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June 2007 GMI Newsletter
Welcome to the July 2007 edition of our newsletter.
A message from Mike Brochu
I have led several global companies in the past, but none quite like GMI. It has only been a couple of weeks, but in that short time, I've been very impressed with the high caliber of the team, as well as GMI's strong brand recognition around the world.
But what I find most exciting of all are the growth opportunities open to the company. The ability to leverage technology to predict how consumers will react to future products and services is now more important than ever before in today's highly competitive, fast-paced global marketplace.
In 2005, ESOMAR estimated that online research accounted for 13% of a global industry worth some $24 billion, and predicts that online research will continue to revolutionize the industry for years to come. Countries such as Australia are already leading the way, being the first country in the world where online research has become the most commonly used data collection method. In Japan, the spend on online research is about to overtake spending on face-to-face interviews. As an already established leader in its field, GMI is poised to continue to power the transition of market research from offline to online.
Having said that, GMI is not going to grow for growth's sake, but grow because we deliver what our customers want in a timely fashion, which in turn helps them grow their business, make their clients happy and strengthen our business. I am a strong believer in 'running the trains on time.' Here are some of the things our customers should look forward to in the coming months:
- Operational excellence
- Further consolidation and integration of GMI's offerings
- Increased sample quality and global reach
- Enhanced customer service
I am extremely excited to be a part of the GMI team. Over the coming weeks, I will be traveling to the various regions of the world to meet with our customers to gather feedback as to how GMI can continue to offer the best in the industry.
Sincerely,
Mike Brochu
CEO
GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.)
New white paper: Speed up your research without compromising quality
Product lifecycles are becoming shorter and shorter. Customer behavior changes rapidly to align to a constantly moving competitive landscape. With market research being increasingly used to create informed business strategies, researchers now play a consultative role, and clients expect actionable insights to be delivered nearly instantaneously.
Today, a research project that used to take weeks to complete must be accomplished in 10 days, and for only a fraction of the price it used to cost. How can your firm live up to these extremely high expectations? With the variety of strategies now at your disposal, you can carve precious time out of the market research process while keeping your quality standards high. This white paper highlights some of the following strategies:
- Leveraging online techniques
- Outsourcing complex and time-consuming tasks
- Going virtual for testing
- Standardizing processes
GMI powers 3G wireless survey for Research International China
Research International, a world leader in custom market research services with offices in Shanghai, recently partnered with GMI China to power a study aimed at measuring Chinese consumer opinions on the country's 3G wireless network. The survey revealed that almost 80% of Chinese consumers expect to shop and manage their finances online using the latest wireless technology for such tasks as online banking, e-commerce, online shopping and online stock trading. The research also showed that about 70% of Chinese people polled use their cell phones to download music, read entertainment news and play games. The survey interviewed Chinese respondents online, aged 18-40, who are mainly white collar professionals living across 35 major cities in Mainland China, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to name just a few.
The study also asked respondents about their expectations regarding China's 3G wireless network. 77% of Chinese polled indicated they expected more in the entertainment area, especially as it relates to chat, music downloads, and live TV. But respondents also wished they could use the 3G wireless network in the workplace, so they were able to check email, conduct video conferencing and transfer digital video messages.
Mainland China's online population, the second largest in the world after the United States, is growing at a rate of 30% per year, and with it creating brand-new patterns of consumption and higher consumer expectations. According to the latest 2007 internet development statistics from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), Mainland China's Internet population now counts 137 million users, 12.4% of which also use cell phones to surf the Internet, which represents a population of almost 17 million.- Download the GMI Global Panel Book
- About Research International
- Have a project? Request a panel quote
Virtual consumer environments: A cost-effective alternative to traditional product testing
Traditionally, product testing has been a fairly slow, expensive process that drains a significant amount of resources. However, as more of the population moves online - according to a study conducted by comScore, global internet penetration increased by 10% from January 2006 to January 2007 - product testing in virtual consumer environments has become a viable, efficient method of testing products before they launch.
With GMI's virtual shopping capabilities, online panelists can identify which products they would be most and least likely to buy, based on price, packaging, shelf height, brand name, etc. Before choosing a product, panelists have the ability to virtually pick up and inspect all angles of the promoted item, thus mirroring a real-life shopping experience.
This interactive media technology can also be applied to evaluate print publications. GMI can program virtual publication surveys that mimic the activity of reading physical magazines and newspapers. Panelists virtually flip through the pages of a publication while answering the questions that are asked of them. Virtual publications are a powerful tool for testing new concepts quickly on those who read them, or for testing ads before placing them in a new publication.
CMO Council: Marketers to spend most on dashboards in 2007
What differentiates a good market research firm from a great one is how fast it can turn overwhelming amounts of raw data into findings, and how clearly it can present the market insights derived from that data to its clients. Forget never-ending PowerPoint slide decks that take ages to put together! Enter the dashboard, a tool that has mainly been leveraged to gauge the performance of a company or business unit, but that is now being applied to powerfully illustrate research findings as well.
Dashboarding is becoming an increasingly popular reporting option in market research circles, and not only because of the visually appealing, simple-to-read graphics it offers to display market intelligence. Clients now demand a more interactive, real-time and actionable way to quantify results and performance, while enabling immediate decisions based on automatically updated real data.
In its Marketing Outlook 2007 report, CMO Council indicates that the top challenge facing marketing organizations is to quantify and measure the value of marketing programs and investments. Therefore, it is not surprising to see that marketing performance measurement dashboards qualified as the number one area of marketing spend for 2007.
Dashboarding solutions can help research professionals consolidate an entire market research study into one location, allowing for fewer mistakes and less time spent creating reports. All in all, dashboards enable a greater focus on critical information that allows market researchers to facilitate better business decisions for their clients.
Specialty Panel Spotlight: African-Americans
Specialty audiences represent attractive new markets for today's market research professionals. These rapidly growing multicultural communities need to be taken into consideration to ensure a representative sample of the population in research projects. With Internet penetration among ethnicity groups growing, online research has become a very fast and convenient way for researchers to garner the opinions of these typically hard-to-reach market segments.
eMarketer predicts there will be 20.1 million African-Americans online by year end in the U.S. (equaling 51.9% of the U.S. African-American population) and that African-Americans will account for 10.9% of online users. To meet the increasing needs of market researchers, GMI launched its African-American specialty panel in May 2006. Since then, the panel has grown by an average of 11% per month in 2007 to now include more than 57,000 double opted-in African-American panelists. GMI anticipates recruiting more heavily in Q3, and working more closely with its existing panelists to provide further profiling data and expand on attribute selection. GMI's African-American panelists are currently profiled on more than 20 attributes, including:
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As one of the frontrunners in building specialty consumer panels for market research, GMI relies exclusively on partnering with companies for recruitment whose audience is specifically oriented toward African-Americans to offer the best possible opinions to research professionals.
- Learn more about GMI Specialty Panels
- Download the GMI Specialty Panel Book
- Have a project? Request a panel quote
World Environment Review reveals consumer concerns about climate change
Consumers around the world are serious about cleaning up the environment and expect governments to lead the charge, according to the first annual World Environment Review poll, powered by GMI. In fact, 50 percent want an environmental tax on all four-wheel drive vehicles. When asked if the government should impose a congestion tax on all cars and trucks in major cities, only 41 percent said no.
When it comes to alternative energy, respondents worldwide expressed overwhelming support for it. 86 percent want governments to increase solar power usage. Wind power was also popular, with 81 percent saying they want the government to increase its usage.
When asked if they were concerned about the future of the environment, only nine percent of respondents said they were not concerned.
This is only a small sampling of the results of the World Environment Review poll. In all, close to 140 environmental questions were asked of more than 14,000 people in 14 countries, including Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA. The poll was fielded using the GMI Net-MR software suite and GMI Global Panels.
Downloads
- Fascinating findings: Using market research and public relations to trigger a media explosion
- Courtesy of Quirk's Marketing Research Review, March 2007
- GMI tip of the month: Upload multiple media files simultaneously in the HTML designer!
Who's new at GMI
We welcome this month's new staff members around the globe, including our new Vice President of IT, Joseph Baldini, who will be based in Seattle, WA.
Expert in the design and delivery of cost-effective, high-performance infrastructure and applications, Joseph joins GMI from Muze, Inc. where he has served as VP Engineering since 2004. There he was responsible for IT planning and operations for the $50 million digital media company. He spent the previous three years as General Manager for Sabey Datacenter LLC, a $25 million data center hosting company, where he led the organization through a series of upgrades to capitalize on emerging technologies. His 20+ years of experience also includes positions as Professional Services Director for Exodus Communications and Director of Telecommunications for Premera Blue Cross.
Other new hires include:
Marsha Dettorre, Accounts Receivable Manager - Mercer Island, USA
Michele Hanson, Account Coordinator - Minneapolis, USA
Liz Johnson, Accounting Manager - Mercer Island, USA
Danielle Lewis, Human Resources Manager - London, UK
Laura McCray, Account Manager - Seattle, USA
Pierre Salvy, Account Manager - London, UK
Matthew Shepherd, Managing Director, UK Sales - London, UK
Drew Thorstenson, Programmer - Minneapolis, USA
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