early studies co-founder Alfred Malmros explains how Social Circle Surveying bypasses the 'traditional' methods of research to tap into what people truly think and believe – and what that means for brands.
- Emma TuckerFor the uninitiated, what exactly is Social Circle Surveying and how is it different to any other method?
Alfred MalmrosIt’s almost funny how simple, but revolutionary it is. We never ask people what they think – we ask them what they believe others think. Humans greatly overestimate how much we know about ourselves, and underestimate how much we know about those around us. When asked to predict the behaviours, feelings or preferences of others, we reason more rationally and apply generalisation we think we ourselves are often exempt from. For example: Do you have a personal fashion style? Yes. Do your friends? No, they dress fairly the same and are influenced by each other.
- ETYou’ve said it taps into ‘people’s vast and unexplored reservoirs of knowledge about others’. How does it get to those deeper truths?
AMWe spend most of our waking hours not worrying about our own opinions, but our friends, family and colleague’s opinions. How might they react to this, what will they feel, what could convince them, and naturally we become experts at this quite quickly in life, yet no one taps into this. That we all have a lifetime experience of predicting the behaviours of everyone but ourselves. As Daniel Kahneman said, this is by design, it would be unbearable to realise how little we know.
Often we find that the most valuable signals are hidden in people’s projection onto others, these are the hidden competitive advantages businesses seek as no one else has asked the questions before.
Alfred Malmros, co-founder, Early Studies
- ETWhy is this effective?
AMIf you ask a stranger what their favourite snack is, let’s assume they say something like an apple. They’ll be perceived as healthy, unpretentious and maybe if they say so in the fall, even show a knowledge about seasonality and local produce. But ask them what they think other people’s favourite snack is, and they’ll say salt and vinegar crisps. Ask a hundred people, and we’ll get a pretty good idea of what people’s favourite snack actually is. We think the latter is much more useful to someone selling snacks, or an apple orchard.
- ETHave you got some good examples of this knowledge? Are there things you’ve found out through this method that have surprised you or gone against accepted wisdom?
AMA lot of our clients are naturally interested in climate change as they don’t trust the research they have. When people are asked directly they can’t imagine anything more important, but when asked about others the majority say that people prioritise their wallets, or are overwhelmed by the personal responsibility given to them by society. Something we often do in go-to-market research or product development research, is ask the target audience to role play as creative director for the client. We do this to circumvent human impulse to perform, and offer critical and negative feedback because they think it makes them higher status.
- ETWhen people are being invited to share their opinions via a survey, how much of that do you think is projection and how much is actual truth?
AMWe don’t believe in a singular truth, we believe many things can be true at once, and what we’re looking for are signals for important decision making. Often we find that the most valuable signals are hidden in people’s projection onto others, these are the hidden competitive advantages businesses seek as no one else has asked the questions before. To go Freudian, projection is often people’s primary means of talking to themselves: the advice we give others is what we wish we ourselves would do, or when we accuse someone of something, it’s often for a behaviour we’re ashamed of having ourselves.
You will bin perfect creative work because people in a focus group were performatively critical about it, or you’ll waste your marketing budget convincing people about something they didn’t care about in the first place.
Alfred Malmros, co-founder, Early studies
- ETAnd how can that steer brands wrong? What’s the risk with traditional ways of doing surveys?
AMThere’s no risk in doing traditional surveys as long as you understand what it is you're looking to learn. In a focus group people perform and represent the most acceptable truth; in surveys people manifest or project what they think or wish is true, and in interviews we try out truths and construct narratives off the cuff. If we want to find signals for decision making, and that is often to gather what the majority of a population or target audience will likely do or feel in the future, then it’s a big risk. You will bin perfect creative work because people in a focus group were performatively critical about it, or you’ll waste your marketing budget convincing people about something they didn’t care about in the first place.
- ETHas the 'old' way of doing surveys really helped brands that much?
AMSocial Circle Surveying is in its infancy, but so far we’ve surprised many clients with our findings, and often their deeply held beliefs about their product or brand are disproven – core assumptions about why consumers buy or use their products. Especially in sectors like technology, fashion or health where we often lie to ourselves about our needs and behaviours. “I’m not addicted to social media but people generally are”… “I don’t buy what influencers endorse but my friends do”… “I don't drink too much but my friends do”…
- ETDetractors might argue that full surveys need big numbers, but Social Circle Surveying goes against this. How do you know it’s as effective as those typically big data sets?
AMSo here we’re talking about something fascinating, and it’s the idea of “representative samples” and “demographic distribution.” How many people do we need to ask to trust the results? The industry standard is 2,000, but what we’re looking for is the point where the answer stops changing. In Social Circle Surveying, respondents on average think of 20 people when generalising, meaning we need to ask about 95% fewer people. People intuitively aggregate what they believe is the demographic makeup of the country or neighbourhood, meaning people who rarely answer surveys online, are represented in the answers. Technically, we cut off surveys the moment the answer stops significantly changing, in the case of is it raining, at 1, people’s favourite ice cream it might be 78 people or if we’re asking about deeper topics such as mental health, it could be at 200 people. The secret reason many clients want to poll or survey large round numbers of people is not because they believe they need to ask that many, but to appease the always present stickler in the meeting room who will say “but what was the sample size?”
Research should be the most fun, intellectually rewarding and inspiring phase of any project, but often it isn’t. It’s a black box product, done at arm's length from you.
Alfred Malmros, co-founder, Early Studies
- ETWhy would marketers and brands be interested in doing research in this way?
AMIn all honesty, it’s way faster and incredibly cost effective, but the biggest reason is that it’s an inclusive and creative process. Research should be the most fun, intellectually rewarding and inspiring phase of any project, but often it isn’t. It’s a black box product, done at arm's length from you. For many marketers and brands, the reality is diminishing budgets and an increasing distance to their audience and consumer. We offer better signals more effectively to clients who understand the complexity of human beings and that the answer is bester questions.
- ETIs research as we know it on life support? Are the days of big data sets and years-long bits of research over?
AMVery few can afford quantitative research anymore and assume they have to resort to focus groups and secondary data to make their bets on the future. This is because the industry is charging gargantuan fees for audience respondents, and not spending enough time on the questions. This makes the results hard to trust, the opposite of what you need when you’re investing time and large budgets. In our first Data Drop we made a vast dataset with tens of thousands of data points and we released them for free—to show that it can still be done, and to highlight how seldom today we get our hands on boxfresh data about the future. We also showed that you can quantify people’s view of the past and the future, and create trend lines without having to commit to decade-long projects that come at such a cost you never end up doing them. We’re hoping for the return of haute quant.
Photo by Adam Laycock. Read Early Studies first Data Drop HERE.
