In the United States, there are over 30 million small businesses employing almost 59 million people. The Small Business Administration has called them “economic engines,” central to growing economic output and employment. But beyond their economic clout, small businesses hold a special place in the American psyche. From George Bailey’s “Bailey Brothers Building and Loan” to the Gilmore Girls’ Dragonfly Inn and The Simpson’s “Moe”, small businesses play to our love of authenticity, honest hard work, and following our dreams.

In the world of sample, reliability and validity are the difference between research that informs and surveys that mislead. We measured the test-retest reliability and criterion validity of 28 panels in 14 countries: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and Thailand.

The result is a 14-nation whirlwind tour of how research can go horribly awry and how it can be refreshingly right. The lessons learned reveal a great deal about the nature of sample in a wide range of markets around the world.

If people can’t go to the mall, does it still make sense to run surveys? It’s a good question. With so many of our regular rules of social conduct being upended, it’s important to consider what effect the coronavirus crisis is having on survey research. Will people stop wanting to do surveys? Will the people who do the surveys be weird? Has our ability to get representative feedback from citizens and consumers changed forever?

The world has changed drastically in the past week. School closures, social distancing measures and inventory shortages has led to many of our clients and friends asking how best to support their employees and act as good global citizens at this time. But consumers, too, are struggling to adapt practically and emotionally to the ‘new normal’.

According to behavioral scientists, emotions often overwhelm logical human decision-making. It means that understanding how consumers Feel, as well as Think and Behave is essential to delivering customer connections that grow your business. Businesses must evaluate research issues through both System 1 and System 2 lenses to capture a holistic view of consumer understanding.

Consumer attitudes towards the environment are changing. 89% of the 722 UK shoppers we surveyed in November of 2019 are concerned about the environment, and a quarter of them feel that their level of concern will likely grow over the next twelve months.

Ten years ago, the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) was founded to understand the wants/needs of energy consumers in North America and share those learnings with industry stakeholders.

The 2020 Symposium gathered members to reflect on the past decade and look to where consumer needs are heading into the next decade. The one-day symposium was held on January 27th, 2020 in San Antonio at DistribuTECH, the utility industry’s leading transmission & distribution conference.

We all have blind spots, literally and metaphorically. In our eyes the optic nerves pass through the retina obscuring our sight. But we don’t notice because our brain automatically fills in the blank. When we look at research results, we also have blind spots—things we miss, connections we don’t make. And just like our literal blind spot, we can’t change that on our own. But it is a problem we can, and must, address.

Diagnosis is hard. With a diagnostic error occurring in an estimated 10%-15% of cases worldwide, the medical profession is looking to healthcare innovations including AI to help bring those numbers down. And the investment is huge – the global market for AI in healthcare expected to rise from $1.3 billion in 2019 to $6.6 billion by 2021.

We live in distrustful times, which makes it very challenging for companies and brands to earn, build or rebuild customer trust. Challenging, but not impossible. By embracing the qualities of the people that customers trust the most—and demonstrating those characteristics through deliberate, authentic action—brands can make meaningful progress towards more loyal customers.

Gene therapy is one of the most exciting new frontiers in modern medicine. Gene therapies have demonstrated their tantalizing potential to successfully address extremely rare and difficult-to-treat disorders. But they are exceptionally costly, and the healthcare system is struggling with their cost-effectiveness and how to price and pay for them. This has reignited the conversation around the need for a shift towards pricing a medication based on its value to a patient and the healthcare system.

Our brains work from sparse data and fill in the blanks, making connections that may or may not actually be there. This practice is hardwired into our body and brain and is responsible for our very existence. We do this pattern-seeking instantaneously and without conscious thought.

When we talk about gaming in 2019, we’re talking about a nuanced and expansive world of opportunity for brands. Today’s games come in many categories such as player-versus-player (PvP), first-person shooter, real-time strategy, multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), and massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), just to name a few. With the advent of Twitch, Cheddar, Mixer, and many more, a distinct and exciting culture has developed not just around gaming, but also around Esports – tournaments centered around multiplayer, competitive gameplay, often for monetary prizes.

Rational brand and product attributes are easily copied and hard to defend, while emotional connections are unique and ownable – making them difficult to displace and replicate. Brands quickly become interchangeable commodities when they compete on rational benefits alone. However, it’s not easy for consumers to explain their emotions, making it difficult to measure how and why they connect with brands.

We may live in an era of innovation, but does every innovation guarantee company growth?

Innovation is a key priority for most companies. Faced with stronger competition and more selective customers, many business leaders are feeling pressure to launch new products and services. A recent McKinsey survey states that more than 25 percent of total revenue and profits across industries comes from the launch of new products. However, more than 50% of launches don’t hit their targets.

An Influencer is a user on social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube or Twich who has established credibility in a specific industry and have access to a large audience. They have the appearance of being everyday people like you and me, though their identity is often curated in order to appear authentic. They make a living out of sharing their passions, whether that passion is home baking, makeup, fashion, gaming, or many others.

Recent polls, including those conducted by Maru/Blue, have generated some lively debate among certain political leaders, who are naturally sensitive to the impact that positive – or negative – poll results can have on their reputation.

At Maru/Blue we take great care to treat our respondents with respect and continuously test the validity and reliability of our market communities by tracking the same results over time. The result? Communities that are consistent, accurate and reliable. Boringly reliable.

“Why more brands are ditching the CMO position” was the headline of a recent Ad Age article. It reports: “Several big-name companies have recently done away with the CMO position altogether—including Johnson & Johnson, Uber, Lyft, Beam Suntory, Taco Bell and Hyatt Hotels, accelerating a trend that began a few years ago.” The force behind this trend has important implications for the insights industry too.

Netflix. Hulu. Amazon Prime Video. YouTube TV. And coming soon, Disney+ and HBO Max. If you’re looking for an ad-free streaming tv service, or to join the growing ranks of cable cord-cutters, the options are plentiful, and for many, overwhelming.

For years, the landscape of streaming services was the California gold rush of the 21st century with consumers just as eager to get a piece of the action as producers. But with the influx of options in the media streaming world and the expanses of new technology, people not only have more ways to stream, but they also have more places to stream from. This creates as many problems as it does opportunities.

The intelligence community is charged with making sense of large amounts of information and presenting that information in such a way that it is easily understood by decision makers. If that sounds like the job we do in the insights industry, it is because it is. We can learn a lot from the intelligence community. A new report on the future of spying has important lessons for the insight industry and where it should be headed.