Jargon Buster

Topic Progress:

Market Research and Savanta have a number of terms, use this jargon buster to see understand more. Do let us know if we are missing any.

Ad hoc – A project that is run as a one off, usually to answer quite specific questions around a theme or specific target. A large amount of research is ‘ad-hoc’ in nature as it is to answer a specific business question (i.e. how did our marketing campaign do)

Ad Recall – survey respondents are exposed to an ad, usually in the course of their own life (i.e. on TV etc.) and then, at a later date, asked a questionnaire to see if they can recall it, measuring advertising effectiveness.

Ad tracking – A project monitoring a brands performance with an advertisement to determine the effectiveness of the media targeting, the quality of the advertisements, and return on investment.

Benchmarking – evaluating or checking something in comparison with a standard. For instance, you may compare your business processes with industry or competitor’s best practices.

Brand Awareness – The extent to which consumers are familiar with the existence and qualities or ‘meaning’ of a particular brand. Often compared in the research to competitor brands

CATI – Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing. An interviewer calls up a respondent and talks to them while the interviewer is filling out their answers on a computer

CAWI – Computer Assisted Web Interviewing. Online research where a respondent answers an email and then fills out a questionnaire online

Charting – Putting data onto slides in the deck. Often putting them into charts/graphs

Coding – Reviewing open ends and creating a pre-code list based on the most popular answers. (i.e. if a group of the verbatim responses are talking about cost/price, then these will be allocated to a pre-coded list for ‘Cost/Fees’

Concept Testing – Testing a clients new product, advert, marketing campaign, packaging etc. before it is released to the general public, allowing the client to understand what works and what doesn’t

CPI – Cost per interview – breakdown of how much the fieldwork costs for a client on a per interview basis

Deck – The presentation document for a project

Demographics – data that relates to the population and splits into groups (for example – age, gender, region, income level, education etc.)

Exclusions – Any rules confirmed by the client regarding who can be invited. Usual process on ongoing studies would be 6-months exclusions on Completes, however this can be flexible and a discussion point with the client.

F2F – Face to face interviewing. Can be filled out on paper or by using a tablet

Finding the Story – Summarising the data into a short story. e.g This is what is happening; because of this; it means this; so you should do this

Focus Group – A group of respondents in an informal (sofa-style) or formal (boardroom) set-up, with a moderator leading the group to discuss opinions and share views with other members of the group

IDI – In-depth interview. A one-on-one interview conducted by a moderator with just one respondent.

IHUT – In Home Use Testing – a test where a client wants consumers to actually test their product (e.g. shampoo) It is split into 3 stages: 1) A recruitment questionnaire to find people who would like to test a product and fit the clients target demographic 2) They are sent the shampoo free to use for a period of time e.g. two weeks 3) they do a survey at the end to discuss the shampoo and their use of it

Incidence Rate – Incidence rate (IR) in market research is a measure for the rate of occurrence or the percentage of persons eligible to participate in a study. (i.e. if incidence is 60% then 60 out of every 100 people are qualifying for the study, whereas 40 are not eligible)

Interim data – Data that is presented before a project has been completed in field and/or before going through full data processing. This is often used to both check the data is correct, allowing the opportunity to spot any minor errors or changes, but also for the client to get an initial feel for the data.

LOI – length of interview. How many questions or how many minutes it should take the respondent to complete

Market Segmentation – separating prospective buyers into groups that share common needs and that will respond similar to marketing efforts.

Market Sizing – Nationally representative (nat rep) start then people screen out based on what they have done or might do. The client therefore gets to understand their market

Max Diffs – a statistical analysis tool where respondents indicate the ‘Best’ and the ‘Worst’ options out of a given set

Observation – Observation is the collection of data through non-verbal means which can stand alone as research on its own or compliment other relevant research. It is the process of recognising and recording relevant objects and happenings

Path to Purchase – Used most to find what exactly what websites and webpages someone visits and the clicks they make when researching and buying something online

Pricing Exercises – Gabor Granger, asking respondents about the likelihood that they will buy a product or service at a variety of different price points

Purchase Funnel – Questionnaire starts asking about awareness of the client’s product or service, then narrows down to those expressing interest in it, then to those who want to have it, to those who have actually bought it, ie customers

Quotas  – Key audience identified by client to reach out to for completion of the survey. E.g. specific quotas on Gender, Age, Region

Hard quotas– Any fixed targets we must reach during fieldwork. E.g. 50% Males / 50% Females. Hard quotas mean once achieved, some respondents will be quota-filled and unable to enter the survey.

Soft targets– Guideline quotas but flexibility in place. To set 50% Male / 50% Female as a soft quota would mean no hard cap in place on the survey portal, instead we would use sampling panels to try achieve the most balanced mix as per client requirements.

Nat Rep quotas– Quotas to be achieved reflective of particular market, e.g. UK. Nat Rep stats can be found here

SPSS – A data output specifically for statistical data analysis which allows the user to play around with the data themselves. Often used by analysts or ‘researchers’

Tables – A data output prepared by a Consultant or Data Services team, containing cross-breaks in data to enable clients to see data cut by questions of particular interest.

Tabspec – A detailed breakdown of the crossbreaks and downbreaks required in data tables.

Crossbreaks – which questions and demographics should the data be cut by, in order to see differences between groups, or among a group that answers another question in a certain way

Downbreaks – A list of the individual questions to be included in tables of their own as well as instructions for the data processer (i.e. Net together questions 1 & 2)

Telling the story – Interpreting the overall findings of a project so it’s easy to understand for some one else. Distilling a project into it’s main findings and what they mean as a whole

Topline – A shorter report given to the client before the main presentation so they can get an overview of what is happening in the research

Tracker – A project that runs regularly to track how things change in a market and/or the success of advertising campaigns over time. Could be run, for example monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually. This typically consists of a core questionnaire that remains constant to track changes over time but usually contains a wave section that is for that wave only

Translations – taking an English questionnaire into a local language – done by a specialist company with native speakers

User Experience – Research that tests how someone uses a website or app

Wave – The amount of a times a project “runs”. Think of it as the number of times a project goes into field. e.g. a quarterly tracker that has been running for 3 years has 4 wave a year but 12 waves overall

MaxDiff – An analysis tool used by companies to rank a large number of items / propositions in terms of preference or interest

Conjoint – an analysis tool that helps determine how people value different elements (i.e. price, features, functions) of a product or service to determine which combination of attributes would be most influential on choosing that product/service – allows the company to then build the ideal ‘package’ for that product.

Taken all that in?