UK’s coolest brand*, Aston Martin, selects Beehive for its global market research programme…

22nd August, 2011 - Posted by Paul Kavanagh - No Comments

Aston Martin has selected online and research consultancy specialist, Beehive, to help define and implement a research framework for its global customer satisfaction and insight programme.

Beehive started the initial phase of the programme in October 2010 which involved a group wide consultation exercise of workshops and interviews with key stakeholders. The objective was to fully understand the requirements for market intelligence across the business and to define a 3 year learning plan that could be prioritised and then implemented.

Following the presentation of the plan, Beehive’s first task was to undertake a customer understanding research project in some key territories worldwide and this has already provided some very interesting insight and customer learning which is being applied within several areas of the business.

Full contracts were signed in May and implementation of the research programme is now well underway.

Beehive managing director, Paul Kavanagh said “Aston Martin is an iconic brand and was UK’s coolest brand* last year so this is a fantastic project for us to be working on. There will be some difficult research challenges ahead but we are working with a great team, a great product and are looking forward to implementing the plan over the next 3 years.”

Beehive managed to secure the business in a competitive pitch against several other agencies. The main reasons for being chosen were because of the fresh and creative approach to Aston Martin’s specific requirements, its ideas led proposal and its value for money solutions.

 

Research Panel – benefits

20th May, 2010 - Posted by Tom Raybould - No Comments

As business decisions become more and more significant, a company can live or die by misjudging its market. Does anyone remember when there was a Woolworths on every high street? The pervasive nature of the internet and tightening of budgets means there has never been a better time to set up an online Research Panel and tap into customer insight via the internet.

Engage your customers
By setting up a panel you can create engagement with your customers, giving them a voice in the development of your company and increasing their loyalty to your brand. Many customers are happy and willing to give feedback and like to know that their views are making a difference. Engaging with them in the online space allows you to make use of all the exciting multimedia tools available to improve participation and increase your response rates.

Engage your business
Your research panel can make research more readily available to departments and encourages them to further learn from customers before making decisions. Also if the right hand is aware of what the left hand is doing they can work together to achieve common goals and this can encourage synergy between departments. With the cost efficient element of online research already taken into account a reduction in duplicated tasks will also save your company money.

Ensure productivity
Online research allows for more rapid turnaround of projects and having your own research panel only expedites this. The panel becomes an enabler and reduces timescales meaning the business is able to accelerate the research schedule and make more timely decisions.

Research benefits
Other than time savings there are also significant cost benefits in having your own panel (and these can easily amount to 30 to 50% over a year) which means your budget can be stretched further and you can in fact conduct more research. With a carefully managed research panel you can ensure that your base remains representative of your customer base, the UK population or some other pre-defined profile, giving you the confidence that any results or insight you derive will be robust. Being able to fuse panelist profile information, Recency/Frequency/Monetary data (RFM) data or a bespoke or commercially available segmentation system makes owning your own panel a very compelling proposition. Research is also not limited to just quantitative data, your panel can be used as a pool for qualitative discussion or for use in other methodologies, like telephone or mobile surveys.

Learn more about Benefits of a custom research panel

 

Research panel management best practice guide

16th November, 2009 - Posted by Paul Kavanagh - No Comments

How will our FREE 24 page guide help you?

Sometimes online research can seem a little like the “wild west”, there are lots of pioneers out there, but not much clear guidance on how they should operate. Whether you are thinking of setting up a new online panel, a research community or managing an existing one, we at Beehive have put together a clear, practical road map to help steer you in the right direction.

Our 7 Principles of Custom Panel Management will demystify the process of developing your customer panel into a key business asset. This guide will help you tune into the true voice of the customer, improve the integrity and validity of your panel and, through panel enrichment, deliver greater depth of insight in research findings. We will show you techniques to keep your panel in good health and maintain information accuracy, while ensuring your panel members are engaged and motivated.

We highlight tried and tested quality control routines that will help you standardise your practices and improve consistency.  This guide will also help you avoid the potential costly pitfalls of failing to meet legal compliance and Industry codes of practice.

 Why is Quality Panel Management so important?

Investing in a custom panel pays huge dividends to an organisation, not only in the cost saving that can be gained from conducting research to the group (savings of 40 to 50% not uncommon), but also in the valuable and rapid insight that the panel can give to help make informed decisions and drive businesses forward.

However, when making important decisions that can have an impact upon the success or failure of a new product or service, an ad campaign, a pricing strategy or other strategically important objective, the credibility of the information on which the decision is based must be robust otherwise the wrong direction can be taken.

Your key asset

For this reason the quality of the sample or audience interviewed must therefore be of the highest quality otherwise any cost saving derived can be insignificant to the impact of a misdirected decision. Custom panels therefore, whilst a massive business asset, must be treated as such and the implementation of a well designed custom panel (a separate best practice guide is available on this) and a quality panel management process does lead to better informed decisions, competitive advantage and a better return on the investment.

At Beehive we therefore believe that every custom panel should be treated as the asset it is and by adhering to our principles of best practice will deliver the organisation greater value, more robust results and more informed decisions.

In the guide we have isolated 7 key principles of Best Practice Quality Panel Management that will make an organisation’s custom panel more effective:

7 key principles of Best Practice Quality Panel Management

• Principle 1 – Diversity and representation – “Obtaining balanced opinions”
• Principle 2 – Validation and enhancement – “Real people, real information”
• Principle 3 – Information accuracy – “Keeping it current and true”
• Principle 4 – Managing engagement – “All people are not the same”
• Principle 5 – Reporting and monitoring – “Panel health”
• Principle 6 – Quality control – “Auditable processes”
• Principle 7 – Compliance – “Keeping it legal”

To obtain your free 24 page guide register in the Beehive Members area – www.beehiveresearch.co.uk/members

 

 

 

 

“Co-Creation” Builds Better Research Communities

26th June, 2008 - Posted by Paul Kavanagh - No Comments

Paul Kavanagh,  Founder and Director of Beehive Research Ltd (Epsom, Surrey, UK), noted research has traditionally been a linear process wherein organizations hire an agency to query consumers, who provide answers to the agency, who returns final results to manufacturers. Co-creation however adds several layers of communication to that model, with organizations engaging in two-way dialogue with consumers, consumers asking questions of and getting answers from agencies, and consumers having dialogues with each other that are captured and included in the research process.

“Co-creation abounds in the online world,” he said,  “and manufacturers are capitalizing on it. Procter & Gamble, for example, has been working with consumers through its Tremor Panel to generate word-of-mouth marketing. Several organizations and agencies are conducting research in online virtual worlds like Second Life. Organizations are also including consumers in product design and innovation,” he said, citing websites NIKEID.com and legofactory.com, which both allow consumers to design their own products. “Similarly, companies like McDonald’s and L’Oréal have partnered with consumers on advertising creation.”

Kavanagh  suggests that online communities are the forerunner of “Research 2.0,” suggesting, “The key to successful ‘research communities’ is finding the middle ground between the kind of engagement found at social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube and virtual worlds like Second Life, and the more traditional online panels and research studies.” The motivations for being a panelist on a commercial access panel are also very different from those seen on an organizations customer panel. Typical motivations driving the latter research community participation, he said, include brand loyalty, the allure of community information sharing and varying degrees of engagement / communication.

While traditional research “has always been about representative sample, Word of Mouth Advertising (WOM) often utilizes elite groups, like ‘Mavens,’ people who have a disproportionate influence on other members of their network,” Kavanagh explained. “In research 2.0 can these influencers cause results to be altered and, as such, should we be concerned by biases in social networks? Will our community include all people we should engage with, and how do we balance it to engage just with the people we want to speak to?”

Kavanagh presented a case study on Screwfix.com, the UK’s largest direct and online supplier of trade tools, accessories and hardware products. “They had an existing talk forum and panel, but faced challenges with managing diversity, engagement, segmentation and communication,” he described. Asked for suggestions, Screwfix.com panelists said they wanted to be able to leave feedback on purchased items, score other panel members’ suggestions, see feedback or a survey summary, and see the actions Screwfix.com took as a result of panel input.

To assist in driving strategy forwards, Beehive polled Screwfix panelists about their interaction with and affinities for “Web 2.0” venues like YouTube and Facebook, and to assess what types of  co-creative engagement would be attractive, with responses including quick polls, blogs, product reviews, forums, chat and others. “Ratings, for example, have become a major feature of communities like Trip Advisor and Amazon,” Kavanagh said. “They can provide users with feelings of engagement or empowerment, and an opportunity to influence, share, praise or even disrupt.”

 Before implementing a rating system, Kavanagh advised researchers to consider the following:

• Will previous knowledge of other’s opinions cause a “sheep effect?”

• What are the motivations for people to leave rating feedback?

• What type of people leave ratings?

• What is the profile of these responders?

• Can we trust the results or are ratings just good for engagement?

To investigate this further, Beehive ran three test questions using 1,127 respondents split into three groups to see if displaying the average rating before a vote is cast––a common practice––significantly affected the outcome. “In each test, all three groups were shown the same suggestion for improving the Screwfix community and asked to rate it,” Kavanagh related. Group A and Group B each saw a different average rating on the screen when they read the question and cast their vote, and Group C saw no rating (control). “Initial findings suggest showing average scores may have an influential effect on subsequent responders,” Kavanagh revealed. “In addition, younger responders gave higher scores in all three tests; they generally appear more in tune with social networks and interacting with other community members, and this has significant importance to the type of community an organization should build.”

Future Beehive communities will be built through co-creation between Beehive, the client and community members,  and based on the business requirements, audience type, and new opportunities/techniques. “We feel this will maximize research insight, engagement, diversity and thus representativeness.”

Kavanagh concluded by drawing parallels between co-created communities and those in nature. “Man-made communities are evolving as members work together to design, shape and improve the environment through communication and feedback,” he described. “Members exhibit altruistic behavior and also adopt distinct roles  whether Mavens, early adopters, advocates, shapers, sheep, etc.

Bees, on the other hand, have been doing this is nature for years, working and communicating together to design and build their community, exhibiting altruistic behavior–collecting nectar for common good –improving the environment through pollination  and having distinct roles.”