mria vue magazine - november 2014

the magazine of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association

NOVEMBER 2014vueDiscovery through Visualization

Great Screener Questions, Great Results

Exploring the New Canadian Voice

ON ELECTIONS AND PUBLIC POLLS

www.ipsos.ca • 1.888.210.7425 • Vancouver • Calgary • Winnipeg • Guelph • Toronto • Ottawa • Montreal

vueNOVEMBER 2014

VUE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY THE MARKETING RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE

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CONTACTS CHAIR OF PUBLICATIONS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Annie Pettit, PhD, Chief Research Officer, Peanut Labs(416) 273-9395

[email protected]

MANAGING EDITORAnne Marie Gabriel, CAE, MRIA

[email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITORFiona Isaacson

[email protected]

COPY EDITORDiane Peters

[email protected]

Interested in joining the Vue editorial team? Contact us at [email protected]

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Original articles and Letters to the Editor are welcome. Materials will be reviewed by the Vue Editorial Team. If accepted for publication, they may be edited for length or clarity and placed in the electronic archives on

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ISSN 1488-7320

Commentary4 Editor’s Vue

6 Interview with the CEO: Part 2

SPECIAL FEATURE10 On Elections and Public Polls Mario Canseco

Features12 Discovery through Visualization

Chris Long

16 Great Screener Questions, Great Results Daniela Hassman

21 Exploring the New Canadian Voice Heather Steel

Industry News24 Chapter Chat

25 Research Registration System (RRS)

26 Events Calendar

27 Qualitative Research Registry (QRR)

Book Reviews30 The Complete Guide to Writing Questionnaires

31 Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products

MRIA Institute for Professional Development32 CMRP – The Five Pathways

35 2014-2015 Course Offerings

Columnists33 Ask Dr. Ruth

34 “Good Enough” is not OK

ADVERTISERS2 IPSOS

5 NLOGIC (FORMERLY BBM ANALYTICS)

19 RESEARCH NOW

20 RESEARCH NOW

23 PEARL STRATEGY AND INNOVATION DESIGN

23 SM RESEARCH

28 ELEMENTAL

4 vue | NOVEMBER 2014

COMMENTARY / COMMENTAIRE

Annie Pettit PhD, Chief Research Officer / Directrice de la recherche, Peanut LabsEditor-in-Chief, Vue / Rédactrice en chef, Vue • Email: [email protected] • (416) 273-9395 • t @LoveStats

Please share your opinions about Vue articles and columns, or submit your cartoons and infographics to the Editor. La rédactrice vous invite à lui faire parvenir directement vos commentaires, opinions, caricatures ou infographies.

Annie Pettit

EDITOR’S Vue

Have you ever wondered why Vue doesn’t have more articles about neuroscience, story-telling, data processing, or ethnic research? Have you ever wondered why it doesn’t have more articles written by students of research, CEOs of national research companies, CEOs of tiny start-ups, or French researchers? Me too!

Our readers include many very skilled and highly experienced marketing researchers with filing cabinets, hard drives, and cloud servers full of thought-provoking case studies. And from what I see on Twitter, I know they also have brains bursting with controversial opinions and ground-breaking ideas.

For those reasons, I am now cordially inviting each one of you to share your unique expertise in Vue magazine.

Does it matter if you’ve never written an article before? Absolutely not! All of our articles go through a rigorous copy-editing process so that you can focus on the content not on the grammar. (Is it “Let’s eat Gramma” or “Let’s eat, Gramma”?) Are you worried that you have nothing to write about? Have no fear! Think about why you love your favourite client, why your last project was so successful project, or how to solve your biggest annoyance. Whatever research topic gets your goat or gets you excited is a great topic to write about.

The requirements are simple. Our articles are 1200 to 2000 words which is just enough space to share important details and not enough space to add fluff. We love to see controversial, innovative, thought-provoking, and educational articles. Rants and raves about the state of the industry and how we can improve our services are also much loved. We love to see articles in English and en Français.

All you need to do is send me an email, a tweet, a LinkedIn message, or a Facebook message letting me know you’re interested. I’m saving that spot in Vue just for you!

Vous êtes-vous déjà demandé pourquoi Vue ne propose pas plus d’articles sur la neuroscience, le récit d’anecdotes, le traitement des données ou la recherche auprès des minorités ethniques? Ou pourquoi vous y voyez si peu d’articles rédigés par des étudiants, des PDG de grandes boîtes, des PDG de toute petites nouvelles boîtes, ou encore du Québec? Moi, oui!

Nombre de nos lecteurs sont des chercheurs marketing d’expérience et d’une grande compétence. Leurs classeurs, disques durs et serveurs en nuage débordent d’études de cas intéressantes. Et si je me fie à ce que je vois sur Twitter, ils ont aussi des opinions bien arrêtées et des idées fort originales.

Je vous invite donc, pour toutes ces raisons, à contribuer vous-même au contenu de Vue. Partagez votre expertise avec nous tous.

Vous n’avez jamais rédigé d’articles auparavant? Peu importe. Tous les textes qui nous sont soumis sont révisés par un de nos rédacteurs. Ne laissez donc pas votre maîtrise boîteuse de la grammaire vous retenir et concentrez-vous plutôt sur le contenu. Vous croyez ne pas avoir beaucoup à dire qui soit intéressant? Balivernes! Songez plutôt à nous raconter pourquoi vous estimez tant votre client préféré, les raisons pour lesquelles votre projet le plus récent a remporté tant de succès, ou encore comment vous composez avec des obstacles tenaces. Parlez-nous de ce qui vous passionne en recherche marketing – cela sera certainement intéressant.

Notre principale exigence est bien simple : des textes de pas plus de 1 200 à 2 000 mots – juste assez pour inclure des détails importants mais trop peu pour « broder ». Les articles éducatifs, novateurs ou qui portent à contreverse font notre bonheur, tout comme les diatribes sur l’état de santé du secteur ou des suggestions quant à comment rehausser la qualité de nos services. Les textes en français sont particulièrement bienvenus.

Vue a besoin de vous et de vos contributions. Communiquez avec moi (courriel, gazoullis, LinkedIn ou Facebook) et je vous expliquerai avec plaisir comment le faire facilement. Exprimez-vous!

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LETTER FROM THE CEO

Kara Mitchelmore

LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE AT THE MRIA This is part two of an interview associate editor Fiona Isaacson did with MRIA’s new CEO in August. Part one appeared in the October issue of Vue and covered membership, CMRP and the need for industry regulation.

FI: Tell me about this fall’s membership drive.

KM: Our business development officer is going to contact every person who hasn’t renewed and tell them what we’ve been doing to entice them to come back.

We have to have that conversation about, “Here’s all the things that we’re changing, here’s how we’re advocates for the market, here’s how we’re getting brand awareness, here’s how it would impact you from a career perspective.” There was a reason these individuals had a membership – they perceived a value, a value that they didn’t receive.

FI: This is a new role?

KM: Yes. I’ve hired three people. We were understaffed but we’re up to 10 now. It seems like a lot for an organization whose top-line is not as healthy as it should be, or will be, but you have to build it before you put processes in place. Our business development officer will also help recruit members for events. A phone call, a personal touch – that goes a long way.

We now have a social media coordinator because we were falling behind on our social media. Those two roles have allowed us to tap into our student market – getting them engaged and involved. We’ve also hired an events coordinator. It’s really important that those three roles work tightly together.

FI: Will the events coordinator work with the chapters? There seems to be an inconsistency in terms of the frequency and quality of events.

L’ARIM À L’HEURE DU LEADERSHIP ET DU CHANGEMENTSuit la deuxième partie d’une entrevue que Fiona Isaacson, rédactrice adjointe de Vue, a réalisé avec Kara Mitchelmore, la nouvelle PDG de l’ARIM, au mois d’août dernier. La première partie, parue dans le numéro d’octobre de Vue, traitait de l’adhésion, de l’agrément PARM et de la réglementation du secteur.

FI : Parlez-nous un peu de la campagne de recrutement de cet automne.

KM : Notre responsable du développement des affaires va communiquer avec tous ceux et celles qui n’ont pas renouvelé leur adhésion pour leur expliquer ce que l’ARIM a mis en oeuvre pour les inciter à revenir au bercail.

Nous allons leur dire, par exemple : « Voici les choses qui ont changé; voici comment nous défendons les intérêts du secteur; voici comment nous allons sensibiliser les gens à notre marque, ou encore, voici comment votre carrière profitera de votre adhésion. » Ces anciens membres avaient adhéré pour une raison, mais la valeur à laquelle ils s’attendaient ne s’est pas matérialisée.

FI : S’agit-il d’un nouveau rôle?

KM : Oui. Nous avons en fait créé et comblé trois postes parce que nous manquions de personnel. Nous sommes maintenant dix – ce qui peut sembler beaucoup pour une organisation qui n’est pas en aussi bonne santé qu’elle devrait l’être, ou le sera, mais il faut d’abord consolider avant de mettre en place des processus. Le responsable du développement des affaires recrutera aussi des participants à nos événements. Un appel personnel peut être très convaincant.

Nous avons aussi embauché une coordonatrice des médias sociaux, un domaine dans lequel nous accusions un retard. Ces deux postes nous ont permis de mieux rejoindre le milieu étudiant, à l’impliquer davantage. Le troisième nouveau poste

vue | NOVEMBER 2014 7

commentar ycommentaireKM: One of the things I’ve been looking at is doing joint events between chapters and some of our affiliated organizations, such as CMA. Then the world of opportunities completely opens up – being able to offer in-person professional development, lunch and learns, or breakfast sessions, but also networking that is broader in scope.

There are some chapters that need more support, some need less; it just depends on the economics of the region and how many members they have to pull from. We need to really work with the chapters to figure out their unique needs and how we can help them.

One of the things that we’ve done this year, based on our auditor’s recommendations, is we’ve taken all of the chapters’ bank accounts in-house. When I came in everybody seemed to have a budget, but it was a revenue budget only.

FI: What is the financial situation?

KM: Bad. When I started, one of the first things I noticed was the previous leadership team had done exactly what the board told them to do. Revenue from memberships was dropping year over year. As opposed to dealing with the issue, they were told to cut expenses to create a balanced budget. But they weren’t cutting what they figured the budget numbers would be for the revenue. If you have a 10 per cent drop year over year, why wouldn’t you be budgeting a 10 per cent drop? Why would you be budgeting a 10 per cent increase?

One of the first things I had to do was rewrite the strategic plan for the next three-to-five years and rewrite the budget. And that was tough because I had to go to the board – who had approved a balanced budget with a small modest surplus – and tell them: “We’re looking at an operating deficit of

est celui de coordonateur d’événements. Ces trois personnes devront d’ailleurs travailler en étroite collaboration.

FI : Le coordinateur d’événements consultera-t-il les sections régionales? Il semble y avoir un écart entre la fréquence des événements et leur qualité.

KM : La présentation d’événements conjoints, regroupant plus d’une section ou un partenaire tel l’Ordre des CPA, est une des solutions auxquelles nous songeons. Cela offrirait un monde de possibilités : des séances de perfectionnement professionnel « en personne », des déjeuners ou petits déjeuners causeries, de même que des occasions de réseautage sur une plus grande échelle.

Certaines sections régionales ont besoins de plus d’aide que d’autres, selon la situation économique de la région et le nombre de membres. Nous devrons discuter avec ces sections de leurs besoins particuliers et de l’aide que nous pouvons leur apporter.

Suite à une recommendation de notre vérificaleur, l’ARIM a récupéré la gestion de tous les comptes bancaires des sections. À mon arrivée, toutes avait des budgets. . . mais seulement de recettes.

FI : Et qu’en est-il de la situation financière de l’ARIM?

KM : Vraiment pas fameuse. J’ai remarqué à mon arrivée que les équipes de direction précédentes avaient fait exactement ce que le conseil d’administration leur avait demandé et que les recettes de l’adhésion diminuaient d’année en année. Plutôt que de régler le problème, on leur a demandé de couper dans les dépenses et de présenter un budget équilibré. Mais jamais ces directions n’ont réduit les prévisions à l’égard des recettes. Si l’adhésion chute de 10 % par année, il faut en tenir compte dans ses prévisions budgétaires, non?

À mon arrivée en poste j’ai tout de suite révisé le plan stratégique pour les trois à cinq prochaines années de même que le budget. Cela n’a pas été facile de dire ensuite au conseil, qui, plus tôt, avait approuvé un budget équilibré assorti d’un petit surplus : « Nous faisons face en fait à un déficit d’exploitation de deux à trois cent mille dollars. Peut-on y faire face? Oui. Nous avons en effet un surplus cumulatif qui résulte de la fusion initiale des trois associations en un seul organisme. Nous allons affecter cet argent au règlement du déficit et à de nouvelles initiatives de croissance. »

“Here’s all the things that we’re changing, here’s how we’re advocates for the market, here’s how we’re getting brand awareness, here’s how it would impact you from a career perspective.”



$200,000 to $300,000.” Can we cover it? Yes. We have an accumulated surplus that was put into place when the three organizations came together and it will be used to overcome the operating loss, as well as invest in growth initiatives.

FI: How much is the surplus?

KM: The surplus is little over $600,000, but we had to keep a minimum, 10 per cent, for operating expenses. [The board approved this in May.] Our auditors had recommended that it be 25 per cent or higher, but given the situation that wasn’t an option. More than $400,000 of the surplus will be invested in growth opportunities and infrastructure.

FI: Going back to the chapters: why is there so little happening in Toronto and so much in Quebec?

KM: Toronto is interesting because even the events that Toronto has, Toronto members don’t come. Toronto represents 65 per cent of our membership. I see more engagement in all the other provinces than I see in the Toronto chapter.

Meanwhile, I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job at being a bilingual association, a national association. In absence of that, the Quebec chapter has gone their own way and done their own thing, and has been very successful at doing that. We need to work with them and make sure we’re offering them the same opportunities we’re offering English Canada and see them put more faith in the organization.

FI: Would about Gold Seal membership? Is it going to be changing?

KM: It is going to have to evolve. What is the purpose of Gold Seal? If it is differentiation, good. But on what brand value? And it shouldn’t be on standards. Standards should be something that everyone has to follow. The Research Agency Council is grappling with this and what that will look like. In the Gold Seal portfolio, there are differences in opinion: a large company can look at it and go: “What’s the differentiation for me when somebody who has five staff can get this?” And in the past, Gold Seal was a club – the bigger players had it, and the smaller players didn’t have it.

I’ve talked about having some sort of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification for individuals that are working globally, or have x-number of projects in the run of the year, but all of that is preliminary.

FI: Sounds like there’s a lot of change coming. Is this a two-year goal? Five years? Ten years?

KM: It’s all. Your two-year goal is survival and start to see a comeback. Your five-year goal is growth, growth in all areas: in brand recognition, in building a community. Your 10-year goal is employer demand, and government demand, for the MRIA membership or for the CMRP designation.

You can never have a 12-month plan. You have to build towards something, but understanding that this is not an overnight issue.

FI : À combien se chiffrais ce surplus?

KM : Un peu plus de 600 000 $, dont nous avons réservé 10 % pour les dépenses d’exploitation (décision approuvée par le conseil en mai 2014). Nos vérificateurs auraient préféré 25 % ou plus mais, compte tenu de la situation, cela n’était pas possible. Plus de 400 000 $ de ce surplus seront affectés à des initiatives de croissance et à l’infrastructure.

FI : Revenons aux sections régionales. Pourquoi est-ce si dynamique au Québec mais si peu à Toronto?

KM : Toronto constitue un cas intéressant : les membres torontois ne se présentent pas aux événements dans cette ville. Pourtant, 65 % de nos membres sont actifs à Toronto. Toutes les sections provinciales sont plus dynamiques que la section de Toronto.

Cela dit, je ne crois pas que nous avons fait suffisament d’efforts pour devenir une association vraiment nationale et bilingue. Face à cette réalité, la section québécoise a vu à ses propres affaires, avec succès d’ailleurs. Il nous faut maintenant travailler de près avec eux et leur proposer les mêmes avantages et occasions dont bénéficient les autres régions, de façon à leur redonner confiance dans l’ARIM.

FI : Qu’en est-il du Sceau d’or? Faut-il s’attendre à des changements?

KM : Cette distinction se doit d’évoluer. Quelle est sa raison d’être? Si elle sert à se démarquer, ça va. Mais encore, dans le cadre de quelle valeur de notre marque? Certainement pas des normes, que tous doivent respecter. Le Conseil des sociétés de recherche discute présentement de cette situation et des options qu’elle suscite. Les avis sont partagés au sein de ce conseil. Les grandes maisons se demandent quel est l’avantage du Sceau d’or, à l’égard de la démarcation, si celui-ci est aussi à la portée des petits cabinets. Il faut comprendre que le Sceau d’or a longtemps été la chasse-gardée des gros et grands.

J’ai proposé une distinction individuelle s’appuyant sur des critères internationaux, genre ISO, pour ceux et celles qui travaillent à l’international ou qui réalisent un nombre X de mandats au cours de l’année. Mais il ne s’agit encore que de discussions préliminaires.

FI : Beaucoup de choses changeront semble-t-il donc. Quel est l’échéance? Deux ans? Cinq ans? Dix ans?

KM : Les trois. L’objectif sur deux ans est de survivre et d’amorcer un revirement. Celui sur cinq ans est la croissance, dans tous les domaines, entre autres ceux de la reconnaissance de la marque et de la constitution d’une collectivité professionnelle. L’objectif sur dix ans est l’exigence, par les clients des secteurs autant public que privé, de l’agrément PARM ou, à tout le moins, de l’adhésion à l’ARIM.

Un plan sur 12 mois est moins qu’inutile. Oui, il faut oeuvrer vers un but, mais les résultats ne peuvent se produire que sur le plus long terme.

Cela a pris huit ans pour se rendre où nous en sommes. De bonnes décisions ont été prises au fil des ans, mais aussi de



Kara Mitchelmore, MBA, FCMA, Chief Executive Officer/Présidente-directrice générale Marketing Research and Intelligence Association / L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing

Email: [email protected] • (416) 642-9793 ext./poste 8724

It took us eight years to get where we are now. And there have been good decisions made along the way, and there have been bad decisions. Trust me, I’m going to make good decisions, and I’m going to make bad decisions. But you always have to keep that forward momentum going and put your processes in place and then see where that will lead you. And switch focus if it’s not taking you to where you need to go.

In the next two years, I would love to see us stabilize our position; grow our pipeline – that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to all be full paying members at that time – but have a pipeline you can convert; have a better reputation with our membership; and have our members start to see the turnaround, and start to see what the value is for them.

FI: Are you in it for the long haul?

KM: I’ve always said my resume looks a bit like a quilt because it’s usually a three-year process. Get into an organization and take a year to go, “OK, tell me everything that’s going wrong,” and start to put together a strategy. Second year: implement everything and start to see results. Third year: you are starting to see results, everyone’s on board, you’ve made your changes, and then as a CEO you start going, “OK. So, now what do I do?”

But it’s also about the intrigue of being able to take something and make it bigger. As long as the job is exciting and strategically focused and you’re continuing to push that envelope and make change, then why wouldn’t I be? I think that the association has a lot of potential and I think that we need to tap into that potential.

But, also, I believe that any person in a role too long gets stale.

I can say that the first seven months have been very exciting. And people were surprised when I took the role. People even from within the industry were asking me: “Why would you take this role?” And I said: “Because, it’s a huge challenge and, if nothing else, I love a challenge.”

And we’re already starting to see positive results. And they’re slow at first, but, you know what? It’s nice to have some positives.

mauvaises. Écoutez, moi aussi je prendrai parfois de mauvaises décisions. C’est inévitable. Mais j’en prendrai aussi de bonnes. L’essentiel est de maintenir l’élan, de mettre des processus en place et de voir où cela nous mène. Et de nous aiguiller sur une autre voie si les résultats escomptés ne semblent pas se produire.

Je vise, au cours des deux prochaines années, la stabilisation de notre place et la croissance de l’adhésion. Nous ne réussirons peut-être pas à recruter tous les membres possibles mais nous devons faire augmenter les recettes que produit l’adhésion. Nous devrons aussi rehausser notre réputation auprès des membres, de façon à ce que ceux-ci commencent à reconnaître un renversement de la situation et la valeur concrète de leur adhésion.

FI: Vous serez donc avec nous un bon bout de temps?

KM : J’ai toujours dit que mon CV ressemblait à une coutepointe à carreaux, des carreaux de trois ans. La première année en est une d’analyse – cerner ce qui ne fonctionne pas et entamer l’élaboration d’une stratégie. La deuxième est consacrée à la mise en oeuvre des stratégies. Les premiers résultats se font connaître. À la troisième année, quand tout le monde a embarqué et que les changements commencent à se faire voir, bien, la PDG se dit « Bon, qu’est-ce que je fais maintenant? »

J’apprécie beaucoup l’occasion de transformer les choses pour le mieux, de voir à la croissance de l’organisation. Tant que le défi demeure, que le mandat est intéressant et franchement stratégique, et qu’il est possible de repousser les limites et d’apporter des changements, pourquoi ne pas viser le long terme? Le potentiel de l’ARIM est immense et je crois qu’il faut exploiter ce potentiel.

Mais je crois également que toute personne trop longtemps en place perd de son efficacité.

Je peux vous affirmer que mes sept premiers mois en poste ont été stimulants. Certaines personnes ont été surprises quand j’ai accepté le mandat. Des gens du secteur m’ont même demandé pourquoi j’acceptais un poste comportant de si grands défis. Je leur ai toujours répondu que c’est justement l’ampleur des défis qui m’a attirée. Je carbure aux défis.

Déjà, des résultats positifs se font voir. Cela prend quelque temps au début mais, vous savez, juste de constater du positif est, à ce point, des plus encourageants.


FEATURE

In one case, Ron Paul was the choice of 99.3 per cent of respondents to an insta-poll on the NBC News website. One of Paul’s supporters wondered why those surveys did not deserve a mention on the website I was writing for. He flooded my inbox with complaints about bias. I countered with a simple answer: “This is not scientific.” I could have “voted” for Ron Paul from Vancouver, and the website would not even know it.

What a surprise, then, to see that six years after that clear lesson on what research is not, two of Canada’s newspapers decided that insta-polls are valid. The Toronto Star relied on visitors to its own website to issue an assessment of the state of the city’s mayoral election. The Globe and Mail went out of its way to explain the futility of their insta-poll on Canada’s media figures, but only after Ezra Levant surged to a seemingly insurmountable lead.

There are several explanations for this problem. Maybe the media doesn’t trust our work as much as they used to, due to several bad electoral predictions. Maybe they want to give their website visitors the illusion of providing meaningful feedback. Maybe the news cycle moves so quickly that it is enticing to just gather data, any data, and pretend that it is actually relevant.

Pollsters have many motivations for publishing their numbers in the media, including marketing and promotion, becoming part of the conversation on what is transpiring in the country and, ultimately, showing that electoral processes can be accurately predicted.

The recent misses in Canadian provincial elections have brought increased criticism to our craft. Unfortunately, this criticism has not led to greater scrutiny. The best way to deal with this quandary is to establish new guidelines for the publication of poll results and have a deeper conversation – with the media and the public – about what the numbers we publish actually represent.

If we decide to carry on as if nothing happened, we run the risk of the media relying on internal polls that nobody has seen, with pseudo-insiders taking advantage of the low data literacy of reporters to talk about the past and not the present. Unless we all become more open, media outlets will keep throwing hashtags on Twitter and relying on insta-polls for data collection that we all know is faulty.

When I polled in the United Kingdom, I was a member of the British Polling Council, which has rigorous guidelines for the publication of survey data. No self-respecting media outlet would

Mario Canseco

In January 2008, I wrote about the United States

presidential primaries for a website that collated

global public opinion. Most surveys at the

time suggested that the Republican party’s

nominee would be John McCain, Mitt Romney

or Rudy Giuliani. However, some of the insta-

polls attached to American news websites were

registering an unusually high level of support for

Ron Paul.

SPEC

IAL ON ELECTIONS AND PUBLIC POLLS


SPECIAL FEATURE

touch a poll from a provider that has not agreed to publish full tables within 24 hours of a survey being released. This puts all companies on an even playing field.

It must also be noted that the Brits are not obsessed with the margin of error, as we so often are in North America (the stories in British media outlets rarely mention it). For the British press, it is more important to know that the pollster has agreed to abide by a stringent code of conduct than whether the data was collected face-to-face, by telephone or online.

This transparency also ensures that the numbers are real, and not subjected to deceptive modifications. The British Polling Council would frown upon a company that offered two completely different electoral predictions based on a “turnout model” that, supposedly, reflects voters more accurately. This is ridiculous to the extreme. Polls don’t measure two electorates: the one that will show up, and the one the pollster “thinks” will show up. Polls measure one electorate: the actual electorate.

Of course, claiming that one party is ahead with one of your models and another one is leading under another makes gloating very easy the morning after an election. Still, it makes a mockery of our profession. Imagine if a hockey analyst said this at the start of the Stanley Cup final: “Looking at the players. I’d say the Rangers will win it, but if the Kings are more motivated, they will win for sure.” This prognostication would generate jeers at the local Tim Hortons. But some people in the polling industry think it is legitimate to offer two different conclusions, and then claim that one of them was correct.

Canadian pollsters can and should emulate the guidelines followed in the U.K. Doing so will ensure that the media can distinguish true, unbiased research from statistically insignificant data or partisan promotion. It will also eliminate the reliance on pseudo-insiders who never show their tables, and whose claims cannot be verified. Let’s be clear: their only motivation is to boost the credentials of the parties and politicians who are paying them.

Also, we must abolish the practice of issuing two forecasts. It is a slippery slope that might very well lead to ill-equipped spokespeople uttering the words: “Our turnout model did not take into account the fact that a meteorite would fall in Ottawa, so we had it right all along.”

If we don’t take time to analyze what recent experiences mean to our industry, we will fail. Pollsters will sit elections out, and the only electoral information available to the media will be coming out of the campaigns themselves. Insta-polls will take the place of properly conducted research in media discussions.

Measuring public opinion, when done properly, is supposed to be a disruptive experience. Not a week goes by when I don’t get an email from someone who says that they do not know a single person who would vote for a specific party, that everybody they come into contact with loves pipelines or that nobody in their home supports the government. We need to continue to properly collect the data that effectively debunks these myths and misconceptions – it is an essential component of a pollster’s service to society.

Still, unless we agree to hold ourselves to a higher standard, we will continue to see our bona fide work supplanted by the talking points of pseudo-insiders and lobbyists, or half-baked insta-polls that masquerade as research. It will be the society that we are supposed to be serving that will lose in the end.

Mario Canseco is vice president, public affairs at Insights West. Throughout his career he has been responsible for more than 30 electoral forecasts in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, including the municipal elections in Calgary and Edmonton in 2013. He can be reached at [email protected].


In a Big Data World we Need Visualization

According to research scientist Andrew McAfee and professor Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT, the amount of data that crosses the Internet every second is greater than all the data stored in the Internet just 20 years ago. This amounts to exabytes of data being created on a daily basis. While big data remains, for some, an overhyped term, the reality is that the explosion of data is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Data volumes will continue to grow as more devices come online including computers, smartphones, tablets and new apps and services, along with an increasing number of devices outfitted with smart meters and sensors and GIS transmitters.

In light of this data explosion, data visualization tools are becoming increasingly important for managing and navigating information glut, and are making big data easier to digest. With advancements in technology, data visualizations are taking on more complex forms. They are being used to unravel the meaning behind big data sets that would otherwise be too difficult to understand.

How Data Visualization is Changing Marketing

Most marketing organizations are awash with information, whether it’s demographic, socioeconomic, geographic, behavioural, transactional, or one of the other myriad of data segments that make up customer intelligence such as social media and smart devices. However, this information is often stored in a variety of different systems, some internally owned by different – often siloed – departments and articulated in various formats but also external in repositories like Datasift and GNIP. What is lacking from this information surplus are the insights need¬ed to make the best marketing decisions.

Presenting information visually empow¬ers marketers to very quickly explore all customer data, no matter the size. Visual data adds a level of accessibility that can help marketers rapidly identify key relationships and uncover insights for creating more detailed customer seg¬ments (e.g., based on purchase history, sentiment towards brand, life stage, etc.) and more personalized promotions and messages.

Today’s marketers need to be nimble at converting data into insight, and data visualization software is integral to helping them find relevance among the millions of variables that can help target customers with relevant offers. For marketers, that can mean decreasing the time spent on finding key answers such as which messages are best suited for different customers, which time of day or day of the week are more important for certain offers, or determing the impact of activities to better plan marketing resources.

Buyer Beware

While data visualization is a very glamourous field right now, users must be pragmatic and start with the basics: data analysis, data management and best practices in data visualization. If possible, try before you buy the solution and make sure you are asking questions that are realistic and tied to your business goals. Most importantly, ask yourself, will it help you forecast? A lot of tools enable hindsight but does the tool offer foresight – can it offer you actionable benefits to plan for future success? In order to generate the best visualization for your data there are a few basic guidelines you should follow:

• Understand the data you are trying to visualize, including its size and cardinality (the uniqueness of data values in a column).

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Chris Long

Data visualization is the presentation of data in a pictorial or graphical format. Though the term may be new, the concept is not. For centuries, people have depended on visual representations such as charts, graphs and maps to understand information easily and quickly. As more and more data is collected and analyzed, decision makers at all levels will increasingly look to data visualization software to find relevance among millions of variables, communicate concepts and hypotheses to others, and even predict the future. Today’s organizations need to think of their data as a great but unedited story that needs

the help of visual analytics to bring it to life.

DISCOVERY THROUGH VISUALIZATION


• Wherever possible, remove noise and any data deemed

obviously irrelevant.

• Determine what you are trying to visualize and what kind of

information you want to communicate.

• Know your audience and understand how they process visual

information.

• Use a visual that conveys the information in the best and

simplest form for your audience.

What is Your Data Telling You?

Data visualization is an art and a science unto itself, and there are many graphical techniques that can be used to help people understand the story their data is telling. Here is a quick look at some chart types used for visualizations of data.

Line Graphs: Shows the relationship of one variable to another. They’re most often used to track changes or trends over time (see Figure 1). Bar Charts: Most commonly used for comparing the quantities of different categories or groups. (see Figure 2).

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Figure 1: Line graph

Figure 2: This bar graph – a waterfall chart – is used to represent the relative contribution of each category to total.


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Scatter Plot (or X-Y plot): A two-dimensional plot that shows the joint variation of two data items. In a scatter plot, each marker (symbols such as dots, squares and plus signs) represents an observation. A scatter plot is a good way to visualize relationships in data.

Figure 3: Scatter Plot (or X-Y plot).

Figure 4: A pie chart helps you compare the percentages of different components.

Pie Charts: Pie charts are most effective when there are limited components and when text and percentages are included to describe content (see Figure 4).

Word or Phrase Cloud: Data variety brings challenges because semi-structured and unstructured data require new visualization techniques. A word or phrase cloud visual (where the size of the word or phrase represents its frequency within a body of text) can be used on unstructured data as a way to display high or low frequency words or phrases (see Figure 5).

Enabling the “Data Scientist”As more organizations embrace data as a strategic asset, we will see a rise in the need for individuals who are capable of extracting value from these data assets. Some call them data scientists, others call them data engineers – regardless of their title, these individuals possess the ability to extract value from data, the kind of insight that leads to sound business decisions and increased ROI. McKinsey predicts a shortage in the coming years of big-data scientists and big-data managers.1


The appeal of data visualization tools is that the need for “data scientists” are reduced because organizations can now put these kind of tools in the hands of a business user. Visualization-based solutions offer ease of use and enable users to explore the data, find patterns and spot inconsistencies without much training. With visualization tools, users don’t need to write code or understand modeling – the tools do the heavy lifting so that the end user can focus on what story the data is telling them.

Conclusion

Because of the way the human brain processes information, it is faster for people to grasp the meaning of many data points when they are displayed in charts and graphs rather than in piles of spreadsheets or in pages and pages of reports. A picture is worth a thousand words – and images really are necessary to cut through the crowded, big data-cluttered world we currently live in.

1 McKinsey & Company http://www.mckinsey.com/features/big_data

Chris Long is a strategic technical and marketing consultant in the SAS Canada Customer Intelligence practice. He has over 15 years of experience helping organizations with analytical marketing and real-time marketing strategies including social media. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Figure 5: Word and phrase cloud shows the words and phrases associated with a topic.

Network diagram: A network diagram can explore relationships within a data set, including connections across geographies (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. A network diagram.


Maximize the Quality of Your ParticipantsIt is extremely important that all questions conceal overall research objectives. Keeping the topic of the study a mystery for as long as possible is ideal to eliminate participant guessing and data inaccuracies. Certain types of questions are notorious for giving this information away. For this reason, we suggest avoiding “yes and no” enquiries. These sorts of questions make it easier for respondents to discern what the research topic may be, and adjust their answers even if their answers are not a true representation of their life, so as to maximize their chances of being selected as a participant. This example below is an excerpt from a screener on the topic of quitting smoking.

Are you thinking about quitting smoking?a. Yes [Continue] b. No [Terminate]c. I don’t smoke [Terminate]

This question inadvertently reveals that the topic of the study is about quitting smoking. A respondent who wants to sneak into the study may answer “yes” in order to make it past this question, even if he isn’t a smoker. Knowing this information, they have a higher chance of knowing how to falsify the rest of their answers just to participate in the study.

What are your smoking habits?a. I do not smoke [Terminate]b. I only smoke when in social situations [Terminate]c. I smoke regularly and I’m currently trying to quit [Continue]d. I smoke regularly and am not currently trying to quit

[Terminate]

Creating different scenarios makes it difficult for respondents to guess what the survey is about, which ultimately leads to qualified participants.

Another tip is to include questions that eliminate repeated participation. This is helpful because having respondents who participate in one or more studies of the same topic can bias results. Having previous knowledge can also affect the opinions of other participants in a focus group, which can lead to inaccurate responses. A good way to collect this information is to provide a list of topics, and inquire if respondents have participated in any research related to these topics. Recruiters would terminate based on the answer that was applicable to the current marketing research study – and without giving away the topic at hand. For example, in a study about vitamins: Which, if any, of the following types of research studies have you participated in during the past Three months? (Select all that apply.)

Daniela Hassman

The execution of a successful and insightful focus group begins long before respondents arrive at a focus-group facility. Overall success is heavily dependent on the initial stages of research and development that originates from the carefully chosen screener questions submitted to the marketing research firm charged with recruitment.

By the time these questions reach the hands of the project managers at the recruiting firm in the form of a screener, clients’ agendas, goals and expectations are usually clear. While recognizing that a lot of creative thought and hard work has gone into the creation of the screener, it goes without saying that no piece of work is ever perfect. Over the years, companies who offer recruitment services have seen the good along with the not-so-good and we would like to share some tips on how screeners can be formulated to find the highest quality respondents possible.

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DON’T:

DO:

GREAT SCREENER QUESTIONS, GREAT RESULTS


a. Vitamins or health supplements [Terminate]b. Pet supplies [Continue]c. Refrigerated dairy products [Continue]d. Salty snacks or chips [Continue]e. Meal replacement, sports, or nutritional bars/shakes

[Terminate]f. None of the above [Continue]

Furthermore, we suggest that agencies that contract recruitment ask their recruiting companies how they are managing repeat respondents. It is important to make sure that recruiting companies have the right procedures in place to uphold high standards for qualified respondents.

Setting the Stage for Potential Flexibility Sometimes the pace of recruitment can go slower than expected, especially for lower incidence targets. One way to speed up the recruitment process is by allowing for some flexibility within the screener quotas. Recruiting companies understand that some quotas simply cannot be flexed because they are essential to finding qualified respondents. Creating a screener from the onset that will make it possible to flex some of the softer quotas means providing small, incremental answers. This allows recruiters to quickly wayfind the next best thing from within the pool of standbys, which is comprised of “almost qualified” respondents.

Providing questions that give a variety of responses, each varying slightly, is a great way to set the stage for potential flexibility. This is especially important for questions that involve numerical options. Providing incremental answers can elicit the most precise answer. In the event that quotas change slightly, recruiters do not have to rescreen potential respondents; the answers will already be there.

Please state your total household income.a. Less than $25,000 [Terminate] b. $25,000-$50,000 [Terminate]c. $50,000-$75,000 [Continue]d. $75,000-$100,000 [Continue]e. $100,000 and above [Continue]

This example does not contain sufficient variety to allow for reasonable flexibility. Considering the other screener quotas that may be more important than household income, there may not be a large enough pool of qualified respondents earning $50,000-plus annually. The focus-group date may be fast approaching and the commissioning agency may approve the inclusion of respondents who earn $40,000-plus annually in order to help speed up recruitment. Having a flexible screener at onset will leave you with a pool of potential respondents on standby who are earning the newly approved household income. Conversely, not having a screener that is set up for flexibility would cause further delays as all of the respondents who mentioned earning $25,000 to $50,000 would have to be rescreened in order to find those who are earning $40,000+, which makes the process more time consuming.

Please state your total household income. a. Less than $19,999 [Terminate]b. $20,000-$29,999 [Terminate]c. $30,00-$39,999 [Terminate]d. $40,000-$49,999 [Terminate]e. $50,000-$59,999 [Continue]f. $60,000-$69,999 [Continue]g. $70,000-$79,999 [Continue]h. $80,000-$89,999 [Continue]i. $90,000-$99,999 [Continue]j. $100,000 and above [Continue]

Setting up a question and the possible responses this way allows the recruiting agency to find respondents who qualify if the specs were to change much faster.

Things to Avoid or to Minimize There are some types of questions that may work well for quantitative questionnaires but not as well for screeners. These types of questions make it difficult to qualify respondents because the response data tends to be lengthy and complex. We recommend that they be used sparingly within screeners for qualitative studies.

For instance, many screeners include Likert scales to assess respondents’ attitudes and behaviours, as illustrated below in the example regarding personal style.

For each of the following statements, please indicate your level of agreement using a 5-point scale, where 5 means you agree completely and 1 means you disagree completely. When it comes to clothing and shoes:• I create my own style and am not influenced by other people.

_________• I express my personality through the clothing and shoes I

choose to wear. _________• I am a very creative person. _________• I like to stand out from the crowd. _________• I like to push the boundaries in everything I do. _________

While these types of questions can be useful in ensuring that respondents’ ideologies align correctly with the target market, overuse can lead to unecessarily high dropout and disqaulificaiton rates. The reason for this is due in part to the nature of respondent subjectivity (e.g., something as simple as a current mood can affect the way a respondent answers), respondent fatique from long lists, and the decreasing likelihood that respondents will chose the desired combination of ratings as the number of statements increases.

As a general rule of thumb, it is recommended that Likert scales be used sparingly, if at all, and whenever they are used for qualificaiton purposes, that they be limited to a maximum of three to five statements.

Other examples of questions that we recommend avoiding or minimizing are as follows:

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DON’T:

DO:


Algorithms These are formula-based questions that take the answers provided by respondents and give them a specific code that is usually linked to a personality/behavioural trait. Respondents might qualify on all other parts of the screener but based on the algorithm categorization be disqualified. In our experience, these questions have a high rate of disqualification and we suggest avoiding them.

If they must be used, please ensure that the algorithm is airtight. If let’s say a hundred respondents qualify based on all of the other questions in the screener, age, household income product usage, family composition etc., how could it be possible that once the algorithm is applied related to personality traits or behavioural questions that all hundred respondents then disqualify? This may perhaps indicate an issue with the algorithm itself.

Long lists of products/brandsThese are a deterrent to respondents and time consuming for recruiters. If lists of products/brands must be listed, we suggest using no more than the top 10 in the market, including only necessary ones for qualification purposes. Providing respondents with an option to answer freely in an open-ended text box can often flush out any additional products/brands and will cut down on respondent fatigue.

Sensitive questions Questions such as those relating to ethnicity or sexual orientation are best left up to the respondent to decide. This means using an open-ended question to let them express themselves freely without restrictions to answer on the screener.

Marketing research recruiters understand that it is important to get the most information possible out of screener questions and this can be achieved with a short and concise screener. Respondents find a drawn-out screening questionnaire tiresome and qualifying respondents on the recruiters end can be a tedious task. Keep it short, ask the right questions, and avoid the lengthiness that leads to high dropout rates.

Realistic Expectations: Knowing the MarketAfter much deliberation between an end client and the moderator/research agency, a particular persona might be created to help capture the right description of the demographic they are looking to speak with. In some cases, these personas don’t exist, and become what we researchers like to call “the needle in the haystack.” Either they are a niche market, small in population and extremely hard to reach, or they simply do not exist. We all want the findings to reflect the reality of the market, and the screener should too.

For example, Vancouver has the highest real-estate prices in the country, combined with an extremely competitive job market. Therefore, it is very unlikely that someone between 18-25 years old will own their own home in the downtown Vancouver area and make over $100,000 per year. Knowing your audience is key so that the marketing research agency can actually find suitable respondents.

In this example below, the end client is looking for respondents that buy their health supplements at large grocery outlets.

Which of the following stores have you purchased, or would consider purchasing nutritional supplements and vitamins in any form? Choose up to three.1. Whole Foods (1)2. Grocery Store (2)3. Walmart/Target (3) 4. GNC or Health Food Store (4)5. Online (5)6. Health Club/Gym (6)7. Convenience Store (7)8. Drug Store (8)9. Costco (9)[If any two of the following channels selected, then terminate: 1, 4, 5, 6]

Given the demographic of Vancouver, where this study was conducted, most of the health supplements in the GVA are sold at 1, 4, 5 and 6. Eighty per cent of respondents disqualified at this question because they chose 1, 4, 5 or 6. Therefore, the reality of the market must be taken into consideration, or else focus groups cannot be filled.

Knowing geographical areas when setting quotas is also imperative. There are many kilometres between Vancouver and Toronto, which means there will be a difference not only in the scenery, but also in the people and their lifestyles and habits. Marketing research agencies typically have studies that span the country, and hold focus groups in a few major cities at once. Focus groups may fill quicker in one city compared to another, and the main reason for this is the diversity in respondents from those areas.

For example, a research agency was looking to find people who drove trucks in the downtown areas of Calgary and Vancouver. Groups in Calgary filled quickly, as many inhabitants drove trucks. Groups in Vancouver fell behind as many inhabitants of the downtown core either drove small cars, or didn’t drive at all. Small regional differences like these are important to note, because they can severely affect recruitment.

Even differences between cities within the same province yield the same kind of predicaments. For example, a particular study required smart-car users in the lower mainland and the Fraser Valley. As it turned out, the majority of users were located in the downtown Vancouver area, and not outside the GVA. The habits of those living even across a bridge can differ significantly and knowing the market and geographical areas can help reduce issues like this.

Daniela Hassman is president at SmartPoint Research. She tweets at @danielahassman and can be reached at [email protected].

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The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) is a national, non-profit charity founded upon the belief that Canada is at its best when new citizens feel welcomed and included as full participants in the economic, political, social and cultural fabric of our country. This belief drives our work to accelerate new citizens’ integration into Canadian life. We do this through our programs

and our research platform, ICC Insights.

Why Should Canadians Care What New Citizens Think?

By 2030, all of Canada’s net population growth will be due to immigration. Immigration has transformed Canada’s largest cities, and is starting to have an impact on smaller centres. These changing demographics will be felt in every sector. If organizations and businesses want to grow, they need to understand new Canadian citizens.

We launched ICC Insights because new citizens’ experiences and knowledge offer new perspectives and are an essential ingredient to Canada’s success. We use a range of methods and partnerships to explore their experiences and bring their voices, and our learnings, to diverse stakeholders across the country. Our goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of newcomers’ experiences as Canadian citizens – beyond the point of immigration and settlement. Our research is distinctively focused on using the new citizen voice to reframe the national conversations on inclusion, identity and citizenship.

ICC Insights works with the new citizens who are members of our Cultural Access Pass (CAP) program. As this program has had more than 120,000 participants since its launch in 2008, we have access to an exclusive database that is engaged, opinionated and excited to share. ICC Insights connects new citizens to researchers who want to learn about their experiences and conduct their own research.

Our work focuses on the experience of new citizens, not new Canadians or newcomers. We explicitly make this distinction in our work because most research and non-profit programming focuses on those within the first four years of settlement in Canada (commonly labelled newcomers or new Canadians). New citizens are immigrants who have officially become Canadian citizens. This process can take a minimum of three years, but more likely an average of five to six years. Based on an analysis of our database, we know the majority of our new citizen program members are: building careers and raising families; highly educated, but may not be in a field where their salary matches their level of education; and settling in Ontario, B.C., Quebec and Alberta, increasingly in the suburbs of major urban centres.

Playing Together – New Citizens, Sports & Belonging

In July 2014, we launched a study called “Playing together – New Citizens, Sports & Belonging.” A first for Canada, we wanted to understand: new citizens’ participation in sports (playing and watching); what keeps them on the sidelines; if and how sports organizations are engaging new citizens; and if participation in sports helps with integration.

Heather Steel

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EXPLORING THE NEW CANADIAN VOICE


In total, more than 4,000 new citizens participated in our study. It was completed over three phases: an environmental scan, online survey and nation-wide focus groups.

The objective of the environmental scan was to learn how seriously sports organizations (and the government) were considering the issue. Through a combination of 21 telephone interviews and a review of 39 strategic plans and policy documents, we learned that while diversity in sport is often considered an important goal, few organizations named new Canadians as a target group. Our scan also revealed that many pilot programs attempted thus far have failed to land on a successful and sustainable approach for long-term engagement.

An online survey was then released to members and past members of the ICC’s Cultural Access Pass program – all new citizens within their first three years of obtaining citizenship. More than 4,000 responded to the survey and 3,020 fully completed it. The demographic characteristics of respondents were as follows:

• 53 per cent women; 47 per cent men

• 63 per cent lived in Canada between five and seven years

• 47 per cent are between 35 and 44 years old

• 58 per cent have children

• 48 per cent live in Ontario, 26 per cent in Quebec, 14 per cent in BC and 9 per cent in Alberta

• Philippines, India, China were the top countries of origin

• 74 per cent have a university degree

• 58 per cent work full time; 46 per cent have a household income of less than $60,000

Since our database is self-selecting (it represents new citizens with the motivation to sign up for a Cultural Access Pass), our results are not statistically representative of all new citizens in Canada. However, they do represent the firsthand accounts of thousands of new citizens across the country and we feel there is much to learn from them.

The survey was in the field for close to a month; two reminder emails were sent during that period. We offered an incentive to participate in the survey – respondents could submit their email address into a draw for gift cards of varying values. However, the incentive did little to push response rates higher than past projects without incentives. Note: our organization is aware response rates for online surveys are generally low but as a non-profit we do not have the resources for other forms of survey research (e.g., telephone surveys).

After the survey closed, we conducted eight focus groups across Canada, in Toronto, Mississauga, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Richmond, Ottawa and Montreal. Each group had between eight and 12 participants, with the exception of Winnipeg, which had five. They were recruited through the survey (respondents had the opportunity to leave their contact information if interested) or they were recruited through targeted email messages to CAP members in specific cities. In total, 75 new citizens participated in these discussions. The focus groups were diverse in terms of demographic factors, but

tended to attract people who were interested in sports, either for themselves or their children. We also offered an incentive to participate in the focus group: all participants received a gift card for their time.

The results of “Playing Together” were presented in an infographic, a highlight and full report. The study was launched during a breakfast presentation event in Toronto. The results generated substantial media coverage and sports organizations have responded positively, confirming the results align with their experiences.

What Did the Study Tell us about Canadian Sports?

The first part of the study explored the experiences of new citizens as participants and fans as well as the barriers preventing their participation. We learned:

• New citizens engage most often in activities that have minimal costs and are easy to fit into busy family schedules – e.g. running, biking, swimming.

• They are attracted to the sports they played before coming to Canada: soccer, basketball, tennis, table tennis (sports popular in Asia, Europe, and South America).

• As fans, more than half follow a professional sport, but the most popular are international soccer teams; very few attend professional sporting events in Canada.

• The top participation barriers align with the barriers all Canadians face: other priorities, money and time. Barriers unique to new citizens are: difficulty breaking into established sport networks, lack of clear information (assumptions that all participants have the same baseline knowledge), and the sense that as an adult, the opportunity to learn classic Canadian sports (skiing, skating, hockey, etc.) has passed them by.

• The top barriers for attending professional sporting events varies by sport, although time and cost are factors for all sports. Violence plays a role for hockey and football. A lack of interest and familiarity with the game (rules) ranked high as barriers for baseball and football.

The ICC was most interested in uncovering the connection (if any) between sports and integration. The focus groups played a vital role in the element of research process. It became clear that while our participants did not play sports with the goal of integrating into Canadian culture, better integration was often the outcome. Focus group participants collectively shared the following about this connection:

• Sports create opportunities for new Canadians to make friends and learn the nuances of Canadian society – Canadian slang and humour, acceptable gestures, and how to handle conflict.

• Conversations over sports were much easier to manage than interactions at work. Sometimes post-game conversations would veer into Canadian politics and history.

• New citizens also recognized the importance that hockey holds over Canadian culture, telling us that they soon realized

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that if you could learn just a little bit about hockey, it was much easier to relate to your coworkers and neighbours.

To align with the organization’s goal of accelerating inclusion, “Playing Together” presented recommendations on how to engage directly from the new citizen participants. These tips included:• Try before you buy – tiered pricing structures, free workshops.

• Create a Canadian sports welcome package or include sports information in the welcome package they receive at the airport.

• Ensure clear information – free of assumptions – is available online.

• Create an “adult tax benefit.”

• Offer free tickets or giving tips on how to get discounted tickets.

• Provide fun ways to learn the rules.

• Create partnerships that already serve immigrants.

• Remember that it’s a two way street – encourage all Canadians to try a new sport.

The insights from “Playing Together” prove there is much to learn from Canada’s newest citizens. Using the same model, the ICC plans to explore the new citizen experience exploring arts and culture, the outdoors, and their experiences as new voters.

* Click here to read the outputs from “Playing Together – New Citizens, Sports & Belonging.”

To learn more about ICC Insights and about opportunities for collaboration please email [email protected].

Heather Steel is the ICC Insights manager and researcher behind “Playing Together.” She has a MA and PhD (ABD) in the history of immigration and citizenship. She has a strong background in qualitative research (focus groups and oral history interviews) and has conducted survey research at the ICC for the past two years. She can be reached at [email protected].

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NEW SENIOR DIRECTOR OF INSIGHTS Pearl Strategy and Innovation Design is pleased to announce the addition of Donya Germain, CMRP, to our team as Senior Director of Insights. Donya brings with her 16 years of consumer research experience. She is best known for her strategic acumen, creativity and innovative approaches to research design. Donya is also an avid contributor to the research industry, with leadership roles as Director on the Research Agency Council at MRIA and Chair of ASTM E18 (Sensory Evaluation of Materials and Products).

This announcement is part of Pearl’s expansion into fully integrated qualitative and quantitative insight approaches to support our strategy and innovation solutions. Pearl helps ambitious organizations successfully grow by delivering clear strategy and innovation, by connecting human and business insight. We welcome Donya to our team at Pearl, as we continue to offer stronger solutions that enable organizations to achieve greatness.

Donya can be contacted at donyagermain@pearl- strategy.ca

NEW SENIOR DIRECTOR OF INSIGHTS

Pearl Strategy and Innovation Design is pleased to announce the addition of Donya Germain, CMRP, to our team as Senior Director of Insights. Donya brings with her 16 years of consumer research experience. She is best known for her strategic acumen, creativity and innovative approaches to research design. Donya is also an avid contributor to the research industry, with leadership roles as Director on the Research Agency Council at MRIA and Chair of ASTM E18 (Sensory Evaluation of Materials and Products). This announcement is part of Pearl’s expansion into fully integrated qualitative and quantitative insight approaches to support our strategy and innovation solutions. Pearl helps ambitious organizations successfully grow by delivering clear strategy and innovation, by connecting human and business insight. We welcome Donya to our team at Pearl, as we continue to offer stronger solutions that enable organizations to achieve greatness. Donya can be contacted at donyagermain@pearl-‐strategy.ca

ERICA STARK (nee BISSINGER) Aged 42, lifelong resident of Toronto and much loved wife of David; mother

of Dylan, Gavin and Matthew; daughter of Linda Bissinger and Ed Bissinger (Carol Stanley); sister of Sarah Bissinger (Craig Anderson); daughter-in-law of Jack Stark; sister-in-law of Andy Stark (Sylvia Proaño) and Laurie Stark; aunt of Lennox, Camilo and Evan; step-sister of Hilary McMahon (Colin) and Allan Stanley

(Lynn Pacarynuk). Missed terribly by aunts, uncles, cousins and little ones on both sides.

Taken from us suddenly, Erica lived life to its fullest: travelling the world with her family, teaching healthy living and empathy to her boys, inspiring others and being inspired and giving her time, love, enthusiasm and unstinting dedication to the Withrow community. Cozying up with good books, discussing them at her book clubs, fostering future dog guides, cooking, baking, snowshoeing, brisk walks, yoga, Zumba dancing classes and spending summers and work weekends at YMCA Geneva Park, we will remember Erica for these and other pursuits that reflect her strength and passion for life. Erica and David spent 22 wonderful years together and she adored every minute she had with their beautiful young boys – always mindful of their health, safety and well-being. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to: Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides, YMCA Capital Campaign for Geneva Park or the Withrow Home and School Association. Online condolences may be made by visiting www.trullfuneralsdanforth.com

I n M e m o r i a m

http://www.icc-icc.ca/en/insights/sports.php

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.smres.com


The BC chapter held its first AGM in recent memory in September. Twenty enthusiastic early risers met at TNS’ Vancouver office to enjoy donuts and coffee and show their support for their fellow members.

Interim president Lauren Isaacson offered her views on the state of the Chapter and her plans for the coming year. Ghia Moje accepted her CMRP certificate and the new 2014 - 2016 board was voted in by those in attendance. The new board members are:

• Lauren Isaacson - President• Lesley Duncan - Vice President• Melika Irannezhad - Secretary• Cam Davis - Treasurer• Phil Straforelli - Education Chair• Angelyn Reiman - Events Chair• Edward Van Dam - Standing Member

QUEBEC CHAPTER

Have any news or photos you want to share? Contact associate editor Fiona Isaacson ([email protected])

Members and guests are welcome at all MRIA events: Check our online calendar at http://mria-arim.ca/events-awards/calendar for more information on all events and how to register. Members receive

emails directly with event updates, so please check your inboxes for instructions on how to register for all upcoming events! MRIA Portal: https://www.mriaportal-arimportail.ca

Non members can sign up for free email, enewsletters and eVue at http://mria-arim.ca/contact-us/contact-staff

BC CHAPTER

Chapitre québécois de l’ARIM : c’est reparti pour une nouvelle saison!

Le lancement officiel de la programmation 2014-2015 du chapitre québécois a eu lieu le 17 septembre. Une trentaine de membres et « amis » de l’ARIM Québec se sont retrouvés dans la toute nouvelle Industria brasserie italienne, dans Griffintown, pour ce premier événement de réseautage de la saison.

L’événement s’est ensuite poursuivi avec la présentation de notre conférencier invité, Stéphane Mailhiot, planificateur stratégique de l’agence lg2.

Quebec Chapter: Time for a new season!

The Quebec Chapter officially launched its 2014-2015 programming on September 17. About 30 members and “friends” of the Chapter got together for the first networking event of the season at the new brand Industria Brasserie Italienne, in Griffintown.

The evening’s guest speaker was Stéphane Mailhiot, strategic planner with advertising agency lg2.

Daniel Brousseau, Président du chapitre, a présenté les nombreuses activités planifiées pour la saison qui débute, soit plus d’une douzaine d’événements variés tels que petits déjeuners-conférences, journées de formation, activités de réseautage, concours de la relève et plus encore. Un programme bien chargé et prometteur que vous pouvez consulter en ligne.

Chapter president Daniel Brousseau presented the many activities planned for the season: more than a dozen different events such as breakfasts, conferences, training days, networking events, contests and more. You can learn more about the events by clicking here.

The BC Chapter’s new board voted in at its September AGM. From left, Lesley Duncan (VP), Edward Van Dam (Standing Member), Melika Irannezhad (Secretary), Angelyn Reiman (Events Chair), Phil Straforelli (Education Chair) and Lauren Isaacson (President).]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7h52xedweaym38/ARIM%20LANCEMENT%202014-2015.pdf?dl=0&n=15502094

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7h52xedweaym38/ARIM%20LANCEMENT%202014-2015.pdf?dl=0&n=15502094


INDUSTRY NEWS

Academica GroupAdvanis Inc.Advitek Inc.BBM AnalyticsBBM CanadaBond Brand Loyalty (Formerly Maritz Research Canada)Campaign ResearchCanadian Viewpoint Inc.Cido ResearchConsumer Vision Ltd.Corporate Research AssociatesEKOS Research Associates Inc.Elemental Data Collection Inc.Environics Research Group Limited

Forum Research Inc.Fresh Squeezed IdeasGfK CanadaGreenwich AssociatesHead CountInsignia Marketing Research Inc.Ipsos ReidMarket Probe CanadaMarket Pulse Inc.MBA RechercheMD Analytics Inc.MQO ResearchNanos ResearchNielsen Consumer InsightsNRG Research Group

Opinion Search Inc.PRA Inc.Quorus Consulting Group Inc.R.A. Malatest & Associates Ltd.Research DimensionsResearch House Inc.Research NowSmartPoint Research Inc.Tele-Surveys Plus / Télé-Sondages PlusThe Logit Group Inc.TNS Canada (Canadian Facts)Vision CriticalIllumina Research Partners

GOLD SEAL CORPORATE RESEARCH AGENCIES

BASIC CORPORATE RESEARCH AGENCIESBureau des Intervieweurs Professionnels Inc. Dialogue Research Inc.Goss Gilroy Inc.

Nexus Market Research Inc.Qualitative Coordination Inc.Quality Response Inc.Trampoline Marketing

Combined with other self-regulatory initiatives such as our Code of Conduct and Good Practice and our Charter of Respondent Rights, the RRS has paid huge dividends in protecting the industry’s positive reputation and good name with Canadians.

All Gold Seal and Corporate Research Agency members of the Association are obligated to register all of their research projects with the RRS, and Client-Side Corporate members are encouraged to require their agency suppliers to do so. Starting in 2015, RRS fees are included in MRIA Corporate Membership Fees

MRIA’s Research Agency Council provides strategic, policy-level oversight of the Research Registration System, and receives aggregate data-only on the System’s performance.

Questions about the Research Registration System should be addressed to Erica Klie, Manager, Member Support Services, at 1-888-602-6742 or (416) 642-9793, ext. 8727 or [email protected].

MRIA’s Research Registration System (RRS) has long been a cornerstone self-regulatory mechanism for the marketing, survey and public opinion research and market intelligence industry in Canada.

The following companies have registered research projects with the Research Registration System Up to November, 2014

Rules of Conduct and Good Practice For Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007):

Section A (5)Members must uphold the MRIA Charter of Respondent Rights.

Charter of Respondent Rights, Article 2 You can verify that the research you have been invited to participate in is legitimate in one of two ways. You can either obtain a registration number and the MRIA’s toll-free telephone number for any research registered in the MRIA’s Research Registration System or you can obtain the contact information of the research director who is conducting the study.

RESEARCH REGISTRATION SYSTEMSince 1994, the RRS has allowed respondents to verify the legitimacy of a research project; helped legislators

and regulators differentiate between legitimate survey researchers and unscrupulous telemarketers, phishers and scammers; and protected the industry from unnecessary and unwanted regulation.

http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/research-registration/research-registration-overview


INDUSTRY NEWS

NEW FOR 2015:RBG HAS GONE

DIGITAL!The Research Buyer’s Guide (RBG) is a comprehensive directory that lists companies and organizations that provide marketing research services and products. This Directory is the only one of its kind in Canada, created exclusively for members of MRIA.

RBG 2015 is an entirely digital edition, fully searchable on the MRIA website with a few value added features that will help you market your services more effectively, including:

Social Media - Added fields on the listing pages for Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn so that potential buyers can easily connect with you and share your listing content in social media

Company Logo - Ability to upload Company Logos, to help promote your company through easier brand recognition, and

Banner Ads - Wide variety of banner ad opportunities that can be tailored to specific sections and to marketing campaign timing, at a price that will suit most budgets!

Best of all, you can update your information online, 24/7 and year round – your listing purchase is effective until December 31, 2015!

Environmentally and fiscally friendly!

DEADLINE TO RENEW IS DECEMBER 31, 2014.But you must act before year end, as all listings that are not renewed by this year-end will be removed from the database on January 1, 2015 .

To renew your Listings, buy new ones or to view Banner Advertising offers, visit http://mria-arim.ca/publications/research-buyers-guide/renew-edit-buy-listings

Questions? Write us at [email protected] or call 1-888-602-6742 x 8723

2015 Membership Renewals are underway. To view the new Corporate Fee Structure http://mria-arim.ca/membership/join-mria/corporate-memberships/corporate-dues-fees

For Individual Members http://mria-arim.ca/membership/join-mria/individual-memberships/individual-dues-fees

Questions? Contact [email protected]

MRIA and Partner Events

Calendar of

Events

Nov. 20, 2014 CSRC Social Connect and Holiday Party Toronto, ON

Nov. 27, 2014 Ottawa Chapter Event Ottawa, ON

December 11, 2014 Toronto Chapter

December 22, 2014 Prairie Chapter

January 27, 2015 Net Gain 2015 Toronto, ON

March 26–27, 2015 QRD Day Toronto, ON

May 24–26, 2015 Marriott Eaton Centre, Toronto, ON

NOVEMBER 2014

DECEMBER 2014

JANUARY 2015

MARCH 2015

MRIA NATIONAL CONFERENCE

*NEW*

INDUSTRY NEWS


INDUSTRY NEWS

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRYIn accordance with federal privacy laws, MRIA’s Qualitative Research Registry (QRR), or Registre de la recherche qualitative (RRQ) in French, was created to provide an ongoing, user-friendly vehicle for tracking those who do not want to be contacted or should not be contacted for qualitative research studies.

If you have any questions about or wish to submit to the QRR please send an e-mail to: [email protected]

Information regarding the QRR can be found at http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/qualitative-research-division/qualitative-research-registry

Starting in 2015, all QRR fees are included in MRIA’s Corporate Membership Fees. To view the fee scale, visit http://mria-arim.ca/membership/join-mria/corporate-memberships/corporate-dues-fees

Rules of Conduct and Good Practice for Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007), Section C Rules Specific to the Conduct of Qualitative Research:

20. Recruiters should provide accurate data to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such exists, on a consistent basis and check all respondents against the Registry.

21. Moderators buying recruiting services should give primary consideration to recruiting agencies which submit to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such a service exists, on a regular and ongoing basis.

THE FOLLOWING CORPORATE MEMBERS HAVE SUBMITTED NAMES TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY

Research House Inc.Quality Response Inc.Opinion Search Inc.Nexus Market Research Inc.I & S RecruitingHead CountDawn Smith Field Management ServiceConsumer Vision Ltd.Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting Inc. (BCCR Inc.)

Opinion Search Inc.

MBA RechercheTrend Research Inc.Barbara C. Campbell Recruiting Inc. (BCCR Inc.)

ONTARIO

ATLANTIC

QUEBECWEST

QRR is a comprehensive do not call list of those who have recently participated in qualitative research studies, those who have asked not to be contacted further, and those felt by recruiters and moderators to be best served by not being contacted. These respondents are marked as “do not call” in accordance with established MRIA Standards.

All field and full-service companies are encouraged to submit a list of their qualitative respondents for entry into the QRR system each month, including those who do not wish to be contacted.

Participating firms will receive monthly updates of respondents to be screened from qualitative recruitment samples. QRR works effectively to increase the quality and integrity of the qualitative research process, by serving as a control to ensure respondents are not contacted more frequently than is necessary.

However, the ability of the system to function effectively is directly related to the co-operation received from firms who provide recruitment services. If you are a full service research firm or field supplier that is currently participating in the Qualitative Research Registry program – thank you very much and keep up the good work!

If you are not currently participating, please get involved! If you are interested in submitting to QRR, please visit the MRIA website at http://mria-arim.ca/about-mria/qualitative-research-division/qualitative-research-registry for further explanation and guidance on how to submit qualitative research participants’ names, along with the required electronic forms.

Up to November, 2014


INDUSTRY NEWS

STUDENT CASE COMPETITIONS

LARGEST EXHIBITOR HALL SINCE 2010

TEDTALK STYLE PRESENTATIONS

INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS, KEYNOTES

LOTS OF NETWORKING, CONTESTS AND MORE!

Do not miss out on what promises to be the largest gathering of MR professionals since the 50th Anniversary bash in 2010!

http://conference2015.mria-arim.ca/news/index.php

Mark your Calendars and look for our Call for Papers later this month – also coming are Sponsor and Exhibitor opportunities.

WHAT’S NEW FOR 2015?

• National Student Competition, 12 teams competing for $6,000 in prizes!

• “Elevator Pitch” competition among exhibitors!

• Two opening parties on Sunday May 24!

• Over 40 exhibitor booths!

• Baristas, dessert bars, live entertainment and door prizes!

Storytelling in business is becoming an important skill. Ever more effort goes into presentations and business stories. How can organizations acquire storytelling expertise? And what does a good story look like, now that interactive media have altered this age-old form of communication for good?

Join us in Toronto next May, and hear from international speakers and authors – all great storytellers.

Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/hashtag/mria15 #mria15 and on this website, as we provide exciting updates on what promises to be a unique – and rather large – gathering!


INDUSTRY NEWS

Mark Your Calendars! JANUARY 27, 2015 Net Gain Toronto: The Business of INSIGHTS

RAY POYNTER

“I feel that the big change that market research needs is really underway. In a few years from now, I think we will see a market research industry, smaller, more focused on conversations, and being judged by both clients and respondents, and collaborating with both clients and respondents. I am sure that the days of the bean counting

are coming to an end, more of our work in the future will be thought related, rather than process related”. Ray is author of “The Handbook of Mobile Market Research” – Founder of NewMR – Director of Vision Critical University – He operates The Future Place consultancy.

REG BAKER, PhD

Former President and Chief Operating Officer of Market Strategies International and is now the Executive Director of the Marketing Institute Research International.

DAN FOREMAN

President of ESOMAR and has been in the research business for 20 years, building businesses across Europe, Asia Pacific and The Americas

LEONARD MURPHY

In the Market Research industry for over a decade in various senior level roles, most notably as CEO of full service agency Rockhopper Research, CEO of tech-driven start-up BrandScan360, and Senior Partner of strategic consultancy Gen2 Advisors.

JON PULESTON

VP of Innovation at Lightspeed GMI and is one of the industry’s main thought leaders in the field of survey design methodology. Jon will enlist audience participation in a live predictive markets experiment.

JOEL RUBINSON

President and founder of Rubinson Partners, Inc. marketing and research consulting for a brave new world and a member of the faculty of NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches social media strategy.

CORRINE SANDLER

Founder and CEO of Fresh Intelligence Research Corp, founder of Validateit, brilliant author of “Wake Up Or Die” and an award-winning dynamic speaker. As a renowned entrepreneur, she led Fresh Intelligence to PROFITS fastest growing companies in 4 years and has been on the W100, top 100 woman Entrepreneur list three years in a row.

Net Gain 2015 promises to deliver on insight and inspiration – seven reasons to attend:

Register today at http://netgain2015.mria-arim.ca/REGISTRATION/index.php


BO

OKREVIEWS

As the title The Complete Guide to Writing Questionnaires suggests, this book authored by David F. Harris provides a user-friendly, comprehensive, systematic and pragmatic guideline on how to craft effective survey questionnaires in order to get better information for better decision-making.

Being a seasoned marketing research professional, the author presents the information of this book in a very easy-to-follow manner. He starts with the big picture of research planning and the importance of conducting qualitative research. Then the author devotes an entire chapter explaining the importance of planning questionnaires and presenting the eight useful guidelines for questionnaire planning. How to write questionnaires is no doubt the main part of this book. In this part, the author organizes the information into two layers: the common mistakes in questionnaire writing (unclear questions, un-answerable questions, overly complicated questions and biased questions), and the techniques in questionnaire writing (presenting lists, rating scales and open-ended questions). The last part of the book is on questionnaire pretesting and editing. As the author points out in this book, “You wouldn’t publish a book without first undergoing a serious editing process, nor should you implement a questionnaire without first pretesting and editing it”. Pretesting and editing have been specifically emphasized and detailed

methods and guidelines have been provided in this book.

The author does not present this book in a theory-driven approach. Instead, he shows its readers a series of well-organized guidelines and principles, which are very easy to follow and refer back to. The author even provides an appendix at the end of the book, listing all the guidelines discussed in the book. This part can be easily adapted into a checklist that we can use in writing or evaluating survey questionnaires.

Another interesting and thought-provoking aspect of this book is the wealth of examples of survey questions that could be interpreted by the respondents in different ways. As a marketing researcher, sometimes we “forget” to think of the recipient end of a questionnaire due to our busy schedules and tight deadlines. These examples can be served as a gentle reminder to us when we design or review our questionnaire.To conclude, The Complete Guide to Writing Questionnaires is a well-written reference book in which you will not encounter sophisticated theories and academic jargons, but useful and practical guidelines that could improve your professional competence in marketing research. Therefore, I would highly recommend this book to all marketing researchers, whether you work on the research supplier side or client side, and whether research novices or industry experts.

A Review of The Complete Guide to Writing QuestionnairesWritten by David F. Harris Published by I&M Press

Reviewed by Dylan Gao


Were you surprised when Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion? Stunned by their $19 billion Whatapp deal? Both of these companies were young and had questionable revenue streams. What they did have, in each case, were stunningly large numbers of frequent users.

How did these companies, along with others like Pinterest and even Facebook itself, achieve such tremendous growth and stickiness? How did Facebook supplant more established competitors like MySpace and Friendster? Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products, has the answer: these firms created products with habit forming, even addictive, characteristics.

Eyal proposes “The Hook Model” as a design approach for designing habit-forming products. This model, which builds on BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model, is a circular process that, if done right, becomes self-reinforcing.

Everything begins with a trigger – an email, perhaps, or an advertisement. It could be an invitation from a friend. The trigger changes over time. After the initial one, other external triggers may follow – email reminders, mobile notifications, etc. Eventually, the triggers become internal to the user… “I’m bored, so I’ll check Pinterest…”

The action phase must be as simple and easy as possible. Social logins, for example, eliminate registration forms and double-opt-in email confirmations. Simplicity is critically important. Photo editors and sharing tools have been around for many years, but Instagram made the process so easy that a new user doesn’t need instructions. Try that in Photoshop!

Once a user completes an action, rewards will reinforce that behavior. It’s a bit counter-intuitive, but variable rewards work better than consistent rewards. Imagine if every time you posted an update on Facebook, the same three friends liked it. After a few posts, you’d tune that feedback out as predictable and boring. The real world of social feedback is a lot more exciting to our brains. One photo we upload may go unnoticed, while another explodes with likes, shares, and comments.

The last stage of the Hook Model is also a bit counter-intuitive: investment. Even though the action phase

emphasized ease and simplicity, a truly habit-forming product requires an investment of user time and effort. At a practical level, this increases switching costs. If you have built a large following or body of work on one service, do you really want to start all over on another?

But, at a fundamental level of human behavior, the investment of effort exploits the concept of consistency. Spending a significant amount of time doing something makes a person believe that investment must have been worthwhile, and increases the probability of continuing that behavior.

Addiction for Good?

If you accept the model as a valid blueprint for building habit-forming products, you may then ask where the ethical boundaries lie. Eyal addresses this with a matrix that asks “does it improve the user’s life” and “does the maker use it?”

While most of the examples in Hooked involve digital products, there are some important lessons here for anyone building a product they hope will become a regular part of their customer’s routine. If you develop apps, websites, or even physical products, get Hooked!

From Around the WebShira Abel said in her TNW review, “I’ve been mentioning

Nir and his Hooked model in every talk I’ve given… in the past year… Highly, highly recommended.” Thomas Kjemperud called it, “an excellent book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in user psychology, engagement or product design.” Daniel Judge said Hooked offers “actionable ways to increase users, growth, and revenue.”

Roger Dooley is the primary author at Neuromarketing, and founder of Dooley Direct LLC, a marketing consultancy. You can reach him at [email protected] http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/hooked-by-nir-eyal.htm

A Review of Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming ProductsAuthored by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (December 2013)

Reviewed by Roger Dooley

http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/hooked-by-nir-eyal.htm


THE FIVE PATHWAYS

POST GRADUATE

HOW’S THE VIEW FROM YOUR CUBICLE?

This certification pathway is designed to build a solid foundation of professional competence by raising the bar for new practitioners. In addition to two years of industry experience, we are providing Mentor support by leading CMRPs (in person and online) to enhance industry knowledge and deepen the candidates’ overall understanding of MR while preparing for the CMRE exam. Mentors are provided at no cost to the incumbents and represent some of our industry’s thought leaders. This is a unique and valuable opportunity opportunity to pursue your CMRP.

You will be learning from the best and

getting a better view!

MRIA COURSES PATHWAY

JUST LOVE TO LEARN?

You’ve graduated from University and have developed a distinct taste for marketing research. You miss the thrill of learning and the challenge of proving your abilities. If your eye is on the future, then this path is for you, as the traditional, tried and true way to obtaining certification, and with a touch of flexibility. It requires completion of MRIA’s 12 Core Courses, combined with experience and the added help of a Mentor which we provide at no charge.

We’ve got the courses so bring us your mind!

CHALLENGE THE CMRE EXAM

GOT WHAT IT TAKES?

You’ve been around the block and have seen some dramatic changes to marketing research in your six years in the biz. You’re good at what you do; even your boss says so. You live on the edge and are not at all interested in reading volumes about research methodology. We get it. You can prove your mettle by telling us about your experience and writing the CMRE exam. Period.

We know you’ve got what it takes!

EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONER

SOME DAYS YOU CAN TOUCH THE SKY!

You are the one that comes to mind when people talk about experts in marketing research. With more than ten exciting years in the market research field, you are the ‘go to’ person when questions arise on ethics or polling or margins of error. Task forces and boards of directors seek your participation and opinion. Even other CMRPs will vouch for your expertise and would applaud your continued success as a CMRP. We can get you there in a few short steps.

Get the recognition you deserve!

CMRP EXECUTIVE RETREAT

REALLY? YOU’RE NOT A CMRP?

It’s called respect. Ask any client who one of the top thought leaders in MR is, and your name comes up. You are seen at high level meetings, in the media, and at MRIA policy meetings. Often called to speak at events, your international schedule is jam packed. Google your name and many pages appear…..

Any time spent feeding your mind can only be spent with the very best - industry thought leaders, innovators, movers and shakers. Learning about advances in leadership is always welcome. Hearing about innovations from your peers can be priceless.

CMRP – be known for what you know!

Continuous learning is the new standard – let us help you expand your knowledge base and reach outside of your comfort zone.

Certification is a way to measure the competency of individuals within our industry, based on both a certification evaluation and the practical application of marketing research competencies. Our well-known Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation helps to ensure professional competence while enhancing the prestige of our profession by raising standards.

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We are pleased to release The Five Pathways to obtaining your CMRP and there is bound to be one that is ideal for you:

Institute for Professional Developmenthttp://mria-arim.ca/education/cmrp-certification/cmrp-overview

For more information, visit our website or write us as [email protected]

Winter session datesCMRE Prep Course: January 21–22 2015 in Toronto*CMRE Exam: February 18–19 2015 in Toronto**Other locations may be possible – contact [email protected] for more information on obtaining your valuable designation at your locations of choice!

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CO

LUM

NIS

TS Ruth Corbin, CMRPCorbinPartners Inc.

Is it time for a researcher rating system?

“Dear Dr. Ruth,Having come across a potential ethical marketing research issue I am in great need of your wisdom. My company has fielded a survey for a respected publicly listed Canadian corporation. We obtained a respondent i.d. list from the company (it was a sample of the company’s clients) and we eventually returned a data file with the questionnaire data. My contact inside the corporation (an MRIA member) has informed me that he discovered that the respondent i.d. list contained a hidden code that can be used to link the survey answers back to individual clients and their business history. When he told his boss, his boss told him not to worry about it, the company did need to link the survey data to individual clients in order to ensure responsiveness to individual client needs. This would seem to be a violation of MRIA confidentiality standards at least and perhaps even federal privacy legislation. What should I do about this and what is our responsibility and liability as a supplier in this situation? What technology-based steps can be taken to detect such hidden-identifier codes in the future?”

Nervous in Newmarket”

Dear Nervous:Thank you for taking the time to think through this dilemma and to submit your concern for Vue readers.

Your scenario raises issues on at least three fronts: privacy, MRIA’s Code of Conduct and personal responsibility.

I understand that your company fielded the project in good faith, unaware of the hidden code in the respondent ID’s. Likely the survey introduction assured respondents that their answers would be kept confidential. You may wish to write your contact a note reminding him that the survey did assure clients of confidentiality, and that industry

guidelines require that no linkage be made between customers’ identities and survey data without their explicit permission; you could then request that the file immediately delete any linkage to client ID’s of which you were previously unaware. With your letter in hand, your contact would have additional ammunition to have appropriate action taken within his company. Please consult your own company’s lawyer for any remaining legal liability to your firm. The precise facts matter.

To reduce future risks of this sort, look to your retainer agreements, when contracting for projects. Besides specifying work to be carried out at an agreed-upon budget, retainer agreements typically include understandings regarding terms of payment, confidentiality of files, return of documents, to name a few topics. Now consider adding an explicit understanding regarding clients’ obligation to guarantee any privacy assurances you offer to respondents. With such a signed assurance from a public company, no research company should need to act as their own detectives, burdened with ferreting out any hidden codes in the contact files they receive from clients.

Next, two cautionary disclaimers: Some ID codes are benign. There is nothing wrong with coding respondent ID’s for broad groupings, like gender, region, salary grouping – as long as those groupings are not so small as to enable identification of individuals within them. (For example, if one grouping were Canadians with net worth over $4 billion, and if those 10 Canadians actually participated in your survey, you could probably figure out individual identities from other details of their responses.) Your client contact may wish to check whether the “hidden codes” he discovered were similarly benign. Second, customers may give various sorts of permissions when submitting personal ID data to a corporation they deal with. Your

client contact may wish to confirm the permissions given by the sample of clients, before definitively concluding that a violation of their privacy has occurred.

Finally, let’s consider your client contact’s responsibility. Should he publicly blow the whistle on the corporate practice? I’m pretty sure the problem would be solved before any high-profile whistle-blowing proves necessary. Respected publicly-traded corporations are almost certainly committed to ethical governance and respect for laws. No Board of Directors today should tolerate a breach of privacy laws or wide-spread lying to customers. Directors’ membership in the Institute of Corporate Directors holds them to ethical principles comparable to those of MRIA. It sounds like your contact has hit a brick wall with his boss on this one. A good option is for him to approach the in-house General Counsel who (a) would know how privacy laws are implemented within the company (b) is responsible for advising the Board on legal risks and (c) could have the problem investigated as a matter of corporate processes and not for purposes of exposing villains. In the end, your client contact will have been an agent of enhanced awareness within his corporation – all to the positive.

As for the “rogue boss” who seems to be condoning a prohibited practice, I am optimistic that there is some misunderstanding of what the boss thinks or understands about the situation. If, in the extreme, the boss is knowingly breaking the law and insisting your contact follow unethical instructions, then in my view your contact is obliged to engage another executive in stopping the practice. At what personal risk? A risk worth taking.

Please submit your forensic research and standards questions to [email protected] or anonymously via the MRIA blog, https://mriablog.wordpress.com/ask-dr-ruth/.

Ask Dr. Ruth

mailto:[email protected]

https://mriablog.wordpress.com/ask-dr-ruth/


‘Good Enough’ is not OKDonya Germain, CMRPPearl Strategy and Innovation Design

Oh Canada!In a recent interview, the Chief Scientific Officer of Pepsico, Mehmood Khan said “Up until 2005 or 2006, our industry grew very successfully…Have great brands…go around the world…launch the same product…and you grew. Things started changing…customers became more aware…and culturally relevant products started to become even more important.”

Canada is a unique culture. Why then is it OK to fast adapt advertising or products, from the US or internationally? Why is it OK to harmonize the Canadian version of a product with the US version? This is not good enough.

The US and Canada, our countries and our people are neighbours, close friends even, but we are different. Petramala and Gulati, in TD Economics 2013, said that “despite similar cultures and languages, Canadian and US consumers are

quite different”. From immigration to banking, ethnicities to obesity, multicultural to melting pot, the US and Canada are close geographically and politically, but the people are different and like different things.

From a recent JWT study we know that Canada is a country, emerging as smarter and bolder. Millenials are driving our pride upwards and championing our quality of life. We are more confident, more grown up, more willing to lead, more optimistic and more proud to be Canadian. We do not need to be told what to do.

Scott Megginson of Millward Brown has spoken and written about the risks a company takes when fast adapting commercials from the US to Canada. Canada’s values are different, we don’t need celebrities but like nostalgia and vignettes. One third of US ads are not as effective and half are not as enjoyable here.

Products, and specifically food, are no different. At least half of harmonization attempts fail and only five percent of US products actually win. Canadians like different flavour profiles, different textures and different ethnic inspired flavours.

Large external business consulting firms recommend harmonization to cut costs and improve the bottom line. But what happens when Canadians don’t like the US version of their favourite products? Why do some feel it is OK to launch a successful US product in Canada and assume Canadian consumers will like it and buy it too? How ethical is it to bring the US version to Canada when it offers poorer nutritional content?

Perhaps what we should be doing is teaching other countries how to live, what to value, how to get along and how to eat. Instead of sitting back and taking what is forced upon us, we should turn it around and apply what Bono said, “I believe the world needs more Canada”.

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2014-2015 COURSE OFFERINGS CORE AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSES

101 – INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING RESEARCH Examines elements of quantitative and qualitative methods that define market research today.

102 – ETHICAL ISSUES AND PRIVACY IN MARKETING RESEARCH Introduces participants to the key ethical concerns that arise throughout the research process.

201 – MARKETING RESEARCH DESIGN: AN APPLIED COURSE This course examines the key research designs used in marketing research.

202 – QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN Examines the types of questions that should be asked and the best way to ask them.

203 – MARKETING RESEARCH STATISTICS AND DATA ANALYSIS (2 days) This course takes an applied approach to teaching core competencies of statistics.

204 – QUALITATIVE MARKETING RESEARCH Examines the latest theory and application of some of the most common qualitative research methods.

301 – COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE, MYSTERY SHOPPING AND BENCHMARKING Learn to conduct competitive intelligence to anticipate your competitor’s next moves, interpret their strategies and assess their threat.

302 – MARKET INTELLIGENCE Learn the purpose of market intelligence (MI), how to integrate MI disciples, MI models, and building MI teams.

303 – MARKETING MANAGEMENT FOR RESEARCHERS Provides students with a solid understanding of the marketing function in business decisions.

401 – ONLINE RESEARCH, BEST PRACTICES AND INNOVATIONS Examines various online methodologies while covering their applications, pros, and cons.

402 – ADVANCED ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES (2 days)This introduction to multivariate analysis covers a range of techniques and explains their uses.

403 – ADVANCED QUALITATIVE MARKETING RESEARCH Provides an in–depth examination of qualitative techniques, methodologies, and analysis.

OTTAWA: November 4, 2014Instructor: Robert Wong

TORONTO: November 26, 2014Instructor: Robert Wong

TORONTO: January 20, 2015Instructor: Jordan Levitin

TORONTO: October 30-31, 2014Instructor: Chuck Chakrapani

TORONTO: February 9, 2015Instructor: Kelly Adams

TORONTO: March 11, 2015Instructor: David Lithwick

TORONTO: January 27 & 28, 2015Instructor: Jordan Levitin

TORONTO: March 5, 2015Instructor: Jordan Levitin

TORONTO: February 5-6, 2014Instructor: Chuck Chakrapani

TORONTO: February 10, 2015Instructor: Kelly Adams

CORE COURSES

Visit our web site, www.mria-arim.ca/education, for course details, registration deadlines and pricing.Our in-class courses are available in simulcast for your convenience.

Core courses are available online, and please visit our web site for details.If you are interested in taking any of our listed courses that are not yet scheduled please send an e-mail to

[email protected].


CATEGORICAL DATA ANALYSISAn introduction to an array of methods and modeling techniques for categorical data analysis.

COMMUNICATING WITH HIGH IMPACT GRAPHSLearn how to produce effective reports, presentations, and impactful, persuasive graphs.

CONJOINT ANALYSISAn in–depth examination of conjoint analysis, its applications, and interpretation.

CREATING WINNING RESEARCH PRESENTATIONSLearn how to craft a presentation that tells a story, engages, and impacts your audience.

CROWD SOURCING **NEW**Learn the basics of crowd sourcing and the marketing research crowd sourcing spectrum – from ideas, to insights, to innovation.

GAMIFICATION **NEW**Understand the fundamentals of gamification, its uses, and how to apply it.

MARKET SEGMENT RESEARCHCovers the various methods used for market segmentation and evaluates the pros/cons of each.

MEASURING CUSTOMER STATISTICS: INTRODUCTIONLearn the ins and outs of properly measuring customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

MEASURING CUSTOMER STATISTICS: ADVANCEDBuilds on the introduction by providing an in–depth analysis of the techniques used to measure customer satisfaction

METRIC MADNESSLearn about evaluating digital and social media datasets, what tracking tools to use, and how to communicate these results.

MODERATOR TRAINING: BASIC (3 days)Learn core moderating skills including preparing for a focus group, introducing and warming up the group, questioning and listening skills, and dealing with difficult respondents.

MODERATORS TOOL BOX: ADVANCEDAn intensive workshop where participants learn the intricacies of a variety of moderating techniques such as when to (or not to) use them, how to use them, and how to analyze them.

SEMIOTICS: HOW SYMBOLS, PACKAGING AND ADVERTISING COMMUNICATEExamines the fundamentals of semiotic analysis with workshops to allow participants to see how the methodology works in the ‘real world’.

SPSS: INTRODUCTIONThis workshop will quickly help you learn the basics of SPSS for analyzing the types of data that results from most surveys.

SPSS: ADVANCED (2 days)Work through more advanced analyses that are capable of providing significant insights into consumer behaviour and motivation.

WRITING THAT GETS RESULTSLearn how to write persuasively to different audiences, avoid common mistakes, and hone your ability to summarize complex materials.

TORONTO: December 15, 2014Instructor: Sharon M. McIntyre

Vancouver: October 30, 2014Instructor: Cam Davis

TORONTO: December 3-5, 2014Instructor: Margaret Imai-Compton

Instructor: Margaret Imai-Compton

CALGARY: To be Rescheduled TORONTO: To be Rescheduled Instructor: Charles Leech

TORONTO: April 22, 2015Instructor: Ken Deal

TORONTO: April 23-24, 2015Instructor: Ken Deal

TORONTO: February 24, 2015Instructor: Patricia Davies

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSES

mria vue magazine - november 2014

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