Is the industry making effective use of new research methodologies?

Is it efficient, economic and effective? That is the question researchers should be asking themselves before deciding what technique/s to use for the best results, according to Andrew Bradford, VP, client consulting, media, The Nielsen Company.

Speaking at MediaTel’s Future of Media Research event this morning, Bradford said there has been lots of innovation surrounding media research methodologies but not all techniques are appropriate – and agencies and clients need to understand what methods they are using and why.

“With online, things can get very complicated with cookie data, for example. People need to think about how and why the data has been collected,” he said.

For Roger Gane, research director at RSMB Television Research, the industry “shot itself in the foot” years ago when it promoted online research as a cheaper and quicker alternative to more traditonal methods. “People lost interest in the research method but you need to know this to understand results. With so many techniques on offer now, it is difficult to fully understand.”

“As a result, sometimes you just have to trust researchers, but you should know and understand what you’re getting,” he added.

Bradford said there are problems with all methodologies but at least with traditional research methods, agencies and clients understood the what they were getting. “Online is harder to make sense of,” he said.

For Mark Greenstreet, joint managing director, aevolve, there is a dangerous preconception out there that innovation is always good, as opposed to existing methods. However, the risk with new approaches is there is not enough testing. While Linda Grant, director of commercial development, A&N Media, compared recent years to ‘the gold rush’ for online media research.

Greenstreet believes that there should always be a decision based on how quickly you need research, how much it costs and therefore how rigorous it is. “There is an anything is better than nothing approach which is not good,” he said.