Friend or Foe -- Reflections

How the telephone company has changed over the years.  In my younger days while working on the farm in Kentucky, I remember to this day our telephone number.  Number may not be an adequate description since it was "two longs and a short."  You see, in those days we had party lines at the best.  Everyone heard the number being dialed and you could listen in on your neighbors' calls.  But as I got older we ultimately got a dial phone and while it was still a party line, the ring for your calls only could be heard at your phone.  What a great step forward to privacy.  From that point on, the technology grew in leaps and bounds.  Even long distance calls were getting cheaper, easier and faster.  The first year out of high school, while going to college, I worked for Western Electric as a tester installing direct distance dialing.  Later when i went to work for P&G in Consumer Research, we were still using door-to-door as our main consumer research protocol.  However, there were movements to mail panel and phone recall testing.  The telephone company was our friend, making our research better, faster and cheaper.  That was yesterday, today they appear to be our foe.

A couple of days ago, I received an envelope from the telephone company.  On the outside of the envelope was the statement "Inside:  An easy way to STOP telemarketers' calls."  Inside was a letter from the Marketing Manager and a brochure.  The front of the brochure stated "Hang up on telemarketers.  Or let us do it for you."  So much for our friendly and helpful telephone company.  The lead-in inside the brochure was "Reveal with Caller ID."  That statement was followed with "Rejects calls from unidentified solicitors.  Helps you identify unavailable and private callers.  Eliminates calls placed by telemarketers' automatic dialing systems."  All this for only $39 per month.  Keep in mind that most consumers do not distinguish between telemarketers and researchers.

No wonder our telephone research is getting slower and more costly.  Our friendly telephone company is now encouraging our potential panelists to hang up on us.  Their efforts will not only reduce our hit rate but it will add an economic hurdle ($39 per month) further distorting our sample.

Solution -- Move your research to the Internet.  Oops, lets rethink that one.  I think the jury is still out on Internet research as a general method of consumer research.  Penetration of Internet household usage appears to be in the 50/50 range.  I'm concerned that if we automatically throw out 50% of the population and say that there are no differences in habits, (That would be a dumb statement.), no difference in monitory positioning (again dumb), no difference in purchasing habits, no differences in likes/dislikes, no difference in educational attainment, no sexual difference (The internet is still male dominated.), etc.  How are the two groups, with and without Internet capabilities, the same?  Well they are about equal in number.  I guess someone else should add the similarities.

One Internet company is trying to eliminate the sample distortions by recruiting non-Internet households and giving them access and hardware if they agree to participate in their research program.  That is a giant step forward to establishing representivity in their panels.  There are, however, two major problems for them.  The cost of the hardware and Internet access is in excess of $100 per household.  They now have 25,000 households in their panel and have an objective of 250,000 households.  Each household would stay in the program no more than three years.  That results in just one element of their overhead costs being over $25,000,000.  Add that to the other elements of their overhead and you get a large hurdle to overcome for profitability.  The second problem deals with the effects of the Internet itself.  That is, how does access to the Internet change the individuals?  I think we would all agree that the access will have an effect.  How and how much is unknown.

My wife says it is not right to point out the problems without pointing out a solution.  If I were still in the research business, I would still be conducting "Assessment in Context" research.  That is if I want to understand the motivation of public transit riders, I would be interviewing in train stations, at bus stops, on trains, on buses, etc.  If I want to know what motivates purchases, I'm going to be researching at the point of purchase.  If I want to know about a new package design, communication, appeal, etc., I'm going to be researching in front of the store shelves.  I think it is that simple (but not too easy).