Future and Simple use a roster of suppliers for survey respondents worldwide.

Fieldwork and Respondent Panels

We contract some of the largest and most reputable market research companies for physical intercepts – i.e. recruiting people in shopping centres or other public places, and paying them to complete a task on a laptop. In China, for example, we always use this method, as the ‘Great Firewall of China’ makes the performance of the internet, and therefore online studies, unpredictable.

For central lab projects (where respondents come to a central location – often for actual exposure to products before completing a task, or to see content that can’t be delivered by computer, like a movie trailer) we often advertise for respondents.

Online survey recruitment

By far the most popular method of recruitment, by volume, is email invitation for purely online surveys. In most first world countries we have relationships with panel providers with excellent depth and breadth of population representation, especially for metropolitan dwellers. We never use two similar providers to make up a sample, as we have found that many respondents are members of multiple panels. In one country we are familiar with, 40% of the members of the largest online panel are also members of the second-largest online panel.

In some instances we have partnered with charities such as Make-A-Wish Foundation, who give us access to a database of donor email addresses. We invite the donors by email, and those who complete the survey online are remunerated in the form of a donation to the charity. This is a good way to access hard to get segments such as high income earners, and it is nice to see the money go to a good cause.