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TNS Launch European Access Panel
TNS today launches the '6th Dimension', an online access panel covering the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The service, to be co-ordinated from Amsterdam, is seen as a major plank of the MR giant's future offering.
The agency expects to have around half a million panellists across the six countries by the end of 2005, and says the service will meet client demands for high response rates and fast turnaround times.
TNS has made use of existing access panel expertise from the North American operations of NFO, acquired in 2003, and of online custom research strength in the Netherlands. 37% of the company's Dutch-based custom research is already conducted online, compared with 12% in Scandinavia and less than 10% elsewhere, making Amsterdam a logical hub for the new service.
Online data collection already accounts for around 70% of the US access panel market - an astonishing growth from just 10% in 1999, with the share of both telephone and mail questionnaires dwindling rapidly. The success of online methodology in Holland - and its popularity with clients there - suggests that it should also take off in Europe, differences in culture and historical research approach notwithstanding.
Quizzed on the inevitable Internet research question of sampling and response quality, Chief Executive Mike Kirkham told DRNO that the balance of quality and efficiency was key in maintaining the TNS brand. In addition to reducing turnaround time on projects by several weeks, the change should enhance cross-market consistency in data collection and analysis. 'It offers our clients a means of purchasing market research through a managed panel with built-in checks to ensure that consistency of responses is maintained and the integrity of the data is safeguarded'.
Asked about the nature of these checks, Kirkham stressed that TNS would 'know more about its panellists' than many of the existing online access specialists, which were more likely to be mere 'lists'. This more in-depth relationship should ensure that the TNS panel remains robust, and representative not just of daily Internet users but of the online population more generally. For example, TNS has mobile phone numbers 'so we can SMS them and tell them when there is a questionnaire waiting'. It will also use in-house experience to maximise completion rates for different sub-groups: 'we know the optimum number of questions for online completion'.
Sub-panels will be available to service specialist groups / provide booster samples of certain categories of respondent - for example, clients of a particular bank or medical respondents.
Discussing other strategic aims, Kirkham said that in an increasingly competitive global industry the company would 'look to become a bit less dependent on Europe', which accounts for more than 60% of TNS turnover at present but is the slowest-growing of the world's regional MR markets. Panels similar to the 6th Dimension offering are already in existence in Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan and are being established in China (including Hong Kong), Korea and elsewhere in SE Asia.
The name '6th Dimension' is intended to combine the theme of TNS being 'The 6th Sense of Business' and the idea of using the extra dimension of the virtual world. TNS expects to extend the service to cover other European countries once its effectiveness has been demonstrated. The company is online at www.tns-global.com
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