The Objective

A cost-effective way to stay ahead of events

What GolinHarris needed was a solution that would enable the agency to stay ahead of events. It needed the ability to test different ideas and develop convincing data before developing full-blown studies for its clients. This it had to do cost effectively and, most importantly, quickly.

The Solution

Real insights in real time

GolinHarris soon discovered the answer: TolunaStart. Not only was this DIY survey tool packed with advanced capabilities yet extremely easy-to-use, it was directly linked to the Toluna Community: some 10+ million heavily profiled, highly engaged respondents in 40 markets – ready and waiting to respond to questions.

Most importantly for GolinHarris, data from the Toluna Community was available within hours – this as opposed to the months associated with a traditional market research survey. Also, thanks to the community’s heavy profiling, results could be viewed by all key demographics.

In essence, the data from the Toluna Community provided GolinHarris with a clear picture of real-time trends across multiple markets.

The Results

A "must-have" tool for every client engagement

For GolinHarris, TolunaStart has now evolved into a must-have tool for virtually every client engagement – from business development and message-testing to measurement and metrics – both within the US and internationally.

The Client’s Verdict

Feedback from Mark Rozeen, EVP, Insights & Innovations, GolinHarris

Mark Rozeen, GolinHarris EVP of Insights & Innovations, gave his feedback on TolunaStart…

Client acquisition & retention: “To put it simply, our clients have been impressed. For example, when pitching to a language learning software company, we decided to run a quick exploratory survey targeting 750 respondents in the US – with results returned in less than 10 hours. During the pitch, we demonstrated to the client that we already had a good picture of their customer base and, more importantly, the market’s opinion of their software. All of this was backed up by percentages and graphs and we could even show them the results by sex and age. The client was really impressed that we could cut directly to the main topic.”

A real consumer community for ‘crowd-sourcing’ ideas: “We’ve also used TolunaStart to pre-test and source ideas. We can add videos and images to survey questions to test the most effective advertising ideas or PR concepts before they’re developed into something more substantial. Obviously this saves us a lot of time and trouble. Ultimately, we can sense-check our ideas before we present them to clients or build a more complicated customer survey.”

A must-have for further research projects: “We usually undertake custom research for our clients, but we’ve become so reliant on TolunaStart that it’s become a ‘must-have’ tool for research projects. A full-blown custom research study may take a few months, Omnibus at least a week, but TolunaStart takes only a few hours – whenever you want it.”

Substantial cost-savings: ”We always see the cost before launching a QuickSurvey survey, so we can change the number of questions and the number of respondents accordingly. Also by pre-testing concepts and ideas first, we’ve potentially saved tens of thousands of dollars.“

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More About GolinHarris

GolinHarris is a leading public relations firm built on 50 years of commitment to its clients, its values and its employees. Its professionals in 34 offices around the globe build long-term partnerships based on mutual trust. Bold thinking and flawless execution produce meaningful results for client partners. GolinHarris offers a distinctive combination of global resources and world-class expertise—with tailored approaches and personal, focused attention.

Visit www.golinharris.com

The Objective

Getting quality data in a short time span

In order to really understand consumer behaviour around Social Gaming – and to create a valuable, actionable report – Econsultancy clearly needed a programme of market research. What’s more, to achieve enough proprietary data, it would need to survey thousands of respondents. The problem was, time was very short. In fact, the report needed to be compiled within just a few weeks. Econsultancy’s objective, therefore, was to reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

The Solution

2,000 respondents, results in 24 hours

To Econsultancy, the answer was obvious: TolunaStart. A market-leading, self-service online survey tool, TolunaStart would enable Econsultancy to ask all the right questions – quickly and cost-effectively.

Most importantly for Econsultancy, TolunaStart was linked to the Toluna Community: the world’s largest online research community, which could deliver full survey results in just 24 hours.

Econsultancy was therefore able to launch a bespoke survey questionnaire to 2,000 members of Toluna’s 600,000-member community in the UK – and to collect results by the following day.

The Results

Report launches on time & on budget

Econsultancy’s 38-page Social Gaming report was launched on time and on budget. It included market trends, key statistics and case study examples of companies using social gaming for marketing.

The Client’s Verdict

Feedback from Aliya Zaidi, Research Manager, Econsultancy

Econsultancy was impressed. Here’s what Aliya Zaidi, Research Manager at Econsultancy, had to say:

Speed to market: “We were able to create our survey within a few minutes and collect the final results a couple of hours after the survey was launched. This was extremely quick and easy!”

Scalability: ”Another thing that impressed me about TolunaStart is its scalability. If in future I want to run a smaller respondent sample, say 500 or 1000, I need only to change the number of respondents. It’s that simple.”

Proprietary data thanks to real flexibility: ”I really value the flexibility of TolunaStart. I was able to choose the number of questions, the number of respondents, the markets, the question types… Being able to create the questionnaire in exactly the way I wanted saved me a lot of time and trouble, and resulted in genuinely proprietary data.”

First-rate community of respondents: “These days, you can get online survey tools at a relatively small cost (although not usually of the Toluna quality), but the ability to tie it up with a first-rate consumer community is what makes TolunaStart stand out from the crowd. I didn’t have to worry about the quality of the data and once the survey was launched to the Toluna community, the result took care of itself.”

Thousands saved in data acquisition: ”Cost control came from two things: choosing the number of questions and choosing the number of respondents. We only paid for what we used. Ultimately, we created a totally customised survey without paying a hefty price to a large research agency.”

Data analysis made easy: “In most cases, data analysis is even more important than data itself. We needed to see the whole picture but also to look at things from different angles. This was easy with TolunaStart. The survey results were viewable by age, gender, income level, education and region: exactly what we needed to analyse the data. It was displayed visually, and we could also download the original data to create our own charts.”

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More About Econsultancy

From offices in New York and London, Econsultancy hosts more than 100 events each year in the US and UK. Many of the world's most famous brands use Econsultancy to educate and train their staff; these include Google, Yahoo, Dell, BBC, BT, Shell, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, Barclays, Deloitte and many more.

Visit www.econsultancy.com