Our COO Orkan Dolay is canvassing for the ESOMAR Council elections 2021. We asked him which issues he would address if he gets elected.

“The market research industry and its environment is changing. In the past, market research had a special position in data collection and processing; making it, for a long time, the principal source for insights.

But this position has been weakened. Access to data has become easier, faster, and cheaper, making the business difficult for some research agencies. In parallel, the booming sectors of e-commerce and e-marketing began to develop their own data sources. They replaced insights from market research by analysing the data falling out naturally and by optimizing them with AB tests.

However, there are good reasons to be optimistic for the future of market research:

First, the need for insights is predicted to increase, as demonstrated by both the $20 billion valuation of a company like Qualtrics and the acquisition of Kantar by Bain Capital. Second, regulations like GDPR and e-privacy regulations will finally be beneficial for the market research industry. These regulations, by protecting the privacy rights of consumers, have increased the barriers for suppliers providing personal data, without the consent of consumers.

But privacy guidelines are a double-edged sword, depending on who is implementing them and for what purpose. This leads to one of the biggest threats to the market research industry: The power concentrated in the hands of the GAFA, who could shut down access to a huge part of the internet usage data. Based on the data they collect on their platforms; they could run their own analysis and provide brands with their analysis on their own services. For market research agencies, the doors would be firmly shut. End clients, but also politicians and governments would be completely dependent on the analysis – provided or not – by these four companies.

We as the market research industry should mobilize and act together pursuing a common objective: if participants gave their consent to the usage of data, the GAFA should not restrict access to these data to the market research industry.“

Find out more on Orkan’s campaign on his website.