Combination of mobile devices and large data will subvert market research methods

News and technology information Beijing time May 3, the U.S. Science and Technology blog Gigaom today published a review article said, today, companies through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices to collect user data, and then through large data technology analysis, resulting in traditional market research methods facing subversion. Even in industries such as retail and radio stations, location data and audio recognition technology can help them understand the real needs of their users.

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If you're tired of doing phone calls to customers at 8 o'clock, or picking up a Arbitron (listening rate survey company) sensor, ubiquitous smartphones or tablets could be your saviour, and you just have to give up a little privacy.

Mobile devices are very easy to collect in real life location, temperature, movement, sound and other data. But if these data are not used, they can only be squandered.

Location is the most important

Retailers are well aware of what customers buy and how they move around in stores, but once customers leave, retailers are not sure where they are going. This information is very useful: if you want to improve the store or explore the way of marketing, it will be helpful to know the rest of the customer's movements. Placed, a start-up company in Seattle, pioneered the use of this data.

Placed launched the first product for developers who want to know where users are using their apps and mobile sites. After that, the company launched the Panels service, which allows businesses to track the geographic location of application users throughout the day (usually in exchange for small rewards).

This week, the company released its first-quarter research, which included which department stores were most popular with those, what types of businesses had the most traffic, and which were the strongest or weakest (for example, people visiting a particular store would visit another store).

Placed CEO David Sim (David Shim) says Placed can almost provide all the marketing data broken down by location, business type, demographics, etc. A high-end retailer, he says, found many young women entering the store, but rarely bought anything. Instead, the next store they go to is usually a discount retailer such as Burlington Coat Factory and Ross. The conclusion is clear: These customers want to know which clothes are in vogue and then buy a good imitation at a lower price.

He also notes that some casinos use placed to Las Vegas restaurants when they leave the casino, so they can make the best choice when they want to open their own restaurants and stores.

In both cases, how to make more money from customers, the answer may be the price. If the price reduction of 10% can increase sales by 14%, you can achieve a double win.

Reflection Radio

If you combine sound with other data, the value of the location data will be higher. For example, the listening rate survey company Arbitron only knows what radio listeners are listening to, but doesn't know what songs they are actually listening to. It's like listening to a Latin radio for an hour at a restaurant or listening to Top 40 on the gym, which doesn't mean you're listening or listening to them.

However, the songs you listen to in your car are likely to reflect your true preferences. Music data company Gracenote this technology. It uses smartphones and tablet-built microphones to identify songs that are played in a user's TV or stereo, and to detect such reactions as applause or boos, and even to check whether the user has turned up the volume.

In this way, Gracenote can study the songs that users really like, the time and place to listen to songs. Radio stations may never be as personalized as Pandora, but with this technology they can better understand the needs of the audience, while digital radio can offer a better experience than Pandora.

Data quality

These methods sound good, but their implementation is due to the emergence of large data. Placed has a special algorithm for determining the actual location of the user and continually improves the model to provide such accurate analysis data. Sim said the company would ask users if their location was correct, and the survey received 15,000 responses a day. Of the 13 billion locations in the database, the company has verified 3.5 million.

Gracenote has millions of songs of audio and metadata, so you can quickly identify the song information, and according to music style, singers, geographical location and other categories. The company wants to develop a car system that automatically changes songs according to the driving conditions.

Some may be concerned about the privacy of these applications, but it is also not acceptable to provide a bit of data in return for sufficient value. Data collection The genie has escaped from the bottle, turned into a devil or a servant to see how people control.