MROC Japan and Cross Marketing roll out community offer

JAPAN— A new market research online community service has been launched today by MROC Japan and online research firm Cross Marketing.

MROC Japan CEO Shigeru Kishikawa told Research there has already been expressions of interest in the service from brewer Asahi, and cosmetics and toiletry firms Shiseido and Lion, but the use of MROCs in the country is still at a fairly nascent stage.

Online qualitative research more broadly accounts for just 1% of total ad hoc research spend, says Kishikawa, quoting official industry statistics. He describes the Japanese industry as “kind of conservative” when it comes to newer methods.

Twitter, blogs and social networks like Mixi and Facebook may be popular, Kishikawa says, but social media marketing is still developing and researchers in Japan lag behind their US and European counterparts in understanding and utilising social media mining technologies.

As it currently stands, Kishikawa believes a full-scale, long-term MROC offering – the kind Communispace might run, with 300 or more people – might be “a very tough to sell”. So his company and Cross Marketing have developed both a short-term, small-scale solution they call a “tactical co-creation community”, as well as a “strategic co-creation community” that is bigger in size and scope.

With major companies already showing an interest, the MROC service appears to be off to a promising start – though Kishikawa says concerns remain over what effect the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster will have on MR budgets for this financial year.

We hope you enjoyed this article.
Research Live is published by MRS.

The Market Research Society (MRS) exists to promote and protect the research sector, showcasing how research delivers impact for businesses and government.

Members of MRS enjoy many benefits including tailoured policy guidance, discounts on training and conferences, and access to member-only content.

For example, there's an archive of winning case studies from over a decade of MRS Awards.

Find out more about the benefits of joining MRS here.

0 Comments


Display name

Email

Join the discussion

Newsletter
Stay connected with the latest insights and trends...
Sign Up
Latest From MRS

Our latest training courses

Our new 2025 training programme is now launched as part of the development offered within the MRS Global Insight Academy

See all training

Specialist conferences

Our one-day conferences cover topics including CX and UX, Semiotics, B2B, Finance, AI and Leaders' Forums.

See all conferences

MRS reports on AI

MRS has published a three-part series on how generative AI is impacting the research sector, including synthetic respondents and challenges to adoption.

See the reports

Progress faster...
with MRS 
membership

Mentoring

CPD/recognition

Webinars

Codeline

Discounts