Driving Consumer Insights from Quantitative Research

Priscilla McKinney: Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing Company podcast. I'm Priscilla McKinney, mama bird and CEO here. And I have with me Aron Wilson. He's joining the show today because wait for it. There's so much talk about data quality, about garbage in garbage out, or the converse, is quality in quality out.

And EMI research is no stranger to these conversations, but in an interesting plot twist, we're going to talk about something you're not expecting today. And that's why I asked Aron to come on. You want to connect with him on LinkedIn, but I'm going to tell you right now it's A R O N Wilson. So if you're looking for him, wondering why you can't find him, definitely connect with him.

Aron Wilson is the director of research at EMI research. Welcome to the show.

Aron Wilson: Thanks, Priscilla. It's great to be here.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, this is the conversation you and I have been talking about, talking about. And so we're finally here because there was an interesting change in the industry. And maybe I felt the earth shift a little bit on its axis. And you know that I love looking at the competitive landscape of what's going on in market research.

And so when a company makes an interesting pivot, I want to hear about it. And frankly, my audience wants to hear about it too. So I've got a tell people a little bit about why this was of interest to me. You know EMI research, you know them for sample and being a consultant about sample.

They don't own panel, they've never said they own panel, but they are really leading in strategic blending, right? And they do excellent survey programming and project management. I mean, this is coming on three decades here. And they have done all kinds of program, building communities, know, hosting your survey, translations, all kinds of political polling.

And now, here's an interesting pivot that Aron is leading the charge for. So Aron, tell us a little bit about this pivot first, and then I'm just gonna get curious and I'm gonna ask the questions I think my audience would want to ask you.

Aron Wilson: Okay, sure. So the big announcement is that EMI has started up a full service research division within the bigger EMI umbrella. So as Priscilla mentioned, EMI has been around for over 25 years, really focusing on quality sample quality, of respondents, making sure that that your study can can run optimally basically.

Not only does EMI strategically blend panels and have this comprehensive view of the sample landscape, but there's also a big focus on quality control right at the beginning of a survey. So we've got three different types of fraud detection tools right at beginning to make sure that that data that's getting into the serp, the response that are getting into the survey are high quality. So that's, that's the foundation really.

And we saw this opportunity to kind of build upon that. Occasionally we would get requests to do full service research or some ad hoc analysis, like running a factor analysis on something or running a driver's analysis. And those requests kept coming in and I had started with a company. And I have that background. I've been doing that for, as I mentioned, over 15 years.

So I started taking those projects on more and more, and then we started building up a bit of a pipeline. And we wanted to make sure that we were incorporating things that we had learned along the way in terms of developing surveys. And making sure the respondents are having a really good experience while taking surveys.

So it's not just about quality, but also we want to make sure that those people who get through to the survey, those high quality respondents are engaged because after a while they're just going to become fatigued for 15, 20, 25 minute survey. So we want to keep them engaged and ensure that they're able to provide insights that are actionable, the end client's happy, the response happy. That's kind of why we're here.

Priscilla McKinney: One love strategy. I love it. You know, I've known this EMI team for quite a bit. In fact, I think about some of the conversations I've had over the last couple of years with Michael Holmes.

Of course, you have Beth T. Han on the team and Jason Enderhees. And between the three of them, I've had these interesting conversations of, you know, would it be smart to make this kind of pivot? Yes, there's some interest, but what when you say the pipeline's building and there's more to it, you know, people tune into the show cause they want a little bit of the insider information.

So tell me what the conversation was that you were having with that leadership and what made you want to flip it? I mean, obviously the pipeline's being built, but is there something you're seeing more long-term in terms of this pivot for EMI research?

Aron Wilson: But yeah, I think that because this pipeline is growing and it seems like there's more and more interest for this, I feel like this will continue to grow. We kind of sit in this area that's in between DIY tools and some of those bigger companies. Like we are not an Ipsos or Kantar sized company.

But we have a little bit more flexibilities than some other boutique agencies as well. We don't have a lot of overhead. So the costs are competitive. We're able to provide consultation for questionnaire development and that. So it's a step above those DIY tools, but it's right around in between those two different levels of research.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, one of the things I think is synonymous with EMI as an aggregator is this real truth that you guys are panel agnostic. You don't own your own panel, so that kind of sets you out for an unbiased approach, but yet over the years, you all have kept that unbiased approach and you've really, you know, looked at measuring the quality of the output from each different sample provider.

On behalf of the client. So now moving into more of a project management and more of a full service approach, how do you think you all are carrying that same philosophy of not having a conflict of interest into this full service model? Because now you're touching more of the research process.

Aron Wilson: Yeah, that's a question. So, so as I'm before the pipeline has been growing, most of these jobs that we have are they're from smaller companies that are more startups, mom and pop type shops, they're not these huge global accounts typically.

So we're kind of, we're staying in an area that's a little unique and I feel like it's, it's underserved because some of these smaller companies, they don't have these really large budgets to run research. And we're able to help get them insights again, without all that additional overhead and whatnot. That's, and it helps us kind of stay in our little like niche area.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, so that makes sense to me because if they are small enough they don't have the expertise on their team and it makes so much more sense to outsource some of this especially with your the expertise you all have on the team I would say Bryan Peterson alone is a ridiculously technical person with a who has checklist for their checklist so I can see how the culture at EMI kind of lends itself to we'll handle that and that actually means something.

Right? So I can see that that benefit to a company of saying, well, we don't have that expertise and we don't want a big overhead. So why don't we just bring this project to EMI research and that way we don't have ongoing costs after this particular project is over, but we get it handled. So I totally understand that in the competitive landscape here.

But tell me how that is translating even beyond surveys. I mean, you guys do IHUDs, you build communities, you do mobile research, all kinds of things. So tell me how you're integrating that as the director of research.

Aron Wilson: Yeah, so that's a great question as well. I'm mostly focused on the quantitative studies. We do some IHOTs as you mentioned as well. So that's kind of my core focus. I want to just make sure that every study that we're running is kind of in the same paradigm.

We want to make sure it's high quality at end of the day. So we have some guidelines in place to make sure that that's happening. Yeah, there is a lot of different things going on. And with the EMI's focus on quality and just knowledge of the sample landscape, I really think that helps to make sure that all of that data, all the data that's getting into our surveys, whether it's our surveys that we're running internally or client surveys, that it's a really high quality and that you can use those results to create insights that are actionable and actually make sense.

Because we've some studies before we just kind of open the floodgates on our research and our research and we're able to see how much questionable data or questionable respondents are out there and we found we have to filter out a huge portion of them before they even get to the survey. So just even having that, regardless of where that data ends up going, it's again if it's our study or someone else's study, I think that really helps to differentiate like EMI. It really helps us you know to stay focused on quality.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, well, I would agree with that. And as a CEO, I'm not afraid to admit that I was doing a lot of extracurricular reading this weekend. And it's funny that you bring this up. I don't want to go down too much of a rabbit hole, but you guys are known for a pretty significant, you know, research on research every year.

The sample landscape report just came out and yeah, I didn't mention that to you before, but that's what I was reading this week. So, you know since we're not really talking about that specifically in this show I'll include it in the show notes because it is a fantastic report and talk about getting in the weeds it does for me make me feel very confident that people are really looking at this.

What your whether it's fraudulent respondents or fraudulent data or bad day. However, you want it however anybody wants to couch it what is really happening in the landscape because it's not one thing and you guys are very comprehensive. That was my feeling all weekend. This is very comprehensive.

Aron Wilson: I think. It's very comprehensive. I am not the main author of that. So I can't take credit for it, but, but it is very comprehensive and the research on research we've run that quarterly and that allows us to do that annual report, as you mentioned.

So it's a bunch of insights from the research on research and it's, it's great because we're able to ask pretty much any type of question we want to ask in there to respondents. We can also look at indicators of quality, high quality, low quality, understand where people are starting to out of a survey after they've gone through over 10 minutes, 15 minutes or so. So it's a great resource to have.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah. Yeah, I love what you're pointing out there. It's not just bad respondents, not just, you know, bots. There's also just sometimes people write horrible surveys. So let's, let's talk about that.

Let's switch gears into this because this is as the research director, one of the ways you consult with people. So at some point people said, I have a study. Here's the survey I wrote here. EMI program this for me.

To which now having a full-service, you know market research function. How much do you find yourself interjecting in that and saying? I don't think that's the best, you know, survey or tell me what that sounds like for you.

Aron Wilson: So, before we started at the company and we started up this division, the team would generally look at the questionnaire and identify any questions that may be in the screener and that were leading anything that would create issues with programming and they would take that back to the, to the client.

But since I started, it took another like analytical approach to just looking at the whole survey. And there are a lot of times with people who aren't as experienced in market research where they'll develop a screener and the screener will be leading. I've seen one that says this survey is about X, Y, and Z. Do you qualify for this study? Like that was the first question.

So I just don't think that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think without knowing so much about that sample landscape, it's very easy to just think that respondents will answer truthfully, like all the respondents will. And the reality is you kind of have to filter out those people as much as possible.

Even the people that get through the fraud filter, you still want to make sure that they actually qualify for the study.

Priscilla McKinney: Yes, I want to just ask me if I want to be paid.

Aron Wilson: So that's a huge component. And then also take it into account just how many questions are in the study and making sure that we don't have too long of a survey. As alluded to before, we do try to keep things to 10 minutes.

So just keeping that in mind every time there's an addition to the survey, if it's pushing us a little bit, if it's pushing us closer and closer to that 10 minute mark, I might make some suggestions about things that we might want to remove. Because otherwise it can just keep going on and on and become something of a fishing expedition.

Especially if there's a lot of stakeholders in a study because a stakeholder that may be marginally involved, they'll want to throw on a question or set of questions. And it just, it adds up. I think at the end of the day, that kind of dilutes the whole purpose of running the study. So let's try to help the research.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, yeah, why were we here? Why did we earmark this budget? Yeah, I love that. Well, I want to come back to something you kind of said in passing real quick. You said you aren't Kantar, you aren't Ipsos, you're not one of the big shops there.

But the market research industry has been consolidating for a while. And I talk about this on my podcast. People tune in because they're interested in what's going on in marketing and what's going on in market research. So big players obviously offer the end-to-end research.

And you mentioned that there can be smaller companies, maybe people don't have the bandwidth, you know, to complete a full study on their own who look to this now full service opportunity as a solution. But what is your argument now for why a client should choose EMI over one of those larger, more established full service shops? What is it different that you think you bring to the table?

Aron Wilson: Another great question. Okay, I can tell.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you know, I am a professional podcaster. These are some hard hitting, hard hitting moments, Aron.

Aron Wilson: Yeah. So, I mean, I think one of the things is we've got that, we've got the perspective of that sample landscape. So we know which panels, just at the start of it all, we know which panels to work with. We want to make sure that it's blended, that there's not any kind of bias in the sample, which is especially important for tracking studies because we know, probably saw this in that sample landscape report, these panels move in terms of their behavior and their attitudes.

Every wave that we run this, we'll see them move on that we have a scatter plot. We just made it three dimensional to add another dimension to it. But these panels are constantly moving. So if someone just goes with one panel and they're running a tracker, they could see balances in their data that they think might be due to market changes.

And in reality, it's just things going on with that specific panel. So making sure that again, that that input is really high quality and balanced is a differentiator, I believe, and just having all that knowledge in the, in that landscape. And then also looking at that, those fraud detection tools that I mentioned, there's three that we stack on right at the beginning of the study to make sure that we're filtering out any conspicuously bad respondents at the beginning.

And then designing that questionnaire with the objective or objectives in mind, and also the client or the responding experience in mind as well, because I feel like that is. It can be hard to do that. And I've been in that seat before where I was at a larger company.

And sometimes you get like a mandate to run a study. And the idea is there, we want to ask consumers X, Y, and Z, we want to their opinion of this product or their purchase interest in it, whatnot. But translating that into a way that's engaging and like makes sense to respondents, isn't always evident in surveys. I feel like a lot of times there's a default to be more almost clinical in how questions are asked and they're not really asked in natural ways.

And I feel like some respondents, if they get used to those questions, they'll be able to answer them. But especially with newer respondents, they might not understand how things are worded or why they're worded in certain ways. So keeping questions as simple to understand as possible and any kind of explanations for first of all, I don't think there should be any, any types of exercises and surveys that aren't necessary.

I've seen some studies that have very complicated exercises and the instructions to complete that, or maybe just it takes up a whole page and knowing that respondents are. We're competing for their, for their time to take surveys. Actually in our research on research, we've ran a max diff to understand what other things response would rather be doing with their time, the potentially taking research studies.

I mean, that was one of the options we found taking market research surveys was near the bottom of the list. I mean, exercising was above it. I think the only thing that scored significantly lower was doing chores, like household chores. So a lot of times response.

Priscilla McKinney: No, I was like, maybe giving a eulogy sounds worse.

Aron Wilson: Well, I mean, they have other, the thing is they have other opportunities to do things. They could watch TV, listen to podcasts or music. There's so many different things that they might be, they might want to do with their free time.

So in order to make it as pleasant of an experience and engaging as possible, kind of, need to make sure we take that into consideration, just knowing there's so many different things that they could be spending their time on. So that's another thing that we take into account. And then also we've been really focusing on having consolidated reporting as well.

That kind of goes hand in hand with that minute-ish survey. We don't want to have 120 slide decks that go on and on and have a huge appendix. We really want to keep things as buttoned up as possible and you know we've accomplished that to varying degrees. Sometimes our reports do get larger but in general we do try to keep it pretty concise, have a very solid executive summary and then all of the detailed findings behind that but not some huge you know tome of a report.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Again, humans are humans. They, we, we are pressed for time, whether you're a respondent or whether you're a stakeholder receiving a report.

I mean, you know, there are plenty of other things we'd rather be doing. So let me shift gears just a little bit to, we were speaking more generally about surveys and how you would feel them. And maybe if someone's doing a gen pop survey, they might feel comfortable writing the survey themselves, but you just referred to a few things like complex instructions or a little bit more specific questions.

You guys are known for a lot of political polling, you're known for a lot of healthcare market research and other spaces like that where I think a very specific audience target is a little bit more difficult, right? So I can see your new full market research services would be very helpful in these higher stake moments.

So have you been getting more of these questions or are you getting just please, we just don't have any more bandwidth to take these over. I mean, this is why people listen to this podcast is pull the curtain back just a little bit and tell us what it is you're experiencing. Cause it feels like you would get more of the difficult work but maybe that's not what's happening.

Aron Wilson: We do get some of that, like, as I mentioned before, we've run max diff studies, we've done turf analysis, we've done driver analysis. So we do get some of those higher level analytical types of studies.

But a lot of the, and again, I only want to do that when it makes sense to do so. If you can get the same type of response from just a select all that apply or a ranking question, that makes much more sense to do that. But it's kind of, when clients come to and they want some consultation on which approach to use.

When I was in school, I learned all of these different multivariate statistical analyses, and I was so excited when I got out that I was going to be using them all. And when I first started, at my first job, it was just looking at statistical testing and analyzing, is this number greater than that number? So I love doing that type of advanced analytical work whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Priscilla McKinney: Somebody has to love that, Aron. That's the way it is. Okay. So now that you've been doing this a little while, I guess my next question is what, what are some of the common misconceptions that you'd some of your existing clients have about this expanded service?

I mean, how do you go about presenting this to them without making them feel like, wait, we've been doing it wrong this whole time. Why have we been doing this? So kind of help me understand how you're really coming to a very large, you know, existing clientele and saying, hey, we have something new and something that might fit you better. Like what have those conversations been like?

Aron Wilson: Yeah, lot of times clients will come to us. They've heard about us through a word of mouth or we might be working on a study for them. Maybe they came to us initially for sample and then they didn't know that we offered full service.

So we would mention that and then allowing them to have a choice and what they wanted to, what they wanted to do with us. So that kind of an a la carte type of menu, like if you just want sample, that's fine. If you want cross tabs with that, we can do that.

If you want just a top line, happy to do that. We can do questionnaire development. So letting them choose what they want. A lot of times I'll just choose the whole thing, but there have been times when, some clients just want a review of a questionnaire and maybe cross tabs, that's all they need. So having that flexibility, I think has helped to motivate some people who otherwise wouldn't necessarily want a full service research project.

Priscilla McKinney: Right, right. No, I love that. Well, it's been an interesting pivot and you know, I pride myself on making sure that everybody's in the know on what's going on in this industry. But you know, with EMI having been so sold out to being the voice in the wilderness about data quality for so long, I guess I'm wondering with this new ad on a, of, you know, full service.

Is there some changes that are coming above this or in the next three to five years like any other ideas of where EMI will be going in the market research world?

Aron Wilson: There are some things that are in the offing right now. We've got some, a couple of tools that we're working on that I think are really differentiated. I won't get into all the details about them now.

One is focused on. Okay. Yeah. So one is more focused on like data quality, like another enhancement to data quality. And another one's focused on being able to work with data in a little bit more interactive fashion than just a static report.

Priscilla McKinney: That's okay. I'll make you, I'll make you come on a podcast when we're going to do like the dramatic music and a drum roll or something.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that, I love that. Well, we have appreciated how much work you all have put into data quality, elevating the conversation. And I know that there is a part of your business that you just have to do it in order to educate people. But also I feel like you guys go above and beyond.

It's not just what you need in order to score the deal, but it is trying to help give the right lens to the industry and also make some corrective moves. And I think that's the kind of thing we need. And that's why you know, I asked you to come on and really wanted to give you the time and space to explain this pivot because I think we kind of owe you a little bit of a favor.

I do think there are a lot of other great companies that are your peers that are also doing a fantastic job. And I try and give them, you know, airtime on this on this podcast as well. But, you know, there's the bare minimum that we need to be doing. And then there's people who are really trying to lead the charge with thought leadership.

And I definitely have enjoyed over the years, many conversations with Michael Holmes and you know, what do we do now? Where are we at now? Like, what's next? Of course, we're all running businesses. We need to be profitable, but there's a good way of going about that profit. And I think you guys have really honed in on that.

And I really appreciate that. Suffice to say, there's another thing I'd announce is that you guys are also, again, supporting Insights Marketing Day podcast sponsorship there. Really appreciate that because, again, that's something that EMI research doesn't have to do.

But it's something where you say, actually care about this industry and we're going to make sure that the right people are in the right room, having better conversations about what's going on in our industry. So you need to connect with Aron Wilson, find him on LinkedIn. Again, it's A-R-O-N Wilson, W-I-L-S-O-N.

Be sure to look up emi-rs.com. But in the show notes, I'm gonna put that sample landscape, because it was a doozy. And I do think it's very important. It shows us that important research on research and what's really going on right now. Aron, thank you so much for your time for joining us today.

Aron Wilson: Yeah, thank you for so long. It's been great.

Priscilla McKinney: From all the peeps here at Little Bird Marketing. Have a great day and happy marketing.