Jan Shury Jan Shury became joint managing director of IFF Research in 2008, having worked with the company for 13 years. IFF Research - which has just celebrated its 45th birthday - specialises in researching business, marketing and public policy issues for a wide variety of private and public sector clients, and has particular expertise in engaging with hard-to-reach groups. Read the full biography here.

Avoid own goals

the World Cup and market research

9 June, 2010

World Cup fever is now upon us. This year’s tournament starts in South Africa on 11 June with England’s first match, against the USA, a day later. Branded World Cup goods have flooded the shops, the St George flag is hanging from windows and flying from cars and nearly every child wants to be Wayne Rooney.

Whilst the tournament offers great opportunity for market researchers, it’s also an event which poses some risk.

In June and July we are expecting the World Cup to have an impact on nearly all of our consumer projects.

The month-long campaign will see large swathes of the population watching matches either at home or down the pub. At its peak, it can attract huge TV audiences. After the last tournament, The Guardian estimated that 81% of the UK population saw at least one World Cup match in 2006, with up to 19 million UK viewers for a single England game. Who knows what it would have been if they had reached the final?

These numbers show, though, that events which bring a country together - whether in good times or bad - can have major implications for the market research industry. They have the potential to severely impact on recruitment for qualitative research or on response rates for quantitative.

The research challenge

The World Cup is the UK’s biggest sporting event and by some distance. Gone are the days when it was mainly men who followed their national team religiously – in 2006 47% of the audience was female. The event really brings the nation together.

So this means it will be difficult to get people across the demographic spread to pick up the phone, engage in online research or answer the door to a researcher when games are on – including the build up and aftermath.

Young men, the stereotypical football fan, are the hardest to recruit for both quantitative and qualitative research in normal times; participating in research generally doesn’t appeal to their psyche and they’re often not home during permitted calling hours. Throw in a major sporting event and it becomes that much harder.

The range of demographics it can affect includes ethnically diverse groups. Events like the World Cup, which involve many nations, can attract fervent followings across different ethnic backgrounds.

At IFF Research we’re used to targeting hard to reach groups, and major events make research among people from differing countries of origin even more problematic than usual. For example, a focus group among men of African origin may not run smoothly in the build up to, say, a possible crunch match between Nigeria and South Africa in the Round of 16 or between Ghana and the Ivory Coast, should both mark Africa’s first World Cup by getting to the semi-finals.

In June and July we are expecting the World Cup to have an impact on nearly all of our consumer projects. Conversely, we expect the impact on our B2B research projects to be limited to the England games in first few weeks and the key decider games towards the end of the tournament.

Beyond the World Cup

The World Cup highlights the issue but major events of all kinds frequently affect the research process. Take football at a more local level, for instance. We have previously recommended to a client, when using Random Digit Dialling, to avoid targeting people from Manchester on the day of a United vs. City derby. The research programme was adjusted to call people the day before or after; we still got the results we needed and the process was all the more efficient.

Away from sport, political and business events also have an impact. For example, in the past we have delayed sampling in Northern Ireland at the start of the marching season, simply because many residents choose to leave the province then.

We keep an up-to-date ongoing diary of key events such as public holidays. This includes key dates in the devolved nations and in the key countries in which we conduct international research / where UK immigrant audiences hail from. IFF’s approach is to communicate this information at pitch stage and then, if the pitch is successful, again at the planning and implementation stage. It can also be dependent on the length of time that the research will span. If the event is taking place six weeks into a 10 week field period, say, then there’s not going to be much of an impact so we’d inform the client near the event that we are adjusting our resources accordingly. The conversation would be completely different if the fieldwork was only scheduled for 1 weekend, say – and the event was on the Saturday.

You may need to do nothing - it depends on who the research is trying to reach. If it’s women above the age of 70, it’s likely that the World Cup will not make a significant impact.

The weather is also a factor. Snow, such as that this January, stops people getting to work and affects business research. On the first sunny day of spring it’s harder to reach the public on the phone.

Planning ahead

So what can market researchers and their clients do?

There are no hard and fast solutions – different events will affect individual research briefs in different ways. You may need to do nothing - it depends on who the research is trying to reach. If it’s women above the age of 70, it’s likely that the World Cup will not make a significant impact.

The key thing is to be aware. Think about events that will draw people together on a specific date. The finals of The X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent attract in the region of 20 million people and have fervent followings – will people pick up the phone during the warblings of the next Leona Lewis or Susan Boyle? Try to target people at a different time or, if the scope of the research allows, in a different way.

Be flexible too. Not all political, business or weather-related events can be predicted, of course. If a world-changing event such as 9/11 happens again people will be following the news and, in all probability, not in the right frame of mind for research. Build in as much time as you can to allow for the unexpected.

And if the client says there is no flexibility? The first thing we would ask is “No flexibility? Are you sure?” If a client is spending money on research it is important that it delivers what they need. Clients should understand that it might not be worth spending the money if what they get back is going to be compromised. Any notion of “we have to do this” has, at some stage, got to be tempered with “but is it possible?”

Another option is to explore the possibility of using proxy interviews. A few years back we ran a piece of research looking at the amount of time working fathers spent with their families. It proved extremely difficult to contact working fathers as they had very little spare time, so instead we carried out proxy interviews with their wives.

In short, don’t score an own goal by ignoring events such as the World Cup. Our staff have been planning ahead to make sure response rates and recruitment are not affected on relevant projects.

And – one can dream! – if the England team does really well this summer, mark World Cup Final day, 11 July, in your diary as one for market researchers to really avoid.

Jan Shury