Market Research in 2018: Predictions of What’s to Come

Happy New Year!

We are just a couple of weeks into this new year, but we believe that 2018 is going to be a big year for market research.  Everyone is putting out their 2018 predictions, so here are a few of what we think will be big trends in the industry for 2018.

Fallout from RN/SSI merger will continue

Research Now SSI finalized their merger in late December, so they are now a single company.  That doesn’t mean everything is back to normal – most likely it is far from it.  Even though it was presented as a merger, with the recent CEO announcement, it is hard to not think that Research Now is taking the primary role going forward, and that is going to impact decisions for the future.  Is preference going to be given to Research Now properties?  Will there be consolidation of offerings? How will customers be impacted? Are they thinking IPO?  Only time will tell.

Growth in programmatic sampling as the more quality infrastructures are established

We see 2018 as the year for programmatic sampling. Investment in technology is going to ramp up this year as the race to build the best programmatic sampling platform takes hold.  You will also see a rise in APIs for systems to communicate so not only will sample buying become easier, but how that flows into different systems for tracking and analysis will also become easier.

Rise in B2B market research as tax cuts benefit corporations and research is called upon with new found money

The new tax law hits this year.  Some companies used their new found money to pay out employee bonuses, others are going to use that found money to add increase budget in places – including market research.   Expect to see an increase in spending from companies conducting market research

Continued shift toward online research’s acceptance in the polling industry as we head into 2018 midterm elections

After the 2016 election, much of the public lost trust in pollsters and their predictions, since they missed on many of the consequential states.  Since then, pollsters have worked to improve their modeling by matching their research with third party voter data information like party affiliation, past voting record, etc.  As a result, in 2017 Kantar Insights found that pollsters correctly predicted the outcome of every major national election.  We expect the accuracy to continue into the 2018 mid-term elections, and researchers to get more insights from the data gathered by pollsters.

We think that the industry will see an impact from these trends in 2018.  Here’s to 2018!

Want to learn how EMI can help you in 2018?  Click here for a free consultation!