco, and will be featured as well at its annual Re: Think 2009 Conference in New York, from March 30-April 1.