There is a wealth of evidence suggesting that consumers are behaving differently during this recession. A number of articles and papers have been written describing new trends in customer behaviour. Trends which point to fundamental changes in the retail landscape and a need to re-examine our understanding of how consumers make choices. For example: The rapid switch to [...]

I recently listened to an interesting paper from one of BTs resident futurologists. It was a really illuminating insight in to how social network techniques and platforms are being utilised to help what can only be described as a ‘gargantuan’ organisation deal with the demands of everyday business…and particularly making the customer experience a joined [...]

I jotted down an interesting note to myself the other day while listening to a client discuss their experiences with moving a Panel to a Community. They were discussing the issue of ownership of the Community and “not wanting it to run too far out of control”. Ceding, but not ceding too much to keep it [...]

For more & more queries, there’s a plethora of online sources. How do I make my Airport Express work? How do I reset my router (again)? How do I back up my iPhone? This move towards self-service queries clearly has loads of advantages for the organisation involved. Enquiries down, queue time reduced, savings to be had [...]

We review and test loads of websites and we’re always on the look out for those sites that reflect how the company operates rather than what the user wants. Thankfully there are progressively fewer examples of this – given competition and declining user patience this is most likely change or die – but there are still [...]

When I look at interactive TV and the wonders of the online world, I sometimes find myself slipping in to reminisces of the way we used to do interactive. One of my favourite past times back in the (gasp) nineties was to play Bamboozle on Channel 4’s text service. Now for those of you too young [...]

I recently attended the 5th Annual Online Research Conference along with a number of clients and other agencies working in the online space. The day was really informative and inspired a few thoughts of my own, which I’m going to be covering in upcoming blogs. Meantime, I presented an edited highlights session to my colleagues yesterday [...]

Our very own Graeme Lawrence and Jo Carter from United Biscuits are due to speak at the 5th Annual Online Research conference this Wednesday the 30th of September. They are speaking at 2.20pm and will be covering how e-ethnography and online multi-media blogging helps understand consumers ‘real’ lives. These words, ‘consumers real lives,’ instantly arouse interest [...]

The timing could not be worse, at the height of a global recession, with hundreds of market researchers having been made redundant recently, ESOMAR hosts its annual Congress in the fantastically beautiful and expensive town of Montreux, on the shores of Lac Leman, an hour’s train ride from Geneva, deep in the awe inspiring Swiss [...]

I am just about to set off for Montreux in Switzerland, which is the venue for this year’s ESOMAR Congress. On Thursday I will be running a one hour workshop on Online Research Communities. I will be looking to share Virtual Surveys experiences of being a leader in this field and I will be looking [...]