Intellus Worldwide Institute 2018

Pete Seeger’s 1960s folk song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, illustrates the circular nature of events, using flowers, young men, soldiers, a graveyard, and coming back to flowers. In a similar way (okay, maybe we’re stretching the analogy a bit), we work in an ecosystem that is interconnected.

Manufacturers contract with research agencies to conduct interviews; research agencies contract with panel companies, panel companies enlist doctors, doctors answer questions for the manufacturers. The process works well most of the time, but more needs to be done. Respondents are seeing long or restrictive screeners, tedious surveys, and qualitative interviews that go on longer than expected. As a result, we are seeing lower incidence rates, even lower participation rates.

Eventually, both research quality and feasibility are at risk if nothing changes. The downstream problems become retaining quality respondents or needing to pay higher incentives and higher CPIs. Higher CPIs, when passed back through to the end client may lead to the proclivity to try to get more out of each interview, including stretching the length of interview. And so, the vicious circle turns and, in the end, all suffer the consequences.

These consequences include challenges on who pays the higher honoraria, questions on how to handle partial data, and general anxiety plus strained relationships. There’s no one solution to this emerging problem.

So how do we fix this from all channels of the market life cycle? Our panel discussed potential actionable solutions at the Intellus Worldwide Institute 2018 from their various perspectives.

Date and time: Monday, 1 October 2018 at 3:50 PM–4:25 PM
Location: Salon VII, Marriott Boston Quincy
Presenters: