‘‘Moving to mobile research requires a
significant change of mind set. Market
researchers in Africa are faced with two
options: remain the same and lose relevance
or embrace change and benefit from the new
world order.’’
Millward Brown has embraced this
change and is helping our clients
navigate these new uncharted waters.
Africa is now always available
The rapid growth in mobile
penetration means that respondents
are always available. It’s not necessary
to travel long distances, and it’s easy
to re-contact. Research can now get
everywhere brands are. Distance is
no longer a barrier - even on this
massive continent.
Embrace simplicity
Because respondents are widely
dispersed and not easily accessible,
when they have been reached,
researchers have tended to bombard
them with questions. Mobile users
won’t stand for this, as their interest
wanes quickly. It is now, more
than ever, essential to focus on the
business issue and identify only the
key information needed to make a
strategic decision.
Millward Brown’s Brand
Performance programs - shorter,
more strategic questionnaires with
questions validated against behavioral
outcomes - are helping with this.
Conducting these via the mobile
platform is significantly decreasing
time barriers and delivering businesscritical information about the
African consumer.
Forget about quotas
Getting detailed demographic
information to ensure the
appropriate demographic splits in
44 MAL 11/16 ISSUE
Africa is incredibly difficult and
quickly outdated. The randomness
of mobile, however, means that you
are always getting a representative
split. We see responses to our surveys
matching population density data
very closely across a wide spread of
countries.
Geo-coding responses eliminate
questions about the respondents’
locations, since our responses come
from where the people are.
This change in thinking means that
we can go back to what the survey
is all about - providing strategic
business information that will answer
our central questions.
Time is of the essence
The numerous processes that go
into creating, printing, transporting,
capturing, and coding paper-based
questionnaires means that the
majority of time is spent on the
operational elements of research.
Mobile bypasses this. Clients can
now get a real-time glimpse into
Africa, further helping to illuminate
the views of its people.
Mobile is delivering more
variability in the data
Many will worry that this means
mobile data is unreliable, but the
truth is the complete opposite. Selfreported data has more variability in
the responses, and the data is very
descriptive, which makes modelling
and running descriptive statistics far
more informative.
For emerging, less research-savvy
markets, mobile is providing data that
better reflects the mar ket reality. This
has already been seen in markets like
India, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia
where mobile data has proven more
accurate than door-to-door.
This has huge implications for Africa
and other developing markets.
Mobile will allow us to skip a step
and move straight to a self-reported
mobile platform.
Change Is The Only Constant
We need to embrace the new way of
working. Budgets will continue to be put
under pressure and Insights teams will
need to continually justify their spend.
Changing mind-sets may be a lot harder
than changing handsets, yet the future
is clear.
Mobile is here, and it is not going
anywhere any time soon.
Just because we are comfortable with the
trade-offs of the current way of working
doesn’t mean we should miss this
opportunity. Embracing the nuances
of this new technology will allow us to
get more from research budgets and get
closer to consumers.
Mobile is bringing quality, speed, and
cost efficiency closer, so that there is less
to trade off and more value to be found.
When it comes to mobile, Africa may
change from being one of the last
frontiers to leading from the front.
John-William Awbrey is a Client
Manager at Millward Brown. He has
several years of research experience with
growing experience in more cutting-edge
research technologies, such as mobile data
collection methodologies and neuro-sciences
techniques. He has worked with extensive
mobile datasets helping to adapt and refine
the technology and approach in the African
market to allow for more effective data
collection and quality. You can engage him
on this or related issues via mail at: [email protected]