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Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2025 9:55 am
Research communities remain hot
Research communities seem to be increasingly outgrowing the experimental stage. This is certainly the case in the US, but it also applies to the Netherlands. In a research community, a limited group of people (25 to 300 people) are brought together in a closed community environment for a usually limited period of time. Within this community, the participants can perform various activities, such as discussing on a forum, collaborating on creative co-creation assignments, keeping a diary, filling in polls and short questionnaires, etc. During the ESOMAR Congress, a number of interesting cases were presented in which a research community played an important role.
For example, Heineken and InSites Consulting talked about an extensive project they carried out to co-create the Club of the future. In an international online research community, 120 so-called 'design-savy clubbers' worked together for three weeks to share their experiences from nightlife, and to process these into criteria that they believe the ideal club should meet. The insights that this yielded were the input and inspiration for a group of designers who jointly designed a concept for the club. This concept was even temporarily implemented in Milan as a popup Club. The insights from the research community have been visualized in a beautiful way and can be viewed here .
Heineken
Another great case came from Meredith Corporation and south korea phone data Communispace. Meredith Corporation is the publisher of a magazine called The Ladies' Home Journal. They wanted to revitalize and transform this magazine to attract a younger and broader target audience. The solution they came up with was to give readers a big influence on the content of the magazine. Among other things, by asking them for inspiration and ideas and by actually letting them write articles and giving them a leading role in specific sections (for example, a cooking section in which a reader explains a specific recipe). To realize this, Meredith, together with Communispace, created a continuous online research community. This unites 300 women from the target audience. The research community has been delivering unique and actionable insights for several years. It offers inspiration, input for articles, feedback on concepts and also creates content for articles. Based on the insights from the online research community, The Ladies' Home Journal recently got a complete makeover.
So there is a lot of enthusiasm for online research communities, or as the person responsible for Coca Cola's global research put it: “Panels and communities help us make great business decisions”.
Research communities seem to be increasingly outgrowing the experimental stage. This is certainly the case in the US, but it also applies to the Netherlands. In a research community, a limited group of people (25 to 300 people) are brought together in a closed community environment for a usually limited period of time. Within this community, the participants can perform various activities, such as discussing on a forum, collaborating on creative co-creation assignments, keeping a diary, filling in polls and short questionnaires, etc. During the ESOMAR Congress, a number of interesting cases were presented in which a research community played an important role.
For example, Heineken and InSites Consulting talked about an extensive project they carried out to co-create the Club of the future. In an international online research community, 120 so-called 'design-savy clubbers' worked together for three weeks to share their experiences from nightlife, and to process these into criteria that they believe the ideal club should meet. The insights that this yielded were the input and inspiration for a group of designers who jointly designed a concept for the club. This concept was even temporarily implemented in Milan as a popup Club. The insights from the research community have been visualized in a beautiful way and can be viewed here .
Heineken
Another great case came from Meredith Corporation and south korea phone data Communispace. Meredith Corporation is the publisher of a magazine called The Ladies' Home Journal. They wanted to revitalize and transform this magazine to attract a younger and broader target audience. The solution they came up with was to give readers a big influence on the content of the magazine. Among other things, by asking them for inspiration and ideas and by actually letting them write articles and giving them a leading role in specific sections (for example, a cooking section in which a reader explains a specific recipe). To realize this, Meredith, together with Communispace, created a continuous online research community. This unites 300 women from the target audience. The research community has been delivering unique and actionable insights for several years. It offers inspiration, input for articles, feedback on concepts and also creates content for articles. Based on the insights from the online research community, The Ladies' Home Journal recently got a complete makeover.
So there is a lot of enthusiasm for online research communities, or as the person responsible for Coca Cola's global research put it: “Panels and communities help us make great business decisions”.