The Handbook of Mobile Market Research: Tools and Techniques for Market Researchers

2 Mobile Research in Action

INTRODUCTION

This chapter highlights some of the ways that mobile approaches are being applied to different types of market research, and how they are being utilized in the context of different markets and situations.

The areas covered are:

• Retail research
• Customer experience and satisfaction
• Advertising testing
• Tracking brands and advertising
• Product testing
• Advanced quantitative research
• B2B research.

The key theme amongst these different strands is that mobile market research is making significant inroads; broadening the range of people who can be contacted for research and increasing the ability of market research to get closer to customers.

RETAIL RESEARCH

Mobile devices are having a major impact on retailing (both through online retailing and the use of mobiles as an aid to in-store shopping) and mobile market research is having a major impact on retail research. The sorts of changes that mobile market research is introducing include: increasing and enhancing the mobility of interviewers (for face-to-face research), utilizing the multimedia functions of mobile devices, collecting passive data, using geolocation to locate participants, and enlisting shoppers to participate as collaborators in research projects.

This section looks at how the following key areas of retail are benefiting from mobile market research:

• Understanding shopping trips and processes
• Face-to-face customer research
• Retail audits
• Mobile shopping
• Mystery shopping.