July 13 , 2010

Study shows how mobile used in everyday life

Ipsos, Techneos partner for app-based study

Techneos announced a new collaboration with Ipsos, a leading global survey-based market research company. Ipsos and Techneos are working together to pilot new technologies and applications for mobile research. Their latest project called “The Great British Weekend” was conducted during the May 2010 Bank Holiday long weekend using Techneos’ survey research application, SODA across multiple mobile phones; Nokia and BlackBerry devices.

The “Great British Weekend” is a groundbreaking study inspired by how people use their mobile phone in their everyday life. The project enabled participants to provide anytime, anywhere feedback and allowed Ipsos to understand a day in the life of their panelists and answer the question: “what’s happening right now?” This project incorporated the use of a new mobile research technique which combines surveys with multiple choice, sliding scale, open text, the capture of pictures, and GPS-locations to understand people’s lives, moods, environments and decisions.

“We were very happy with the length and quality of the responses sent back,” said AJ Johnson, Vice President at Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange. “The mobile proved to be a great tool allowing participants to express themselves. We were excited to see so many photos of our online panelists as they went about their weekend. When we followed up with participants, 97 percent said they enjoyed it, 97 percent thought it was interesting and 100 percent would participate again.”

AJ Johnson, and Sean Conry, Vice President at Techneos, presented their findings of the “Great British Weekend” at the CASRO 15th Annual Technology Conference in New York City on June 3, 2010. The presentation illustrated the implications of mobile diary programs that use participants’ own devices to collect unique insights, discussed survey design and its effects on participant behavior, and shared some surprising results.

“This new technique truly opened our eyes and made us challenge our stereotypes of consumer segments we thought we had figured out decades ago,” said Sean Conry. “We came across many unique day-in-the life mobile diary entries including a tech-savvy grandma who used our app on her BlackBerry in between looking after her granddaughter and checking Facebook, and an unassuming stay-at-home mom who surprised us when she stayed out playing cards until 5:30 a.m. after attending a Hells Angels funeral. Marketers and researchers can leverage the concept and results of this study to dive deeper into just about any consumer segment,” added Conry.