Research Is Now a Global Village

In 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegram via the Atlantic Cable to United States President James Buchanan. The transmission took 16 and a half hours. Without the cable, such a dispatch in one direction alone would have taken twelve days. This was the birth of the death of global distance. Today, technology enables marketing researchers to envision almost any scenario for conducting research around the world in real time or asynchronous time, without researchers, clients, or respondents ever having to leave their offices or homes. Online bulletin boards, web room technology, and mobile applications are changing the structure of how research is conducted.

For example, for an interview project that might encompass 75 financial directors in 25 countries, reporting on experience with a new software modelling tool, those interviews are done in real time via telephone and web room technology. Research with a specialist physician group evaluating proposed packaging and advertising would almost certainly be done using telephone, web rooms, and webcams. The same technology allows researchers to meet in real time with homebound patients who can visually share their experience with medical hardware by panning the webcam our using a mobile device to show how they are using medical equipment in their personal environment. For a study on smoking habits, smokers can record their struggles to quit using audio diaries that are transcribed and posted on a bulletin board for researcher review.

A global food chain can easily deploy 1,000 respondents in multiple countries simultaneously, to audio record impressions in their native languages, which are then translated and posted in an online bulletin board for researcher analysis. Difficult to reach respondents in the Middle East can participate in research via online chat rooms anonymously to protect their identities. Respondents can create visual diaries that record the inside of medicine cabinets, drawers, closets, how a laundry product is poured into a washing machine, or how they are using a power tool – all now possible through two-way mobile ethnography. These technologies open the door for a more collaborative process with respondents, with more researchers and clients able to participate in a real time interview or focus group experience.

Creative thinkers are able to figure out ways to adapt almost anything to an online focus group experience – even group brainstorming sessions using online flip charts, whiteboards, and multiple breakout rooms. In short, almost any project, locally or globally, can now be done exclusively with communications technology. In short, with the right support system in place for conducting research, location doesn’t really matter anymore. Research is now a global village. The broader trends are all in this direction, as researchers adapt to consumer and business lifestyles that embrace online as the only way of life. As Millennials mature into managerial roles, these trends will only gain even further traction.

Visual collaboration solutions now closely replicate the brain’s innate preferences for interpersonal communications. Researchers understand that leveraging online tools is an essential component in building a franchise in the global marketing research economy. As with any structure for conducting market research, embracing the global possibilities of research using communications technology requires reliance on experts and technicians that understand the multiple issues of bandwidth, mobile providers, satellite technology, audio networks, time zones, individual country requirements, privacy and security issues, and who can work in multiple languages simultaneously. Marketing researchers, already being continuously interested in how people think, can leave the technical details in the hands of communications technology experts while they concentrate on content and insights.