Changes to the MRS Code of Conduct

I recently attended the Market Research Society Code of Conduct Roadshow.  Unfortuntately there was no Bruno Brookes but in his place Barry Ryan, the MRS Standards & Policy manager, told the assembled throng all about changes to the Code of Conduct which will be coming into force in March 2010.  So, for your enjoyment, here’s a quick rundown of the main points:

• Incentives – currently, if an organisation is running some audience research they might want to offer an incentive for taking part, such as free tickets or a meal at their restaurant.  This will no longer be allowed under the Code of Conduct, as it constitutes direct marketing.  The basic idea is that offering your own product or service as a prize is a form of promotion, which is not allowed in market research.  So, if you do want to offer something which is related to your organisation as an incentive, you should abide by the Direct Marketing Assosciation’s guidelines, which are much stricter, particularly around who you can and cannot contact.
• Promotional messages: similar to the above point, you won’t be allowed to have any promotional messages in your market research.  For example, in some introductory text you might have the phrase “Theatre X, the UK’s leading new writing theatre…” – this would constitute promotion, and as such you would have to abide by the DMA Code of Conduct.
• Age of interviewees: presently, the MRS Code of Conduct is a bit confusing when it comes to interviewing people under the age of 16.  So, to make it simpler, from March 2010 parental/in locl parentis constent will be required before interviewing under 16s.  This includes any form of research with under 16s, even those not conducted face-to-face (such as e-surveys).

As a member of the MRS, and any research we at Audiences London are involved in is required to uphold the Code of Conduct, so we’ll be going with the above guidance.  Even if your organisation is not a member, we’d recommend following their guidelines, as they outline best practice in the research sector pretty comprehensively.  And if you are a member, Barry’s available on the MRS Codeline to answer any tricky questions!

If you’d like any more info, have a look at at the MRS website.

Research thinkings from the AMA conference

copyright Hal Mayforth

I attended the AMA conference for the first time this year.  I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but was looking forward to hearing some new ideas which I might be able to bring to AL’s research team, and getting a better understanding of how arts organisations market their wares (even if it meant missing Eastenders for two days).  So, here’s my take on the AMA conference with my Research Officer hat on (and it turns out not a lot happened in Albert Square in my absence anyway).

One of the many areas Diane Ragsdale spoke about was the audience’s potential role as co-producers rather than consumers;  but to what extent does your audience want to co-produce?  Understanding them should help ensure any projects based around audience co-production meet the expectations of that audience.  This relates to the idea that it’s core to have clarity about who you’re serving and why – then you can think about how to reach them.  And how do you understand your audience?  Research!  So that covered the importance of good research, leading on to…

Leo and Rachel from Audiences South gave a handy rundown of the tools available to help understand your audience.  Some were better known (such as ACE’s new(ish) segmentation, ACORN and Mosaic) than others (PSPP, a freeware SPSS-type data analysis program), but in all an interesting starting point for seeing what useful research you can do with limited time and £.  I’m going to be exploring PSPP, so if anyone has any tips let me know!

According to Andy Ryans (via Stelios of easyjet fame), excellence is created by exceeding expectations.  So, in order to be able to know how excellent our event/service/production/offer is we need to measure the audience’s expectations compared to their actual experience.  This is something we’ve been doing for some time at AL as one way of measuring the success of an event/service etc, but using it to measure excellence isn’t something I’d considered before, and am definitely going to investigate.

The theme of value kept coming up at the conference, which made me think about how to measure it, and how we at AL might build this into surveys we design.  John Holden and Tim Baker spoke about the difference between value and benefit – benefit being objective, value being subjective, which I think takes us to a similar place to measuring excellence – if the benefit earned from taking part in or attending the arts is perceived by an audience member as having greater impact on them than the time or money required to do it, value has been created.  So there’s a lot going on when you ask people about what they value, and why.

Finally, Dan Germain from Innocent smoothies (I prefer a nice Irn Bru myself, but there you go) encouraged organisations to “listen and keep listening” – good advice, especially if through listening you actually make changes, which is what research should be all about!

Circus Arts

We’re currently running some research for the ACE London-supported City Circ season of contemporary circus, following on from some box office analysis we carried out in 2008.  A couple of the areas we’re looking into are people’s perceptions of what circus arts actually are, and what the audience for it looks like.   It’s all very interesting, and good to see that not only are circus arts on the agenda within the sector but the good folk at The Guardian have an eye on this resurgent artform too.  Read Lyn’s blog entry here, and keep an eye open for some topline findings from our research later on in the summer!

Hiya!

(Pretty much every conversation I have, whether face to face, on the phone, via text, semaphore, morse or telepathy, begins with the word “Hiya!”, so I guess that’s a good place to start.)

I’m Dan, the Research Officer at Audiences London.  I’ve been at AL Towers since October 2007, in which time I’ve learnt many things (chips for lunch every day makes one feel queasy; the number 1 bus into town is really quick; Χ²=∑cells[(observed value-expected value)^2]/expected value)…  I’ll be writing on here about my specialist topics – survey design, data analysis and Snap being just three from a treasure trove of knowledge which will, in time, improve your life beyond belief – and that’s a promise!