OPINION2 September 2010
With everyone talking about clients doing DIY research, Steve is wondering what research agencies will be doing in five years.
Back from holidays and off to the Esomar Congress next week and so have been looking around at what seems to be the hot topic this year. Lots of stuff around new approaches based on conversations not questions (although some of us have been banging on about this for a while), but the other intriguing thing that keeps coming up is clients doing DIY research.
This seems to make a lot of sense to me now that we have global panels and straightforward questionnaire design software. For basic concept or copy testing why not make them cheap and simple? What about brand tracking – what extra value do most agencies add beyond a chart showing key metrics going up or down?
The interesting thing to me is what the DIY trend does to our industry. Will it mean that client side research departments get bigger and agencies smaller? Could it mean an explosion of smaller agencies dedicated to helping clients interpret and analyse the data they have collected? Will it increase the number of branded approaches to things like concept testing with a focus on norms, or will it destroy these approaches in favour of universally-agreed basic testing criteria?
Whatever happens it should be interesting and I suspect will mean major changes over the next five years. As long as no-one comes up with DIY qual (oh no, online buzz analytics)!