Praying shopping girl in Shanghai, by kaleda71
I just read a post from B2B blog about online market research in China. See below my comment:
Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to read the article - I wish there was an online version of it.
It is interesting that you mention the concept of “middle class”, because it is a very critical factor for marketing research (vs. social research) in developing countries.
In a country like China, what really matters to most advertisers is not necessarily the “general population”, but the population of consumers. Foreign car manufacturers for example do not expect any Chinese citizen to be able to afford their cars. But those who can are definitely online (whether they have joined online panels is another question).
So, representativeness and internet penetration are concepts that need to be adjusted to the reality of a market like China. Online research can be representative for some products in China, while it is still questionable for some demographics (65+…) or purposes (social research) even in the US.
In my daily work at OTX, I often have discussions with sample partners about their reach of consumers in developing countries. As we talk about representativeness, the same old statistics always come back: internet penetration, as a ratio of the number of internet users by the total population. Now, I understand that internet penetrations can be important, but its adoption for marketing research assumes an equalitarian society where every citizen can afford to buy products. What we need is a new metric to track the growth of internet penetration among specific target groups. Show me the internet penetration among car drivers in China, the internet penetration among (legal) DVD buyers in Brazil… Let’s be pragmatic when we define the client’s target universe.
When sample providers are able to provide appropriate statistics and clear indications about where online research can or cannot be used, more end clients will give it a try.
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