What Does “The Office” Have in Common with the Market Research Sample Supply Chain? 


If you haven’t jumped on the “The Office” bandwagon, you’re in a minority. The show has become what some are calling “the internet’s favorite show” and a “behemoth of pop culture”. It is so well-loved, in fact, that many fans have watched the nine-season series multiple times. Its appearance on Netflix catapulted it to new levels of popularity, and its 2021 move to Peacock sent its followers reeling. Now they needed to secure another streaming service to watch their favorite show.

In fact, fragmentation among video streaming services has accelerated over the past few months and the average U.S. household has no less than four streaming subscriptions. They need all the different services – costing on average $47 per month – to get the content that they want. In fact, Peacock’s subscriber base skyrocketed to 42 million in early 2021, a growth curve many ascribe to The Office’s move. Viewers won’t settle. For the content they want, they will go multiple places to get it.

We are seeing a similar phenomenon in the market research sample space. There is no longer a single sample or panel provider that can offer all the respondents needed for a study, quickly, efficiently, and feasibly. The “content” (in this case, respondents) lives in multiple places and must be sourced from multiple places. Buyers of research need to reach their desired audiences, and they aren’t willing to settle for subpar survey takers or those that don’t meet their profiling requirements. This means the net must be cast wider than ever to find the right respondents.

Forces transforming the market research sample space

So why is this happening anyway? We can actually pinpoint a number of events that have contributed to the current state of sampling. During the prevailing uncertainty at the start of the pandemic, many panels shifted their focus away from recruiting new survey takers while companies attempted to navigate the unknown. No one knew how the pandemic would affect the industry, so “business as normal” paused for a bit. Panels are still seeing the repercussions of this lull in recruitment, and supply is strained.

This situation has been exacerbated by what has become a huge increase in demand for sample throughout the global crisis. While no one could have predicted this surge in market research activity, it does make a certain amount of sense. Consumer behavior changed drastically, and brands and organizations around the world have been scrambling to keep up. Solid consumer insights have been pivotal for decision-making during this time of uncertainty, providing a liferaft of data through the storm.

So we find ourselves facing a simple law of supply and demand. We have fewer survey takers and a heightened need for survey data. Couple this with the demand for more and more niche audiences that fit a select number of profiling criteria (and are thus harder to find), and it’s easy to see how a single “streaming service” (panel provider) can no longer deliver in a comprehensive, efficient way. Even larger marketplaces with access to multiple suppliers are still having a hard time meeting the quotas and feasibility needs for highly targeted respondent audiences.

Meeting new market research sample demands

What this emerging ecosystem requires is a deft blend of technical expertise and multi-sourcing. Panel companies are trying to keep up with new demands by creating DIY platforms – and they are having varying levels of success. But they are still constrained by their own networks. Sometimes, a buyer’s favorite show is playing on a different platform.

In comes the importance of two key things: industry expertise and technical savvy. Sample partners need to deeply understand the landscape so they know exactly where to go for even the most niche audiences, and they need the technical expertise to be able to effectively and efficiently use the many panel DIY platforms and technology solutions that are out there – all with varying levels of usability and access. Detailed knowledge surrounding the offering of each of these panels and marketplaces also comes into play, as this knowledge will speed up the process of finding the right individuals for any given survey.

In this way, a sample partner can multi-source respondent audiences – from literally anywhere – for even the most narrowly targeted market research projects. Ultimately, this approach can reduce individual supplier bias, increase feasibility, speed up field time, and lower cost – not to mention achieving greater representativity and even diversity among respondent bases.

Ensuring quality in the new sampling ecosystem

With an unbiased approach to sourcing sample, we also must consider quality. When bringing in respondents from multiple places, sample partners must first and foremost be sourcing from reputable panels and providers. They also must have solid deduplication, fraud, and quality checks in place – both automated and manual. A blend of new technology that can automatically check for fraud, plus project managers and experts that rigorously check for anomalies throughout the fielding process can help.

In fact, our recent research-on-research found that layering fraud mitigation techniques positively impacts outcomes by creating a clean, healthy, and efficient market research ecosystem. This can include advanced solutions that accomplish things like digital fingerprinting, fraud identification, text analytics, and respondent-level tracking, plus expert project management for fieldwork to eliminate common challenges in the data collection process, so that representative results and data quality can be better ensured.

The new market research landscape is calling for new methods to find sample supply. Just as you might need multiple streaming services to watch the best shows, so too a blend of approaches, techniques, and panel providers is the quickest, most effective way to find the best respondents.