Kaisa Filppula: Media Research on the Web

Media research, like everything else, from our social life to shopping, is moving increasingly to the internet. Paper questionnaires are becoming rarities, telephone interviews are decreasing. Huge call centers are not needed anymore. The whole research industry is in ongoing change. What does this all mean then? Effectiveness, quickness, money savings. Purely positive consequences! "Quality suffers," say skeptics, "not all the people can be reached via internet." That's maybe partly true, but can you really reach all the people via phone or mail either? I really believe that internet is the most effective and reliable way to carry out surveys. There is no reason to hold back development. 

In Finland, we have focused strongly on reader panels and internet surveys. It has proved to be a good strategy. Both Olivia and Divaani have working age, highly-educated audiences. They are people who use the internet every day and all the time. We began to create web panels for these magazines right from the start. And what a success it has been! It's almost hard to believe what strongly-committed reader panel members we have. I still keep getting constant feedback on how willing they are to respond our surveys: "Thank you for choosing me to answer this survey." It amazes me every time. It is still essential to take good care of reader panels: to update information continuously and to develop a reward system.   

Here at Bonnier Corporation, development is underway. Some titles, e.g. Working Mother and Saveur, have workable, frequently used reader panels, but most of the titles are still in the process of building the panels. Also, here, experiences have been encouraging: response rates have been high. Despite the fact that most panels are not yet available, my colleagues here did about 80 reader panel surveys in the past year. Sounds like a lot. 

There is also a slight movement toward the internet among syndicated research like NRS in Finland and MRI here. But those are massive mechanisms and things are happening more slowly. I am excited to see what happens in that field in the future.

So, all is well here. Brooklyn Boulders will be open soon and that is just AWESOME (see the photo gallery)! Take care!