OPINION11 June 2010

Kick off

This week we kicked off our World Cup Panel, which will be the source of my ramblings and anecdotes over the next five weeks. Let me introduce myself: I’m a quallie nicknamed Webbers, and I love football. So what better way to spend these tournament days than to blend my two loves together.

“A panel?!” you say. “How dull!”. It shouldn’t be. We’ve got football fanatics representing their country from the 32 qualifying teams and they’re already fighting over bragging rights for best and worst. The Danish and New Zealanders really aren’t that hopeful, but the Spanish are quietly confident.

Ok, ok, so we haven’t got every qualifying country. North Korea is omitted – they don’t do much market research apparently – and Uruguay was too big an ask, but the rest are there.

I’ll be squeezing these people to share with us every ounce of tournament fun they have in their blood so I can feed it all back to you readers. The difference is, these poor people are all researchers… that’s right, we’ve turned poachers into game keepers for this. We’ve got quallies, quanties, clients and suppliers on board.

So the big question is: do researchers make good respondents? Stick with us as we try to find out. We’ll also begiving a country-by-country view of how the World Cup touches each and every one of us.

Michael Webley

@RESEARCH LIVE

4 Comments

Anon

15 years ago

michael, any more details on the panel? how many/ one person from each country? all researchers? who are these people, beyond football fanatics? how are you collecting feedback - surveys?

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Michael Webley

15 years ago

Hi there Anonymous, Our panel is a qualitative project we're running at Discovery. It's all online using The Thinking Shed which is a tool that allows us to engage respondents using lots of different web based applications such as bulletin boards and visual stimulus annotation. In terms of who they are, everyone is from the research industry; we've got agencies, clients and suppliers all of varying seniority from CEOs through to junior researchers. I've been running the recruitment of this project for about 6 weeks and have representatives from most of the qualifying countries (we struggled with North Korea, Uruguay and Paraguay as they aren't easy to crack but all the other countries have one or two researchers representing them). There's also a UK panel where we've got qualitative researchers from all over the country giving us their views. If you or anyone else would like to join us then please feel free to e-mail me at - michael@discoveryres.co.uk and I'll be happy to help.

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David Carr

15 years ago

Hi Webbers- splendidly predictable Football nickname! - "Pistolero" perhaps a more innovative alternative? North Korea has some research advantages (you only have to find one respondent- preferably Kim Jong Il). Despite some surprises, this World Cup seems somewhat 'flat' to date- perhaps a Rooney double (cards more likely than goals) will liven things up... Final tip for those finding the World Cup little more than an insomnia cure: watch a bit of 20/20 Cricket! Consistent excitement- even for those who don't know their bat from their backside... Meanwhile, all the best- David

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Michael Webley

15 years ago

Thanks David... would an England vs. Germany fixture liven it up enough for you?! Our panel aren't happy about that!

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