Why surveys matter in a world of big data
Partner content
Audience measurement surveys have endured even as data volumes have exploded, writes Ipsos.
In today’s digital era, algorithms and a plethora of data points dominate marketing decisions. Yet amid this sea of clicks, impressions, and signals, one critical element seems somewhat obscured: market research.
With five decades of experience in surveys and audience measurement, Ipsos firmly believes that understanding human behaviour is central to delivering valuable insights.
We have invested heavily in innovation and technology, including Generative AI. As an AI-augmented global market research leader, we use these technological advances to benefit our clients, and we have robust guardrails and verification processes in place.
However, our core strength and competitive advantage lie in our ability to reach and access real people, draw representative samples (even among hard-to-reach groups), ask respondents the right questions, use proven and validated research frameworks, collect data without compromising privacy and transform data into actionable insights. What’s more, we achieve this on a global scale and consistently maintain high quality.
This approach sets Ipsos surveys, such as the Ipsos Global Influentials (IGI), apart in the tumult of big data. IGI delivers actionable insights into the behaviours, motivational drivers, and lifestyle habits of high-net-worth individuals and top executives.
The challenge of signal vs noise
Media owners, agencies, and brands face an unprecedented challenge: distinguishing genuine signals from mere noise, particularly when targeting hard-to-reach audiences such as business leaders and wealthy consumers.
These groups, characterised by unique and often guarded behaviours, wield significant economic influence. They cannot be adequately understood by algorithms alone, making IGI data invaluable.
Our approach offers a nuanced perspective, capturing media behaviour, business trends, and psychographics across 43 markets.
Through our IGI syndicated survey, brands gain a direct line to influential B2B and B2C players. For agencies, it’s an essential tool for crafting informed marketing strategies and cross-media plans.
While big data can yield interesting insights into this group, overcoming associated challenges—such as distinguishing between devices and people, addressing siloed data, and mitigating significant biases, hallucinations, and distortions—is essential.
However, it will not offer the depth, granularity, authenticity, or comparability of a survey conducted across 43 countries, based on 141,000 interviews with real people.
Why market research endures
Audience measurement surveys have endured even as data volumes have exploded. Long used in established audience measurement currencies such as RAJAR in the UK or Auditel in Italy, survey-based research isn’t about nostalgia.
It recognises that exposure is not the same as impact. The fact that something can be logged by a system doesn’t mean it was noticed, processed, or remembered by a human being.
Digital platforms can indicate if an advert was served or a programme aired, but they fall short of explaining why someone chose to engage, purchase, or move on.
The context gap
This gap is where survey data becomes an irreplaceable asset. Quality data provides context, weaving a complex tapestry of human motivations that raw numbers simply cannot capture.
It serves as a roadmap for understanding both media consumption patterns and broader behavioural trends. The commitment to methodological rigour ensures that survey-based research not only quantifies interactions but also qualifies them, providing actionable intelligence that informs strategic decision-making for clients across diverse sectors.
The ability to translate complex human behaviours into coherent narratives enables confident, effective marketing and advertising strategies.
While big data excels at capturing momentary events, surveys reveal what endures. They reflect how media experiences are filtered through attention, relevance, and memory—core elements of human cognition that no server log can infer with confidence.
The path forward
The real risk of big data is its inaccuracy, but its incompleteness may pose an even greater risk. Without surveys, big data merely tells us what machines have recorded, rather than what people have experienced.
In a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on surface-level analytics, surveys provide genuine insights into human behaviour. By bridging the gap between technology and behavioural science, survey data strengthens decision-making by providing information that truly matters.
While the allure of big data is undeniable, it is the depth of understanding that fuels impactful strategies. For Ipsos, success stems from having the right data—not just more data—to empower confident decisions.
Mario Paic is global chief research officer, audience measurement, at Ipsos