InSites Blog

Last week, with the kick-off of the first football match between our very own Burger Boys and SSI’s Sharp Shooters International, the new tradition of the SSI – InSites Consulting Challenge Cup was started. SSI, which actually stands for Survey Sampling International, is one of our partnering panel providers. During the close collaboration over the last months, we discovered a mutual interest and after quite some time of anticipation, a date was finally set for a friendly game of football. So, last Wednesday, we gathered in Sporthal Kralingen in Rotterdam -home town of SSI- for an exciting game, which was won with a golden goal… by us. Final score was 5-6.

Needless to say, fans and supporters were on the edge of their seat right until the end. This ‘jury’ also had the pleasure of electing a ‘Hot Shot’ for the evening -the best player on the field- as well as cast a vote on the nicest goal. Winners were Martin Loedeman of SSI and our own Wim De Wever. All in all, a very successful evening, followed by a nice night on the town in Rotterdam. Thank you SSI, we already look forward to the next challenge!

More pictures are available at our Facebook fanpage!

Languages are an important part of setting up an international research project. But many agencies and panel suppliers struggle with the multilingual aspect of market research.

Have you ever tried finding and using a support email address in an online survey? Have the researchers ever bothered answering questions or comments you’ve made? Do you as an agency monitor and read feedback from participants in different languages?

Like most agencies, InSites Consulting works with translation agencies using native speakers to translate the surveys we run. But we also use Google Translate. This free app is embedded in our research flow because it makes the survey easier for participants to complete, and ultimately improves the data quality.

How do we at InSites Consulting use Google Translate in our day-to-day work?

Not all surveys offer participants the chance to comment on questions or say what they think about the survey in general. At InSites Consulting we always offer participants the opportunity to give feedback on each individual question in the survey using what we call our ‘shoutbox’, where they can make suggestions or shout out loud about what’s wrong.

Participants indicate what type of feedback they have (language, technical, content) and give their comments in the text field. The same system is triggered when using the support email address that is on every page.

Once they’ve clicked the send button, the information is processed at our end. It delivers the feedback to our system and triggers an automated email to the person responsible for that specific comment (eg if it’s a technical issue it goes to the IT person involved).

Of course nearly all participants give feedback in their native language, but our team doesn’t speak all the dozens of languages we use in our research.
This is where Google Translate comes in. It recognizes the language of the feedback, gives a real time translation in English and immediately integrates this in the email. By using the Shoutbox system we can also immediately identify which question the participant is talking about.

This way we can spot at an early stage or even during a soft launch if there are problems, and adjust the survey to make sure the data quality remains high. Moreover we offer the participants the chance to give us feedback and we can answer the emails when needed. And finally, offering a support address and responding to incoming messages leads to a better participant experience.

For more information about our research flow and participant experience, contact Sam Berteloot.

At the end of 2009 InSites Consulting launched the ‘Taking Christmas Forward’ action inviting our clients to upload their company greetings at www.insites.be/takingchristmasforward. Every greeting got a chance to win a city trip to one of the InSites cities (Ghent – Rotterdam – London – Geneva).

How could you win?

The panelmembers of our TalkToChange Community were able to visit the website and rate the greetings. The company greeting with the highest rating won.

And the winner is Bjorn Verbrugghe, Sara Lee Coffee & Tea Belgium.

“We wish you a Sensational Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year full of Sensational moments!”

Between mid-December and mid-January InSites Consulting conducted a pan-European research project on consumers’ shopping behavior during the holiday season in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and UK. The study was held amongst members of the InSites’ TalkToChange Community. The project consisted out of a survey part and discussions on the forum of the community.

During the past holiday season 80% of the participants bought a present for at least one person. In most cases these were direct relatives: children, partner, parents… The British seem to take their friends more into account: 1 out of 2 buys presents for friends, compared to only 20% of the population in the other countries. The Dutch buy the least presents in general: only 50% of them buy something for someone.

On average 40% of the people have donated money to a good cause, the French are at the low end (with only 20%), while 50% of the British are supporting good causes.

Shopping budgets were on average around 350 Euros in total. But, one third of shoppers indicate that they spent less on shopping this year compared to last year. In France this number even raises to half of the population!

Biggest frustrations during shopping were the busy and overcrowded stores, as well as the long waiting lanes at cash registers. Having no inspiration is also an important one.

Dos and don’ts

• Typical presents people buy are books, perfume, cosmetics and clothing. From these 4, only books are also in the top 4 of presents people like to receive
• Although, the British are tired of receiving books and food products, they still buy them as a gift for others.
• For males clothing, perfume, cosmetics and jewelry are gifts that they rather do not want to receive again in the future!
• Wrong presents for females are food articles (like chocolates) and alcoholic beverages
• Females are very keen on jewelry (38%) and wellness deals (35%), but on the other hand it’s something they rarely give to someone else.
• Males buy more gift vouchers and females like to receive gift vouchers better, so we have a match here!
• A gift voucher seems to be the ideal gift. And especially those for wellness deals and tickets for events. Both males and females are happy with these choices.
• Gift vouchers are most popular in Belgium and least in the Netherlands.

Tom De Ruyck, Senior ForwaR&D Lab Consultant explains: “It’s clear that we live in a so-called ‘experience economy’ these days: traditional presents become less popular and gift vouchers which can be turned-in to really ‘do’ something are more popular than ever before. This trend also reflects in people’s wishes for this New Year. They are longing for more time to relax and to spend on their hobbies. I believe that due to the economical crisis people downsized their ambitions for the future. They wish to be happy with what they already have!”

People’s wishes for 2010 are all about ‘being happy’! If we take a closer look at the concept of ‘happiness’, we can identify some key dimensions: being healthy (both their own health as the condition of relatives and friends), having a job in general is also one that pops-up quite often. People feel more insecure about their jobs! We may assume that there is an influence of the economical crisis here. Other dimensions are: finding some peace and rest, besides having more time for themselves and just being satisfied with the way your life goes!

Want to find out more about this study? Contact Tom De Ruyck

In a continuous process of striving for quality, InSites Consulting set up a program to create better surveys called the Watsons. Who are the Watsons? They are members of the TalkToChange Community (www.talktochange.com) who are involved in the process of quality control of surveys. This group of members screens surveys before they are released for fieldwork.

How does it work?
Once the survey is programmed and translated, native speakers from the Watsons group complete the survey as if they were a normal participant. They give feedback on formulation of questions, missing or irrelevant answer possibilities, translations, technical interruptions, etc.

An easy feedback system was set-up, sending all remarks immediately to the responsible within the project, being the consultant or the IT person involved. Each comment is evaluated by the person involved. This evaluation gives them a qualification of the Watson and his feedback. Once the Watson feedback is gathered, changes are made and the project is launched.

The format and flow of the feedback procedure was defined in cooperation with the members. To get to the optimal flow, additional surveys and online discussion groups were set up on this procedure.

Quality initiatives at InSites Consulting
InSites Consulting is always looking to optimize the experience of its participants and involving the community is part of the connected philosophy. Last year InSites launched the TalkToChange Lab in which members are asked to give feedback on new tools that are developed to implement in online surveys. The co-creation of surveys and tools with ‘real participants’ is crucial, as clients and research agencies might be biased due to their involvement.

Want to find out more about these initiatives? Contact Sam Berteloot.

TalkToChange (formerly known as ‘InSites’ Research Panel’) recently launched a community platform towards its panel members. 2 weeks after launch already 1500 participants from all over the world joined the platform.

Those consumers will get the chance to participate in our ‘Wishes of the World Study‘. The study will take a look at how people from different parts of the world celebrate Christmas and New Year. Our research design consists out of a forum discussion, an ethnographic part (people will upload and describe pictures from their Christmas trees, dinners, New Year’s Eve outfit and the spectacular parties they went to) and a survey about Christmas shopping and the frustrations that come with it!

Via www.insites.eu/takingchristmasforward you can subscribe to the results of the study. Click on one of the presents under the Christmas tree, it’s our Christmas gift to you…

Does your company want to wish our 2 million panel members a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year? Then go to Taking Christmas Forward.

By uploading your company’s Christmas greetings and business logo, you get a chance to win a city trip to one of the InSites cities (Ghent – Rotterdam – London – Geneva). How the enter the competition? Send an e-mail to Anke@insites.be attaching your company logo, company name and Christmas greetings.

Check out festive greetings from InSites Consulting staff and find out more about our Christmas study. Starting on 14 December 2009, the consumers on our panel will be visiting to read your greetings, join the conversation we’re holding on Christmas and New Year, and to upload and tag their photographs. Taking Christmas Forward is going to be a lively conversation for marketers and consumers in December and January. Don’t miss it!

The possibility to conduct studies amongst our own research community, is one way in which InSites Consulting can differentiate. Therefore, we have steadily been building an online research community, not only in key countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, UK, etc., but also in important emerging markets as Turkey, Russia, Czech Republic, Poland, Brazil, Mexico, etc. There are currently well over 2 million participants in our community from literally all over Europe, and beyond.

With around 700.000 participants in Western European countries, constituting 34% of our panel, we are quite strong in most key markets. Just under 30% of our research community is from Eastern Europe, where our top countries are Russia, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Romania. Besides Spain, Italy and Portugal, the 17% from Southern Europe also feature Greece and Serbia.”

Want to find out more about our research panel? Contact Sam Berteloot (sam.berteloot@insites.eu)

As sponsor of Make-A-Wish Belgium (a charity organization giving children with life-threatening medical conditions the chance to fulfill their dreams) some InSites employees were invited to join a special concert by Clouseau. The concert was organized last Sunday in benefit of Make-A-Wish.

InSites Consulting has been sponsoring Make-A-Wish for several years. This year we already donated 16.000EUR. Want to find out more about our charity donations? Click here

And yes, we were a little bit impressed by Koen & Kris.

Talktochange and InSites Consulting have set up the Ultimate Twitter Study, tracking how people use Twitter. The study consists out of a qualitative and quantitative part. The qualitative part is already finished. You can find these results on http://www.ultimatetwitterstudy.com. The quantitative part starts right now, please join us!

With the Ultimate Twitter Profiling Tool you are able to get a profound view on the people in your Twitter network. You are able to find out why they are on Twitter, how many followers they have (even in the second grade!), how active or inactive they are, what type of content they are looking for… and much much more… Once you have filled out the Ultimate Twitter Profiling Tool you can retweet the tool to the people in your network, so that you can start comparing & benchmarking. The more people that use the tool, the more information you get ! These data will be used for the quantitative part of our Ultimate Twitter Study. Afterwards, the results will be shared on our blog.

Participating is easy. Visit www.ultimatetwitterstudy.com/profiling.

What are you waiting for

Cheers,
The UTS team