#MRX Top 10: The Rise of the Amateur, of AI, and the Death of Expertise

Of the 3,475 unique links shared on the Twitter #MRX hashtag over the past two weeks, here are 10 of the most retweeted…

1. Of Tears and Text Analytics – Kelsy Saulsbury shares the pros and cons of using text analytics vs. reading every verbatim response from a survey of lost customers.
2. How to Use Market Research to Build Relationships with Retailers – From Euromonitor International, this white paper addresses five key ways that market research can help brands: discover consumer preferences, profile distribution patterns, understand emerging channels, review retailer share, and refine the sales pitch to potential partners.
3. The Intersection of Digital Empowerment and Patient Centricity – Writing for RWConnect, Dr. Pamela Walker of Incite discusses how to map “digital patient journeys”: how patients educate themselves and look for support for dealing with diseases and health conditions.
4. The Rise of Automation in Market Research – Steve Hemsley of Marketing Week documents five automation case studies, including: Reckitt Benckiser increasing ad testing by 77% using ZappiStore, with a 14% increase in ad effectiveness; Travelex using smart-phone tracking to measure foot traffic; and NASCAR using Remesh for real-time feedback during races.
5. The Mutation of Research – Anneke Quinn-de Jong of Philips International applies Tom Nichol’s thesis from his book The Death of Expertise to the market-research industry.
6. Even Big Data Giants Rely on Traditional Marketing Research – Roy Eduardo Kokoyachuk of ThinkNow Research shares case studies of how Facebook and Google use survey questions to improve their services.
7. ESOMAR at 70 – The Future of Research and Insights Associations – Finn Raben of ESOMAR describes the roles that associations play in supporting the market research industry. “Many associations work extensively with national and regional governments in promoting research to law-makers to ensure that research and data collection can continue to be a self-regulated industry. The core of this work is achieved through updated and relevant codes of ethical practice.”
8. AI is Analyzing You on Social Media for Marketing Research – “Marketing is largely a game of throwing darts at demographics — and hoping to hit the biggest ones.” TheNextWeb’s Tristan Greene peeks inside the digital mind that has better aim than us humans.
9. Smart Data Integration – The ESOMAR Big Data World event is coming to New York City in November.
10. Presenting The Top 150 Global Companies In Market Research! Kinda… – Leonard Murphy compiles the perfectly wrong list of the top 150 global companies in market research, and explains this contradiction.

Note: This list is ordered by the relative measure of each link’s influence in the first week it debuted in the weekly Top 5. A link’s influence is a tally of the influence of each Twitter user who shared the link and tagged it #MRX, ignoring retweets from closely related accounts. The following links are excluded: links promoting RTs for prizes, links promoting events in the next week, pages not in English, and links outside of the research industry (sorry, Bollywood).