The ARF Annual Conference was held this week in NYC. We will be featuring synopses of onstage and breakout presentations during the next weeks. Here are some of the highlights of the conference:
President & CEO, Scott McDonald on the goals of the ARF
- Establish scientific discourse, transparency and trust. The mission is to deliver truly neutral, unimpeachable research to advance the practice of advertising and marketing
- Everyone is struggling to harness intellectual assets for the next breakthrough. We have to engage in the hard work of scientific inquiry. Be willing to revise our methodologies in the face of empirical findings – instead of cherry picking evidence. It is time to be brave
Optimizing Mobile Research
(based an on-stage presentation by ARF’s Chris Bacon and breakout session with Frances Barlas and Randall K. Thomas of GfK and Ryan Baum and Zoe Dowling of FocusVision)
There is a need to develop creative solutions to encourage respondents to take surveys on mobile – almost 3 out of every 10 surveys begin on a smartphone. But we haven’t made it easy for consumers to take our surveys on their phones, e.g. 32% of consumers break off on a mobile survey, compared to 27% who disconnect from a PC survey.
That’s why the ARF commissioned original research to experiment with the use of emojis and other mobile-friendly response options. Partnering with GfK and FocusVision, and aided by contributions from Ipsos, Research Now, and SSI, the ARF surveyed more than 12,000 consumers on either a PC or smartphone or table.
The task: replace text questions with either an emoji or a number, and keep the survey length to 10 minutes or less. Among the results:
- The survey experience was the same, or better, on a smartphone using emojis
- The data was the same between emojis, numbers, and text
- The number of survey drop outs was cut in half across all devices
- Satisfaction was higher with the use of emojis, especially among women, younger groups
Keynote:
From Storytelling to Story Making: Connecting Consumers to Priceless Possibilities
Raja Rajamannar — Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, MasterCard
Around the world, there is a profound change in consumer psychology. We are now in an expectation economy, where consumers are better informed, feel entitled, and look to be delighted and constantly rewarded. It’s all about story making—experiences over things.
In response, marketing has evolved from focusing on logic, to emotions, data, and now to building connections. MasterCard has identified 9 passion points—sports, theater, travel, movies, philanthropy, shopping, music, environmental, food—to help with the story making, curating and creating experiences for consumers across the following platforms. We have established solid models of attribution, based on transaction data, and robust ROI models. The platforms have proven to have momentum and are very solid on brand and business metrics.
Looking ahead: MasterCard views the Internet of Things as a huge opportunity—every connected device is viewed as a device for marketing.
You can access other key takeaways from our Trip Report, by clicking here and using your myARF login and password. The presentation decks and selected videos from the Annual Conference will be available on our website in the next 2 to 3 weeks.