Up until about ten years ago, the differences between qualitative and quantitative research could be clearly articulated. But with advances in panel management, text analytics and the kind of inquiry and feedback enabled by Web 2.0 technologies, the boundaries between the two forms of research are blurring. These trends have become flashpoints in a larger debate about sample size, respondent quality and reliability.
Accelerating that (con)fusion is the explosive growth of market research online communities (MROCs).
In this workshop, we’ll define what MROCs are, establish some guidelines for determining when they are (and are not) an appropriate tool, discuss case studies and examples of how they have been used to advance agencies’ and brands’ learning and business objectives, explore and debate the tradeoffs inherent in this methodology, discuss methods for evaluating the success of a community, and jointly develop strategies to employ MROCs in addressing class participants’ immediate challenges.
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In combination with Latin America 2012.