Fraud in Research

Insights are the foundation of our economy. It is essential for product testing, pricing, and packaging. 

In this episode, Bob Birdsell and Sandy Casey (InnovateMR) cover topics such as fraud in market research, the impact of quality initiatives, pricing in the industry, survey design, the state of the industry, and the importance of industry associations. The main takeaways include addressing fraud and pricing issues, improving survey design, and recognising the importance of insights in driving business success. The conversation also highlights the role of industry associations in providing guidance and support.

insights, economy, fraud, quality initiatives, pricing, survey design, state of the industry, industry associations

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Transcript

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mean, Insights is the foundation of our economy. It really is. You can not not have insights in your product testing, your pricing, your packaging. Insights isn't going anywhere. Okay, my name is Bob Birdsell. I am the membership development director here at SMR in North America. And we are at the art and science of innovation in Chicago 2024. And I am here with Sandy Casey, the SVP of global supply for innovate MR. Welcome Sandy. Thank you, Bob. And Sandy is also one of our North American representative team members. So I want to give her a shout out to that. yeah, we'll chat about that too when we're finished. Thanks, Bob. Yeah. So, regarding the presentation, I know you had a presentation earlier today, and there's been a lot of activity on quality initiatives across many organizations. What kind of impact do you think this is actually having? You know, it's funny. I think these programs bring the opportunity for people to come to the stage and talk about quality. And that's what we did. It was Toronto, what was that, two years ago, the SMR in Toronto? 2022. And we produced a video and we went out and interviewed real fraudsters. Okay. We had a guy from Venezuela who was a cheater. I remember this. That was really great. Yeah. And the guy from Bangladesh. And what came out of this, which was awesome, this was such a huge impact, I couldn't believe we were at this program A and people didn't realize that fraud was as bad as fraud was. Right. And so it was such an eye -opener. And then all the associations came together. We saw SMR, Insights Association, MRS, SampleCon, everyone coming together to talk about the problem. And we always say at InnovateMR, Lisa says it all the time, Lisa Welding -Brown, our CEO, we're never going to solve fraud, ever. I mean, if the government can't stop it, or multi -billion dollar tech companies can't stop it. Well, can, obviously we could do some things to mitigate some of it, It always feels like, and at least from that presentation, it was funny too, because their faces are all blurred out, voices just distorted, like, my gosh. And you can mitigate to a certain extent, but then it also tends to feel like there are always one step, two steps ahead. As soon as the technology comes out to combat some of the fraud, then they're already moving on to the next thing to kind of elude Yeah, you know, it's funny, I think I said it that day too. The problem we have is that it's so easy to get rewards online. And if we would just go to the old school ways of sending a check, just once, just one time send a check. That guy in Venezuela wouldn't have been doing one survey 25 times if he was getting paid with a check because he wouldn't have been able to get a check in Venezuela. And I think the online platforms for rewards are awesome. They're excellent and they support our industry so much. But it's opened the door up. So we just have to think of a way to kind of mold ourselves a little just at the beginning so we can protect ourselves some more. No, it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. So maybe we touched on this a little bit. So what are some of the things that can be done to help mitigate that fraud? Like I said, it feels like they're always those two steps ahead, but we do try, right? So what would some of those things be, would you think? I have to say I think right now we have a big problem in the industry and it's pricing. We have gone really, really low on our pricing and I don't want to see the pricing come up for us to go make more money for ourselves. The pricing is minimizing our ability to engage the users. We did a mystery shop recently. We were just like, hey, let's Miss Test how we're doing. Where are we in our pricing? And we did three different tests. We had B2B audience, consumer audience, healthcare audience. And on the B2B, we interviewed. We didn't interview, we went out and we looked for pricing on CMOs in mid -sized companies, chief, like officers within an organization. And when we looked at the pricing, we were shocked. We had $18 from a vendor for a C -level executive 20 -minute study. and the average was 32. And I sat there and I looked at him like, wait a minute, $18 means a 50 % margin company is giving a CMO $9. You're not going to get real CMOs at that price because I know I'm not even going to take a five minute survey for that. And so I think we have to look at it just have the real honest discussion with the clients. Here you go. And you know, I get it. The marketplace has given opportunity for people to make money. It's fantastic. There's a place for them. But people kind of have to think about what are you getting for your money? Right. So that's pricing is one. Any others that you can think of? Yeah, I think survey design, you know, that's something I've been working on lately. Yeah. Hours and hours. the book. Yeah. Now I'm teaching a six hour class. That's what your presentation was about too, because I came in right at the tail end and I did get, yeah, then you had the class slide when I walked in, I was like, there's a class on this, all right. July 9th, 10th and 11th. Okay. And Online? Mm It's part of the Virtual Academy from SMR, which is great. And we're going to touch upon all kinds of using AI for survey design. shortening your questions, being concise. It's like we were just saying people don't have an attention span anymore. So just trying to help people design their surveys well so people will stay in the survey and engaged in the survey and give good quality output. Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. And that was we we obviously had these conversations earlier. But yeah, it's I think that's a big part of it. And the attention spans are are obviously Shocking when you hear that but it's it's you know, people are looking for bite-sized consumable content Real like life let learn guidance best practices, but please don't write me a you know a 500 page book on it because yeah It's the first page last page. Yeah, it's a first word last word. It's worse than first page Exactly, give me an emoji, please So and also there's a lot of talk to around the state of the industry with the recent Dyneta News and what happened there What is your take on kind of the industry where we're heading what the outlook is? Yeah, I I actually am really optimistic We're seeing really good stuff on the quantum the call side. We're seeing good numbers. I think they Nate is gonna be fine I don't think they're going anywhere. I think they might come out They have executives in there that are so smart and it's such a great company. They will be fine. In the insights industry can't go anywhere. Remember yesterday in the presentation we did the 10 horrible inventions of people that didn't pay into any insights gathering. I mean, insights is a foundation of our economy. It really is. You can not not have insights in your product testing, your pricing. your packaging, mean, Insights isn't going anywhere. True. Yeah. And I think just over time, we've seen that how impactful Insights, Insights professionals, team members have been to some of these companies, to some of these brands as they move forward. And the importance, I think even over time has just become even, you know, more recognized, more important, right? Yeah. teams are getting bigger, which is great to see, you because I think finally, you know, they're getting the recognition we deserve for the work that's being done and what it actually can do for the business. And that's why I, and I'm not saying this for any reason, but this is why the younger generation has to belong to SMR. There's so many lessons. There's so many things that we give so much great direction out. I mean, I have a huge passion for what we do. And we were talking the other day, just even on the demographics committee. the guidance that people need to have to do the things properly and legally. Yeah. And that's great too. That's a plug for our young SMR society members, our yes members too, to try to get them in early, show them the careers that are available, what's possible, where the industry is heading. There is work here and there's good careers. It's lucrative. mean, it's great from that standpoint, but you're right. I think getting that information out to that group. because the generations before them, they're getting older, they're retiring, they're moving on. We need to bring in that next wave, that next generation. Absolutely. Now, if you had a magic wand, what would be the one thing that you would like to change about the state of the industry right now, today? don't know if I can pick just one, but I got two things in my head that pop in right away. I really think we have to think about pricing and the way that we use pricing to reward our members and the people taking surveys. I have a theory that people are looking for Nordstrom quality for Walmart clearance rack pricing. And so you get what you pay for. And then the other thing is I want to see us going after these people that are cheating us. I want to break up you know, crime rings, the stings that are happening. I want us to get more active in that because I think once these groups start to see people get in trouble, the trickle effect of the way they communicate with each other will scare them. And I think we have to do that a little bit and also have some discussions with the platforms that are just letting these people teach people how to cheat us. It's frightening to me. And it's not just surveys. Like there are seminars out there on how take people's social security numbers, what to do with them. They're just letting everything be out there, which is concerning. Then I don't want to end on a sad No, you won't. Want a drink now, I think we covered the good part first on the vampire. We probably should have reversed that. But no. So the last thing I think I just want to talk about a little bit, and we mentioned it earlier on, is that you are on a North American rep, on our North American rep team. we're obviously we're active in that group. We've got a great leader, a chairman in that with Dan Fleetwood. And so talk to me a little bit about how you feel, A, being on the team, B, the work that we're doing there and the importance of it, particularly in this market, because, know, SMR being based in Amsterdam and is a European company and the number of members, sheer number of members that we have here in North America, and that continues to grow and we support them, obviously. Just kind of, and a lot of that work, a lot of that support, a lot of those ideas in that come from our North American team. So if you just maybe, yeah, share a little bit on that, your feelings on that, where we're at as a group. First of all, thanks for letting me be a I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. As soon as we met, I was like, no, this is good. Yeah, Dan, you got to meet her. Dan meets her, yeah, she's in. I mean, this was, that was a no brainer. Yeah, and I do, I have a massive passion. I started my career in nonprofit. Trial attorneys, not quite researchers. it's different. But I have a passion for nonprofit and what nonprofits do for the industries that they represent. Big time. And so I see you out there doing the membership stuff and I'm like, I remember those days. I think SMR is an invaluable tool. It's not just North American based and how many companies now are international because it's so easy to be international. And so we might be here, but we're doing work here and we have someone working from home here and we're interviewing people here. And it gives people the opportunity to know, what the right things are to do, the right things to say, the right tools to use, even giving guidance now on AI tools, which I think is phenomenal, what Ray pointed out this morning. It's just, in my opinion, the nonprofits are the key to absolute success in doing the right thing for the big companies who need our insights. Well, I love that you said that. I love that you're on our team and can't wait to continue working on our next initiative. So for myself and Sandy Casey, thank you so much.