A Pocketable Research Tool

Rosemont, IL — Shopper marketers should stop seeing smartphones as just marketing vehicles and begin to tap their potential as tools to gather surveys and research from the field, said Corrine Sandler, chief executive officer of Fresh Intelligence Research Corp.“Fast-growing mobile technologies are giving researchers more power to actually capture the respondent in the moment, and actually speak to them in the moment, in an in-store environment,” Sandler said during her presentation at the 2012 Shopper Marketing Summit. “If you’re waiting more than 48 hours for topline results from any survey you are conducting, it’s old,” she said.Despite the immediacy, money spent on mobile-based research still lags behind the amount spent on online studies, Sandler said, citing a 2011 study that tracked research spending by medium. The study didn’t even have a category for money on research using mobile phones.That may change as smartphone penetration continues to grow. Eighty-seven percent of the world’s population now has a mobile subscription, and Goldman Sachs predicts that 81% of mobile subscribers will have smartphones by 2015, Sandler noted. The latest data shows smartphone penetration in the U.S. at 48%, with the 24-34 age group having the highest proportion of smartphone users. Sandler compared online surveys to mobile surveys, which can include text responses and images taken with phones. Online methods have four distinct steps: pre-shopping mindset, aggregation of information, shopping experience, and advocacy. Mobile has two: pre-shopping mindset and shopping experience.As an example, Sandler used a case study that examined shopper behavior in the air-care category. Sandler’s company focused on the path to purchase and decision trees via both online and mobile surveys, collecting cell phone numbers from willing online survey takers.Forty-eight hours after beginning the 10-question mobile survey, 20 respondents had sent 92 photos and 123 text messages. Online results included rational responses, while the mobile responses gathered emotional, innate reactions. Pictures from the mobile participants included images inside their homes showing areas that smelled badly.One key finding was that, while the sponsor company and its competitors typically innovated with different scents and marketed the products by location, mobile responses indicated that consumers desire scents that work for specific odors rather than rooms, Sandler said. “Don’t give me kitchen or living-room products,” she paraphrased from the responses, “give me garbage fresheners, give me pet fresheners.”Sandler emphasized that online research isn’t outdated; rather, it should be combined with mobile research. Online survey results about air-care merchandising differed from responses gathered from respondents standing in the air-care aisle. Online respondents tended to be happy with air-care merchandising, but in-store respondents suggested several changes, she noted.In another example from Fresh Intelligence’s case file. Target asked Sandler’s firm to scout Easter 2012 in-store experiences at 15 different retail chains across Canada in preparation for the mass merchant's launch into the country in 2013. Within 24 hours, 64 respondents returned 10-question surveys and pictures they were prompted to take. Information scouted included displays, products and pricing strategies.From the surveys and images, Sandler’s company learned that guests were most satisfied with Easter merchandising at Walmart and Shoppers Drug Mart. Key drivers of guest satisfaction included clean, organized shelves; large product selection; an Easter-dedicated area; and a unique and consistent Easter theme across all channels. One-stop shopping, such as Easter baskets and one-location gifting stands, also were preferred as easy solutions to shop for Easter.“The traditional way that field intelligence has been conducted has been through paper, clipboards, pens,” Sandler said. “[There are] 58 million iPads in the world, why aren’t we as researchers or brand people using them more?”

A Pocketable Research Tool

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