Leaving our comfort zone: 21st Century Market Research By Communispace: Manila Austin and Julie Wittes Schlack

Advances in social media, the empowerment of everyday consumers, and the need for more actionable insights fuel a mandate for market research to do more, faster. These developments create great opportunity for researchers to exercise strategic leadership, to inspire and innovate by bringing the voice of the customer to life, to apply new insights to complex business problems, and to produce creative, timely and actionable recommendations to drive business results.

But the use of social media-driven research also fuels the quality debate that’s been raging for years, creating worries about declining response rates, questionable respondents, sample size, and projectability. Market researchers need to consider and address these legitimate concerns, while also recognizing the ways in which online, social, community-based research can actually strengthen validity and enhance quality.
 
To take that leap, it’s helpful to think in terms of tradeoffs, to understand what researchers are risking—and gaining—by shifting their focus and methods.

Eyes Wide Open, Wallet Half Shut:
The Emerging Post-Recession Consumer Consciousness By Communispace and Ogilvy

The "great recession" of 2009 has taken a toll on consumers' emotional and financial well being, and the big questions on everyone's mind are: What happens next? Is it really over? And, what is the new "normal" really? As thought leaders and experts in understanding consumer behavior in the context of our culture, Ogilvy and Communispace teamed up to make sense of the effects the recession has, and will have, on Americans.

The Sandwich Situation—
A layered look at the complex lives of multi-generational caregiversBy Manila Austin, Michael Jennings, Katrina Lerman, and Julie Wittes SchlackOver the past several years, marketers have identified a growing consumer segment known as the “sandwich generation”—those simultaneously taking care of aging parents and young children. But do they understand this population? Do they serve it with relevant messaging, products, and services?

Our research suggests that many brands do not.