Conducting market research through mobile phones allows organisations to receive almost instant results. It is an ideal platform for researching a number of marketing and branding issues, including sponsorship, new product development, customer service surveys and advertising effectiveness. It allows companies to get immediate feed back while people are "in the moment" regardless of their location and helps reduce the need for people to rely on recalled experiences and feelings.

Lightspeed Research has is one of the few established market research companies that has already invested significantly in this new methodology, developing a survey platform, mobile panel and research guidelines in 2007 to allow clients to undertake market research directly through people`s mobile phone, either via SMS or WAP. This paper will use real life case studies to identify some of the real benefits that mobile research can bring organisations, as well as discuss some of the considerations when undertaking research with this innovative approach.

David Day, CEO of Lightspeed Research Europe will bring his presentation to life with our own case studies that include a mobile survey conducted during the half time break in the European Champion’s League final in May 2007 year. In this study we received 60% of completed surveys during the 15 minute half time break, and 90% within an hour of sending the survey. The survey help identify people’s awareness of the event sponsors while they were watching the game, whether they were watching at home or in the pub.

The second case study is a survey carried out in three countries on mobile during the Live Earth concerts in the US, the UK and Australia. This was used to measure the impact on peoples` behaviour, and awareness of event sponsors while the events were taking place. The research was conducted at the peak viewing time in each country.