Study Tracks Growth of Online Research

More than three quarters of market researchers worldwide are planning to increase their use of online research in the next six months, according to the Greenfield/Ciao Online Research Barometer. Fifty per cent of European researchers say they have replaced face-to-face studies with online research over the last year.

Greenfield Online and its European subsidiary Ciao interviewed 572 market researchers worldwide in November 2005 to provide a snapshot of MR Internet use. The study has been fielded twice yearly since mid 2004.

Nicolas Metzke, Senior VP of Survey Completion at Greenfield/Ciao, presented from the study at SEMO, France's major market research event held in Paris last week.

According to the study, 76% of those in North America and 85% in Europe said they are planning to increase online use. The two most important reasons for conducting MR online are time - mentioned by 82% of researchers - and competitive pricing (79%). Researchers in North America are more likely to mention the ability to access complex target groups and to incorporate multimedia technologies into surveys as reasons for going online.

Gunnar Piening, Senior VP of Sales and Operations for Europe and Asia, explains the type of research being conducted online: 'We've seen in our business that, besides one-off ad hoc studies, online is being used more and more for tracker or longitudinal, omnibus studies and custom panel research, and the Barometer findings show that this is an industry trend.' The study shows that only around a third of market researchers using online techniques restrict their use to one-off ad hoc studies.

Commenting on the survey findings, Albert Angrisani, the company's President and CEO, stated: 'Market researchers plan to continue to increase their use of online studies to fulfil their research requirements. This trend speaks positively for survey completion organizations like Greenfield/Ciao.'

The company is online at www.greenfield.com and www.ciao.com.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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