Good question Jackie. As Robert’s article merely scratched the surface however, I wouldn’t exactly consider it game-changing? Ron Seller’s ‘Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panels’ report published earlier this year certainly dug deeper, yet anyone seriously involved in online market research data collection should and would not be surprised by neither Robert’s experiences nor Ron’s findings. I think that Kees did a fair job of contextualizing some of the problems that we are still facing in his recent ROE article (some good suggestions on how to move forward in there as well).

At the end of the day though, however optimistic and positive I’d love to be about this issue, it does appear to me that our industry – for the most part – simply keeps talking the talk?...

The fact is that nothing much has really changed. Having been a multiple panel member for years I’m a daily witness. The lowest common denominators are still allowed to dictate “best” (as in most profitable) practices. Questionnaires remain long and tedious, all while incentives have been and are reduced over time as competition forces (or tempts) panel suppliers to cut whatever variable costs possible - ignoring potential quality effects and disrespecting survey participants along the way, for the sake of short term profit.

I have often found myself encouraged by great presentations on conferences, featuring truly engaging questionnaire designs, flash tools etc. - but even before the dust has settled I will have received yet another invite for a panel-killing-radio-button-massive-grid-poor-logic-forced-answer-survey, from the very same company that had just proudly and joyfully revealed to our industry how short, beautifully involving and sweet and smooth a questionnaire can actually be. Unfortunately, it seems that price matters more.

That said, I do agree with Kees’ that there’s a “resistance” movement out there which holds a bit of promise for the future. Indeed, some are already walking the walk.