Mobile Potential and Pitfalls
Ubiquitous mobile comms are indeed a game-changer for research: nobody quite understands how they’ll affect what we do - and as usual there’s good and bad in this.
Already this month two global agencies, Harris and Nielsen, have announced studies of a kind not possible before, tracking consumers 24/7 and adding photographs to diary information. Interestingly, Nielsen chose the Blackberry as its delivery device, reinforcing the view stated by a number of pundits that ‘reports of everything else’s death at the hands of Apple have been greatly exaggerated’. US mobile technology firm Cloud Mobile Forms also adapted a tool to run on the Blackberry.
Nevertheless the wave of innovation sparked by the iPhone continues, and research apps for this and rival platforms are likely to appear with regularity now, the latest being US provider Bellomy’s tool enabling MROC members to browse and immediately respond to forum topics; and an app from software firm Kinesis allowing research project management through touchscreen phones, including iPhones and the fast-growing number of Android-enabled devices.
With opportunities to gather new kinds of information, however, come opportunities for a new level of intrusion into people’s lives. It’s something that’s going to be regulated one way or the other, and as with other privacy areas it would be much better to do it ourselves. Researchers need to be forceful in pointing out where proposed government legislation should exempt their profession, as it tends to bracket us with other not-too-appropriate sectors, but should also be sensitive to the possible annoyance we cause and be prepared to go beyond legislation in some practices.
On the first point, the MRA is fighting FCC proposals which would require anyone calling a cell phone using an automated dialling system to obtain a ‘clear and specific written agreement’ from the respondent first. MRA’s Director of Government Affairs, Howard Fienberg, rightly notes that ‘with ‘cell phone only’ and ‘cell phone mostly’ populations totaling 40% of American households, researchers need to be able to include cell phone users in their studies in order to have viable samples’; and in response to consumer protection arguments points out to me that ‘automated dialing technology does not pose an inherent harm to consumers’. Surely this is common sense: if I’m interrupted by a phone call I don’t really care (or know) whether a human has done the dialling or simply taken over the call seamlessly as I’ve picked up, and there’s no inherent difference in terms of data protection either.
On the second, we often make bold statements about ‘putting the respondent first’ and treasuring the crucial resource that respondents constitute for MR. While mobile research is still developing, let’s look at the potential it has to cause greater annoyance, and agree the best ways to bring research calls to mobiles into the mainstream without putting more people off.
This means recognising that just because we’re doing research doesn’t automatically make any kind of intrusion all right, and to be honest doesn’t really make any kind of intrusion much less of an intrusion in the eyes of consumers, who tend to see us as less ‘different’ to telemarketers, than we do. In addition, people’s comfort levels with their mobiles differ vastly - some are very happy to be always-on, connected, and open to anything the technology allows. Others see mobiles as very personal, very private and/or for limited use, and will continue to do so for a long time yet. Call me Jane Austen (no don’t, really) but let’s mix sense with sensitivity, and be careful with pride and predictive diallers.
Nick Thomas
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