Field of dreams

At the height of Internet fever, before the realisation that there was still a significant gap between expectation and reality, the Web was hailed by some as a major new research medium that would wipe out traditional methods of market research. It is only now that the fervour has died down, that we can ask if this is, in fact, the case.

In early 1995, scarcely anyone knew what the Internet was, says Michael Herbert, chief executive of online qualitative research specialists Cyberqual. “Our first commercial job was carrying out two research projects for the Electronic Telegraph, and as we were doing the first online groups in the world, we had no idea what kinds of people would be connecting to us.

“We recruited people from the Net, and conducted half of our groups face-to-face and half online,” he explains. “The online groups included people from Aberdeen to Australia, and none of us knew how or whether it would work, talking in real time about what respondents thought of the Electronic Telegraph. For the first time, we could run the group from our offices, our clients were able to watch online and the respondents were accessing us from wherever they were.”

Online groups

Following the success of online user groups, Herbert found that his face-to-face groups in London were packed with clients curious to know what types of people were accessing the Internet.

“A few years ago some clients were evangelical about the Internet,” agrees Neil Swan, head of quantitative research at TRBI. “Now they want to know how best to meet their objectives, and it’s only now – when we are beginning to understand how to use the Net – that we can put together packages that work in that environment. As an industry we’re still learning the rules – people’s use of the Internet changes almost daily.”

The expansion of available research tools led a company called Resource Marketing to invent the Web-Assisted Telephone Interview (WATI), a combined Internet and telephone interview that its creators have found effective for both qualitative and quantitative research.

“A normal telephone research interview would take 15 to 20 minutes and rely heavily on a respondent’s memory,” says managing director Annette Tomkin. “With WATI, the information is in front of them so they can express an immediate and honest opinion.”

Specific gauge

“We first used WATI with Cable & Wireless in 1999, and it has revolutionised the way we work,” adds chief executive David Bacon. “It’s a more specific gauge of consumer research, and it’s more cost-effective. If we were talking to IT managers across the UK, for example, the total cost could come to about £40,000 by phone. On the Net we can set up our analysis for about £7,000 or £8,000.”

Database technology

NOP has also invested heavily in database technology and information structures, with web-based reporting mechanisms that enable clients to view results within 24 hours. NOP also has access to over 100 Internet cafés in the UK, where it can demonstrate products, videos and concepts, with interviewers available to provide additional information.

“It’s a great combination of old and new,” says NOP brand development director Mike Cooke. “We’ve also developed NOP Surveymaster with a company called Bibliotheque. This gives us online access to 3,500 schools worldwide, 2,500 of which are in the UK – that’s 300,000 teachers and pupils.”

However, although no one doubts that online research has expanded the tools available to businesses worldwide, it is not the ultimate solution to all research problems. Indeed, it may have created some new ones.

“One phenomenon we encountered during research for a recent seminar was surfing by committee, which is when a dominant respondent takes control of a group,” explains Steve Mellor, research executive at RDSi. “We also found that with accompanied research, by sitting next to someone who is trying to find a website, they expected us to take the lead.”

TRBI’s Swan adds: “If you spend any time shoulder-surfing with someone [staying with them as they use the Internet] you find they have a very erratic pattern. Whether they are looking up the football scores or checking the evening’s television programmes, people don’t stay focused. Things like this influence how we present online questionnaires to hold people’s attention.”

Another problem encountered with Internet research is the quality of respondents. “We have two major limitations,” says C&W’s Bacon. “It’s difficult to check whether you are interviewing the right person. There is also the age barrier. People over 50 don’t generally access the Internet in large numbers and certainly don’t reply to ad hoc e-mails. Because of this, what we can do with the Internet is finite.”

Qualitative vs quantitative

Although both qualitative and quantitative online research is being used, it would appear that for some, the benefits of quantitative outweigh that of qualitative.

“In online qualitative research, you lose vital face-to-face contact,” explains David Walker, international director of new media at Research International. “Online qualitative research can be useful, but without the benefits of face-to-face interviews where you pick up things such as body language, it won’t ever replace traditional research methods. Online quantitative research is more useful and could be used in place of telephone or postal research.”

Research firms such as Cyberqual believe that online qualitative research can explore the environment in the same way as traditional methods, with online focus groups and one-to-one interviews. “We have an online chat room and talk people through how to do the research. With bandwidth improving daily, the best is yet to come, especially as digital TV emerges. People will also be able to have cameras on their PCs and will transmit themselves talking with pictures. Imagine 100 million people being wired up.”

New technology

With new technology emerging almost daily, Internet research is continuing to improve. “We’re looking at interactive TV and mobile phones,” explains Walker. “We believe mobiles will be the next big thing, and we are looking at diary-type research, where if you come across something you like or dislike, you can input it into your mobile phone and the information comes back to us.”

With this new technology surging into the market, there seems little doubt that Internet research is here to stay and US experience of Internet research suggests that there are still enormous opportunities to be explored in the UK. The US market research publication, Inside Research, estimates that data collection revenue for last year, based on data collected from about 85 per cent of all US online research revenues, was about $219.5m (£150m), an increase of 135 per cent on 1999. The predictions for this year suggest a further increase of about 90 per cent.

But despite the impressive numbers, no one believes that online research will ever completely replace the traditional variety.

“Online research has definitely been revolutionary, but NOP is looking to meld the old and the new in order to complement each other rather than compete with each other,” says Cooke. “Traditional methods won’t die out completely – it’s a sensory world, and 80 per cent of communication is non-verbal. The web doesn’t factor in all of the senses. You can never ask people, as you can in traditional research, to taste or test a product and respond to it there and then. Because of that, online research will never replace traditional methods.”