The paper upon which this article is based was presented at the ESOMAR Asia Pacific Conference in Singapore, where it was nominated for the John and Mary Goodyear Award of the best paper. The full version paper will be published in the 2003 edition of "Excellence In International Research".

Mobile Research In Japan: Anytime, Anywhere
Vanessa Oshima
Senior Consultant, JMI

As you step into a train in Shibuya, Tokyo's trendy youth-oriented district, it becomes apparent that the ubiquitous mobile phone or "keitai" is no longer just a phone - it has become a multi-media link to the wider world.

Japan has leapfrogged the west in realizing the potential of wireless data communication. The leading mobile operator NTT DoCoMo led this development, by introducing its own "i-mode" platform, forgoing the WAP route that has proved to be unsuccessful in other markets.

Hardware and content both played important roles in driving this revolution. DoCoMo offered consumers attractive and versatile handsets, cool 'pocket-rockets' with full-color screens, 8-and 16-voice sound chips and novel clamshell designs. Furthermore the content available from over 50,000 mobile Internet compatible sites is extensive. Apart from accessing information such as train schedules, maps and weather forecasts, users can participate in on-line clubs and communities much as they do on the fixed-line Internet.

Today Japan leads the world in the penetration of Internet access from mobile phones, with over 70 percent of subscribers taking advantage of this capability (fig 1.0). In comparison the United States and United Kingdom currently have penetration rates of less than 10 percent.

Figure 1.0

Wireless rules

In their 2001 book, "Wireless Rules", Frederick Newell and Katherine Newell lay down the challenge that "Wireless electronic mobile marketing and customer communication are the hottest topics in the marketing world today. M-marketing is on the way. Are you ready? Few businesses realize how a wireless world will fundamentally change their relationships with customers." This may also apply to the market research industry.

Over the past decade technology has become increasingly important in the acquisition of market research data. This started with the use of CATI and CAPI and was followed by the growth of the Internet as a cost-effective and timely way to conduct opinion research.

In the next stage of its evolution, the Internet is migrating from fixed line connections to mobile-devices. Japan provides an interesting test market and some clues on how market researchers might exploit this new mobile functionality Currently, around 60 million Japanese are connected to the mobile Internet and this surpasses the number of fixed line Internet connections. In Japan, mobile research is already providing a new channel for accessing consumers, revolutionary in terms of its reach, speed, and location targeting.

"M-Research"

In Japan, the way in which M-Research is conducted is much the same as for Internet research. Each mobile phone has its own unique email address. This address is then used to send an invitation to the potential respondent with a link to a website that hosts the survey. As the respondent completes the survey, data is collected in real time.

Unsolicited email is a problem on the mobile Internet. Reputable researchers avoid contributing to this by contacting only those individuals who have previously signaled their acceptance to be polled - either via their membership of a panel or by replying to invitations placed on community or frequently visited websites.

Within the broader context of market research, the 'speed' and 'reach' of M-Research are two characteristics that define its added value. In addition, recent mobile surveys have shown high response rates for respondents that are often considered to be difficult to reach samples in Japan, such as working males and teenagers.

Benefits

M-Research is powerful at catching consumers at a given time and getting quick responses, usually measured in hours.

One example is the sending of an email immediately after a television commercial has been aired. Such surveys check for awareness, take-out of key messages and gauge reaction to the copy while it is still fresh in consumers' minds. Other applications focused on gaining 'in-situ' responses include simple U&A surveys on food and beverage consumption conducted around meal times.

But perhaps the most exciting benefit of mobile research could come from the location seeking functions of the latest handsets, particularly those using the j-phone network. This identifies where a handset is at any moment in time and while location-specific mobile research is in its infancy, it has already been used to question fans at sporting events to make checks on sponsor awareness. Its application to the areas of outdoor media and POS research would seem to offer the greatest value to marketers, as consumers could be polled automatically when in the vicinity of the stimuli being studied.

Currently, the main limitation of M-Research is hardware related. Small screen sizes and the inconvenience of typing responses limit survey lengths to a typical maximum of 10 closed answers and only 1or 2 open-answer questions. In addition, the survey code needs to be crafted to ensure compatibility with the wide range of phone and browser formats in use. As the development of wireless technology continues to progress, we would expect these limitations to be overcome and the power of M-Research to increase. The latest 3G FOMA phones from NTT DoCoMo, which play video, are an early glimpse of this future, though at the time of writing consumer uptake of these expensive units has been somewhat slow.

Nevertheless M-Research is already offering exciting new possibilities to researchers and marketers alike. Just when you were starting to get comfortable with using the Internet to conduct surveys, along comes wireless electronic communications to complicate matters!