by Richard Jenkins | Jun 27, 2011 | Industry News and Trends
At the beginning of the year, I made the decision to not renew my membership in the Marketing Research and Information Association (MRIA). The MRIA is the professional organization in Canada for market researchers and it a typical professional organization. Six months...
by Richard Jenkins | Jun 20, 2011 | Public Opinion, Public Opinion Issue Review, Public Policy
A review of publicly available data indicates that Canadians have been quite resilient in their support for nuclear and the most recent issues are unlikely to seriously dampen long-term support. We speculate that despite the potential for public opposition, an elite...
by Richard Jenkins | Jun 15, 2011 | Consumer and brand behaviour
The issue has been around for some time but it is worth asking ourselves how much damage brands are doing to themselves by treating new customers better than old ones. The reason for the differential treatment is obvious — it is simply hard to attract new...
by Richard Jenkins | Jun 10, 2011 | Consumer and brand behaviour, Public Policy
Projecting on a straight-line basis suggests that by 2015 more than half of American households won’t have a traditional landline phone in their house. This is a staggering possibility but not far-fetched. In fact the landline could be even less relevant if the trend...
by Richard Jenkins | May 13, 2011 | Survey methodology
Comparing research over time is one of the most compelling ways of understanding the POR environment. Although tracking research comes with risks in the interpretation phase (as I discuss here), there is a real power in seeing change over time because the potential...
by Richard Jenkins | May 5, 2011 | Public Opinion
Before the campaign, I speculated on three things we might learn from the election campaign. So, now we need to assess how the campaign enlightened us. Does anyone care? Not enough do. The (preliminary) voter turnout, according to Elections Canada, is 61.4% of...
by Richard Jenkins | Apr 27, 2011 | Public Opinion
The dramatic (35% increase over the last election) in the number of voters who cast their ballots at the advanced polls plays very well into a story about how the election has energized the public and engaged them in our democracy. While this could account for a small...
by Richard Jenkins | Apr 20, 2011 | Public Opinion
The poll results today (the definitive Nanos tracking) tell us that nothing has happened in this campaign. The parties remain in the same order and with almost the same share of decided voters as they did when the campaign was launched. As much as the media hang on...
by Richard Jenkins | Apr 6, 2011 | Industry News and Trends
Small businesses can benefit from market research (MR) is many of the ways that big business can but they don’t. On the one hand, the industry is not well set up to serve these clients. On the other, we have not made the case very well that these businesses can...
by Richard Jenkins | Mar 30, 2011 | Public Opinion, Public Policy
The evolving nuclear disaster in Japan raises an important question? How long do these events continue in our collective memory. Are they enduring or does our heightened fear give way to other salient issues? We can only give our attention to a limited set of issues...
