Revealing Sponsorship of Your Market Research Project

(part of Chapter 2: Defining Your Project's Scope)

Defining your project scope also includes whether or not to reveal the sponsor of your market research study. Read these guidelines for help making this decision based on best practices and common exceptions.

Now that you are familiar with common types of MR studies, you’ll be better able to communicate your needs and expectations to potential agencies.

After you ponder project scope (i.e., what type of MR study you want to fund), another important consideration is whether or not the research will be blind. In the world of research, blind means that the sponsor is kept anonymous.

You probably have experienced this yourself. Perhaps you have received a call at home asking you to participate in a survey from XYZ research company. XYZ doesn’t tell you who is sponsoring the survey, so this research is blind.

Once the researcher starts asking questions, you might have an educated guess as to the sponsoring company. For example, if the researcher asks you questions about automobiles and keeps coming back to comparisons of Honda and Toyota, you might guess that one of those companies is the sponsor. Because you aren’t sure, though, the assumption is that your answers will be as unbiased as possible.

In contrast, if you knew the survey was sponsored by Toyota, and you happen to be a loyal Toyota customer, you might give biased results—unintentional, perhaps, but still biased.

In most cases the ideal is to keep research blind, to minimize the risk of bias. However, two common exceptions do exist.

• Exception 1: The project is being done using your own customer lists. In this case, due to privacy concerns, you may need to reveal yourself as the sponsor. Customers can get very upset if they feel their contact information has been shared with third parties without their express permission.
  
  In some cases, there can even be legal ramifications. For example, perhaps you want to do a customer satisfaction study among recent purchasers; this will clearly not be blind—they will know you are the sponsor. If you are not sure what is required, ask your legal department.


• Exception 2: You are surveying a very hard-to-find population, and you have to take every possible step to get qualified participants.
  
  For example, you are looking to survey people who use a very niche software product—not many people use it—and when you are able to reach these precious few, you need to maximize the chance they will comply with the request to take the survey. Sometimes revealing the sponsor can help get them interested. In this case, it’s not ideal, but it might be an acceptable compromise.

This is an excerpt from the book, "How to Hire & Manage Market Research Agencies," which is available on Amazon. Published by Research Rockstar LLC. Copyright © by Kathryn Korostoff. All rights reserved.