Private companies and public institutions increasingly want research programs that focus on ethnic and religious minorities. Companies want to tailor their offer to specific target groups and institutions aim to combat discrimination although some politicians do not rule out so-called positive discrimination for minorities. Identifying people within a specific ethnic or religious group is not easy. We normally have three classifications: immigrants, ethnic minorities and religious minorities. These terms may be defined and interpreted differently depending on the language and country involved, which is why it is crucial for the research industry to agree on unambiguous and globally valid definitions. The work of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) could be helpful in this respect.
The ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics, which was developed jointly with the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce), sets out global standards for self-regulation for researchers and data analysts and is undersigned by all ESOMAR members.
Projections about future developments, delivering expectations, indicating trends and making predictions, are activities that do attract attention. And of course, carefully formed opinions about what will happen in the future are indispensable to the planning process. But just how reliable are these forecasts? It seems that predicting the future has become a business in itself - with huge financial interests - in which mostly self-appointed gurus and trend watchers have developed a lucrative trade in prognoses and prophecies. Are they really any different from the seers and clairvoyants that through the ages provided decision makers with their visions? Not to forget the multitude of âvoodoo pollsâ, on-line political polls and analyses by the media that often go just skin deep. Predicting is fine - but ultimately it is not just about making predictions about the future. Timing is also crucial: to what particular point in time do the estimates relate and just how accurate are they? Best guesses might be welcome, but are not always sufficient. Much more preferable are systematic, independent and rigorous approaches on a continual basis - at least then the contribution of research can be more solid. Not that the aspiration is for research to bring universal happiness, but standards of professionalism should be respected. We have been looking ahead in Research World since the beginning of this year. In this issue we will explore the predictive quality of research from different angles. To avoid the myopia of the chronic emphasis on the short term, we will focus on long term developments and changes in areas that affect us all, such as the biomedical world and technology. We will focus on scenario planning and look at trends and hypes. We will try in particular to get a picture of the role of research. Can research help companies to pleasantly surprise consumers? Or make existing products obsolete, as people have said so insistently in the past? What can modern research do? Can it deliver photos, snapshots or reliable forecasts?
The purpose of this paper is to confirm, through a qualitative study, that ad serving counting tools at different points in the delivery chain are capable of measurement (and third party certification) to a common standard.
This paper describes the efforts undertaken by Nielsen Outdoor to create an audience measurement system, based on GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) technology, capable of meeting the commercial and research needs of the U.S. outdoor industry. It describes the deployment of the service in Chicago, and summarises the key elements of the research. In addition, it elaborates on the participative process used with media owners, agencies, advertisers and industry bodies and the importance of that process in creating a 'Gold Standard' currency.
This paper explains the use of the MRC (Media Rating Council) Minimum Standards as evaluation criteria for different types of media measurement including the special consideration given before using them for site centric measurement.