Market Research for Good

A new market-research program launched in conjunction with the Sept. 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance pairs giving with worldwide market research. Pause to Support a Cause allows philanthropic-minded consumers to sign up to be part of a special survey panel and take part in market-research surveys that benefit their charities of choice.

Liz Miller, vice president of programs and operations for the CMO Council, says the idea was prompted by CMO Council membership, which includes more than 4,500 senior-level corporate marketing decision makers. More and more comments were coming in from members about how much was being invested in market research (more than $18 billion annually, Miller says), the difficulty in reaching certain audiences, and a desire to move away from the usual incentives and giveaways to induce response. At the same time, the council was growing more aware of the difficulty nonprofits have when it comes to establishing sustainable, consistent fundraising sources.

"When you couple that with everything that's going on with the economy right now, we really had this perfect storm to [merge] one of our big passions, which is finding new ways to get money to incredibly worthy causes, [with] our other passion, which is, of course, finding new best practices for marketers," Miller says. "So it really came from a lot of need from all sides of the equation. Market researchers want greater quality; consumers want to find new ways to give [because] they're not necessarily able to write those big checks anymore. We are looking at a model now where consumers will be able to turn their time and their opinions into donations, and we've gotten feedback that that's a very attractive model for consumers.

"The money is going to be viewed as better spent when it becomes a donation to a charity of that consumer's choice," Miller says. "I think that's where the value of this comes in. When you're looking at the overarching models here, companies are going to want to align with programs that not only will benefit them in being able to get insightful research, but will also benefit a greater cause."

Pause to Support a Cause creates a win-win-win dynamic for consumers motivated by philanthropic giving, nonprofit causes looking to open new streams of donations in a tightened economy and the market researcher looking for an impassioned and engaged panel. According to Miller, “professional” survey takers have become an increasingly difficult challenge when it comes to getting high-quality market research. She said there's even such a thing as a robot form, a program that finds surveys and auto fills in the form for survey takers.

"They will just wait for their Starbucks cards or their $10 or their $1 or in some cases $50 to roll in the door," Miller says. "Folks are actually making quite a lucrative haul from this, which of course skews the market research."

The council is hoping that the Pause to Support a Cause program will attract a different type of survey taker.

"I think that what we will get will be a predisposed audience who knows and understands that the gain that will be had by virtue of participating in the Pause to Support a Cause panel is going directly to a philanthropic organization of their choosing," Miller adds.

Any individual with a valid e-mail address over the age of 16 can register to become a member of the Pause to Support a Cause research panel. During registration, users are asked to select a charity to support and can update the selection at any time. Registered users can log in to view available surveys or promotional offers and sign up for those they'd like to participate in, generating money for their charity of choice. The donation from the sponsor corporation is done through Network for Good, and users can keep track of how many surveys they've taken and how much has been sent to their charities.

Organizations interested in being a part of the program should visit the site, click on the area designated for nonprofits and fill out the registration form. The form will then be sent to the CMO Council's executive team, which will vet the information and schedule a call with the organization.

"It's relatively quick and easy," Miller says. "We just want to be able to make sure that this is a designated and recognized nonprofit organization. We don't make any distinction between whether the beneficiaries of that charity are domestic or global. We also are not excluding religious-based organizations. We really are just looking for clear and evident designation of their nonprofit status."

The council has launched an extensive media campaign in consumer publications, trying to generate buzz for the program. It also plans to announce a creative-arts award campaign later this month to encourage aspiring film producers to create PSAs on behalf of the program, which media partners will then run to further promote the program.

"We're also going to be leveraging the power of the nonprofits themselves," Miller says. "So with the majority of nonprofits that we are working with, they are going to be reaching out to their existing donor base and letting them know that there is an alternate way to give to the charity by registering through the Pause campaign."

Miller says she hopes the program really shakes up the status quo of the market-research industry while pushing the limits of giving.

"My hope is that this is a program that is truly disruptive, and what I mean by that is we really want to change the way people view market research," Miller said. "We want to change the way people engage and lend their time to something like market research, and we want to be very disruptive in the way that people choose to give. We want to bring lots of money to these really incredibly worthy causes, and we want to bring some really great consumer insight to the table.

“We see a lot of room for some positive work out there,” he says. “So we're just hoping that by us stirring the pot we get it moving."

For more information, visit the Pause to Support a Cause Web site.