For A 34-Year-Old Company, We Feel Like Teenagers Rejuvenating our Brand of Market Research

Jack Welch was right when he said, “Change before you have to.”

Having played in the global market research field for over three decades, we've seen the market change--vendors coming and going and methodological trends fading in and out. As the Internet crept into every crevice of our lives, it also changed the market research field forever. As data collection by phone began to wane, we adapted and explored new ways to obtain data online, eventually helping to develop the world's first commercially viable online survey engine--trying to stay head of the ever-changing research landscape. That was in 1996.

Today is no exception. Recently, we’ve completed our biggest transformation yet and we wanted to share some insights we learned while rejuvenating and reshaping ourselves into a leaner, keener, research machine.

Why should this matter to you? If you ever wondered about your research ROI, read on.

While change is good and often necessary, change is hard. Jack Welsh never mentioned anything about that.

In late 2018, I assumed responsibility for all executive and operational duties at Merrill Research. After consulting with our seasoned team of senior researchers (our team has a combined 100+ years of experience in supplier and client-side research) we realigned the company to better fit our client needs as well as embrace the change agents transforming the market research industry.

The changes we made were comprehensive, transformative and liberating. I conducted a video interview with the Customer Intelligence Institute to explain just what we did.

What were these change agents? While there were many we faced, in this post, I’d like to discuss three: sample, data visualization, and nonverbal intelligence.

The Slippery Sample Slope

Let’s start with the sample industry—the lifeblood of any market research study. Sample is defined as the individuals you actually study. In 1996 Merrill Research and a band of investors—including WPP, General Mills and Procter & Gamble Co—raised $60m to found MarketTools, the creators of Zoomerang, which was eventually purchased by Survey Monkey and TPG in 2011 at a hefty valuation in a rather complicated deal.

But what Survey Monkey and TPG were after wasn’t the software tool (they already had Survey Monkey); rather, it was the Zoomerang sample (ZoomPanel), which consisted of a large pool of users and respondents for that period in time—roughly 1.7 million users and 2.5 million panel members. This underscored the fundamental belief in the online market research industry: he who controls the sample, wins the online survey game. Why? No sample, no study.

Sample is still king. But today, the sample industry has morphed into a labyrinth of M&A contraction and “partnerships” making it difficult to discern from whom you’re buying sample and worse yet, from whence it came. Is your IT respondent a true professional or really a savvy teenager in Iowa who has learned to game the sample system?

Sure, you can buy cheap sample. But it is the right sample? It’s not unlike choosing a bottle of wine (another area in which we work); it’s easy to find a decent bottle of inexpensive table wine and it’s easy to find an expensive bottle of outstanding wine. The trick is to find an outstanding reasonably priced bottle of wine. This is how we approach sample. As such, we’ve aligned ourselves with a few strategic players in the field who have proven methods of compliance, security, verification and feasibility. We buy a lot of sample. We know where our sample comes from. Our team is highly trained in navigating the sample terrain. If we cannot find sample for a target audience, then it likely does not exist.

Data Visualization

Data visualization is another change agent that drove us to rethink ourselves. We’re not simply talking about digital dashboards or on-the-fly excel tables. We mean story boarding reports for engaging narrative. While flawless strategic research design and tactical execution are expected, it is ultimately poor execution of the final deliverable that kills research ROI. From the research buyer’s perspective, it is challenging enough to secure budget approval in the first place. But when a final deliverable fails to clearly inform project stakeholders, the research ROI becomes questionable, and in turn, makes it even more difficult to justify future research spend.

In today’s digital world there’s a plethora of data, but how much of that is actually digestible and usable is questionable. The problem is not the amount of data we have but rather how we analyze and visualize all of it. Our clients worry that poorly communicated research insights will wind up in the vast graveyard of missed opportunities and lost meaningful insights – a death knell for future research investment.

We understand that communicating research findings without unnecessarily distracting the reader with poor design and formatting is paramount and requires great strategy. As such, we invested in team talent, systems and software to forge new ways of communicating data that are engaging, insightful and easily grasped.

Nonverbal Intelligence

Most communication is nonverbal. Are you fluent?

Research by the renowned Dr. Paul Eckman indicates that we are exposed to hundreds of lies per day. People lie for all sorts of reasons, typically for money, sex, or power but also to be evasive or socially polite. Writes Eckman in his seminal book on lying: Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (Revised Edition): “Lies occur between friends (even your best friend won’t tell you), teacher and student, doctor and patient, husband and wife, witness and jury, lawyer and client, salesperson and customer.”

As my colleague and mentor Patryk Wezowski said, “Since liars lie about lying, it’s up to you to determine the truth.”

Research studies are not immune to lying. After conducting three decades of qualitative research, we’ve learned that what respondents say does not always match what their bodies tell us. We’ve had countless discussions with clients warning them to watch what people do and not what they say.

As such, we raised the bar in qualitative research by incorporating nonverbal techniques in our research. I studied directly under the founders of The Center for Body Language, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium and became one of only a handful of Certified Body Language Master Trainers in the United States. We are launching The Merrill Institute this year to train a new generation of professionals in these nonverbal skills. As such, we will be offering certification training for those interested to become a Micro Expression Practitioner and/or Body Language Master.

So, how does this apply to qualitative research? We were able to determine the truth in one of our qualitative studies among Value Added Resellers (VARs). Here’s what we learned about one of the cardinal sins of channel programs—failure to honor deal registration. We used a technique called B.L.I.N.K.to uncover it. 

Today, we see a steep interest in nonverbal intelligence. The battle for truth plays out daily on virtually all media channels. More than ever, there is a need for heightened nonverbal interpretation. We see other applications for these skills in a variety of functions: human resources, sales, public speaking, management and leadership, legal, law enforcement and even product management.

So, if you’re wondering like many of our clients where your sample comes from, how to squeeze more out of your research ROI and just how effective your qualitative research is, come visit us at MerrillResearch.com to receive future newsletters and updates from Merrill Research and The Merrill Institute.

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