The reliability and validity of 28 panels in 14 countries.

Sample quality is critical, especially in multi-country research. Bad sample provides misleading results, defeating the purpose of doing research. Poor quality sample adds insult to injury by dealing a blow to the reputation of our industry. Identifying good sample from bad will make or break your project. In this paper, we convey important findings from a 28-panel, 14-country reliability, and validity, involving over 28,000 people. We report on lessons learned and propose critical questions to ask potential suppliers.

Clean water. Electricity. Stoplights. These are all things we take for granted because they are very reliable. They are so reliable that they are boring. They are reliably boring. And that’s a good thing.

The market research industry's credibility assumes that our survey results are representative and reliable. But that supposition is increasingly wrong.

Free streaming channels—in industry parlance, FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV)—are one of the hottest topics in the entertainment business. International conferences like IBC and MIPCOM are devoting considerable attention to the format, boosted by its success in the United States.

The Web3 innovation of NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) is not going anywhere. With an increasing number of entertainment companies either announcing plans to or already entering the NFT market, the technology can be expected to adapt and become more consumer-facing in the next few years.

NFL games return on September 8, and with them will come an uptick in the amount of money being spent on mobile sports betting, promising increased revenues for sportsbooks operating across America.

The possibility that the U.S. will soon be in a recession keeps growing. One area of entertainment which will be particularly nervous about this possibility is subscription video. The industry is unrecognizable from the Great Recession of 2007-09. Back then the main way to subscribe to video was cable, with Hulu still a free advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) service (launching subscriptions in 2010) and only Netflix offering a subscription streaming service.

Maru has previously explored how the cloud gaming market is set for growth with this report a companion piece that dives deeper into differences between age groups.

That cloud gaming is poised for growth is hard to dispute. The emergence of stable high-speed broadband is the bedrock that the industry has been waiting for, with tech giants Google and Amazon vying with traditional gaming heavyweights Sony and Microsoft for consumer interest in the growing industry.

The recent announcement from Samsung that its 2022 line of Smart TVs now have the capability for owners to cloud game on various services, including Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, represents a new stage in the development of cloud gaming as a mainstream consumer offering.

It’s been clear for a long time that gaming and tech companies view cloud gaming as a long-term revenue creator. Sony first launched their cloud gaming platform PlayStation Now in 2014, with Xbox Game Pass launching in 2017.

Ever since reporting an overall subscriber decline for the first time in ten years—a 210k fall— in April, the streaming giant’s fortunes radically changed.

The streaming giant predicted much worse fortunes for the second quarter. In their Q1 shareholder letter, a forecast of 2 million subscribers lost was made. As it was, Netflix reported a total subscriber decline of 970,000, beating their own estimate and buoying investors.

Many companies had e-commerce facilities before the pandemic, but they often produced only a small portion of their sales. As pandemic-shuttered consumers turned to online shopping in exploding numbers, and more companies turned to third-party fulfillment partners, the issues with e-commerce became exponentially apparent. E-commerce is a complex fulfillment system which can encompass warehousing, search, selection, payment, delivery, and returning of goods. Issues in this multi-channel customer experience (CX) can and do arise as the service relays with third parties occur. Brands need to understand the end-to-end customer journey, including the various touchpoints, and any gaps or customer pain points that detract from a satisfying experience. It’s not enough to offer online ordering. That experience must be seamless to foster loyalty and repeat business. With third-party providers, brands cannot control the CX which erodes their equity.

With the recent explosion in buy now pay later (BNPL) products, many financial institutions have entered this high-growth, pre-regulation market. Millions of consumers have embraced these services to spread the cost of their online shopping.

Maru conducted a survey of U.K. consumers of these products polling members of Maru’s Voice UK online panel. The results make the case for bringing in immediate regulations to protect vulnerable consumers from a growing and unmanageable debt gap they will be increasingly challenged to repay—avoiding a repeat of the payday lending crises of 2018.

With the recent explosion in buy now pay later (BNPL) products, many financial institutions have entered this high-growth, pre-regulation market. Millions of consumers have embraced these services to spread the cost of their online shopping.

Maru conducted a survey of U.K. consumers of these products polling members of Maru’s Voice UK online panel. The results make the case for bringing in immediate regulations to protect vulnerable consumers from a growing and unmanageable debt gap they will be increasingly challenged to repay—avoiding a repeat of the payday lending crises of 2018.

With the recent explosion in buy now pay later (BNPL) products, many financial institutions have entered this high-growth, pre-regulation market. Millions of consumers have embraced these services to spread the cost of their online shopping.

Maru conducted a survey of U.K. consumers of these products polling members of Maru’s Voice UK online panel. The results make the case for bringing in immediate regulations to protect vulnerable consumers from a growing and unmanageable debt gap they will be increasingly challenged to repay—avoiding a repeat of the payday lending crises of 2018.

The latest data on vaccination rates suggests that slightly less than two-thrids of all Americans are fully vaccinated, and another 12% are partly vaccinated. However, there remains a not insignificant portion of the population who are unyielding in their refusal to get vaccinated. Even the massive disparity between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals in COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths and the recent emergence of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant has done little to influence this “no-vax” mindset among un-vaccinated individuals.

How do you engage customers in a low-engagement, highly regulated industry? How do you get them to adopt sustainability practices that are better for both them and the planet?

This is the situation that National Grid is facing – along with many other utilities around the world. With significant operations in the U.K. and Northeastern U.S., they deliver gas and electricity to 20 million people. Their objective is to transfer energy without interruption to customers and maintain the overhead electrical lines and gas pipelines that do this.

Kiersten De West has been leading the charge for greater sustainability for over 20 years, first as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of consultancy Conscientious Innovation, then as Lululemon’s Vice President Global Brand Management and Strategy, and now as Chief Marketing Officer of Alpha Foods—a plant-based food producer. She feels sustainability is undersold and that there is incredible opportunity in helping people achieve the sustainability they aspire to.

Equifruit, a Canadian company importing bananas into the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, saw the need for ethically sourced bananas and fair treatment of farmers. Their challenge was spreading the fair-trade message for fruit.

Unstructured data in Customer Experience (CX) programs needs to be analyzed and delivered at speed, essentially real-time. The program also must be able to go deep with understanding to optimize insight and action.

These principles of speed and depth are core to the Maru software ecosystem and are central to the delivery of understanding executed by our users either within the enterprise or via our advisory experts.

In the many proven use cases that we see there are a set of 5 best practice rules which guarantee outstanding delivery from unstructured data programs.

“You have cancer.”

Those three words begin a cycle of physical and emotional turmoil for almost 2 million patients each year.

Two years ago, that was my sister. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). Like any cancer diagnosis, this brought my entire family up short. While a diagnosis of NHL is typically a bit less traumatic because the probability of treatment success is relatively high, my sister was an exception. She was diagnosed with a high-risk variant called B-cell NHL or “double-hit” lymphoma which has a significantly worse prognosis and requires extremely aggressive chemotherapy.

If anyone believed that COVID-19 and its associated restrictions may have given enterprises a chance to slow their pace and plan the way forward on a relaxed schedule, then they have been sorely disappointed. The global pandemic has accelerated digital transformations, fueled technological innovation and investment, and disrupted the workforce in ways that few could have imagined just 18 months ago. Unsurprisingly, rapid change has impacted insights delivery too.