
BEST PRACTICE SPONSOR 2020
THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
54 | FLYRESEARCH
Managing Partner DavidWaddell
The FlyResearch tech team
A
full-service agency that offers online quantitative
research, FlyResearch combines proven methodologies
with the latest research techniques to deliver useful
data quickly. According to Managing Partner David Waddell,
FlyResearch owns the “fastest research panel in the UK”
– meaning they can deliver premium research on strict
timeframes. David explains that their research solutions are
powered by client-focused technology and operate in real time.
He discusses the online research sector in greater detail and
outlines just why other companies rely on it.
FlyResearch is an online market research agency, which focuses mainly on
quantitative as opposed to qualitative research. Qualitative research involves a
small group of people tasting, trying, watching, wearing and discussing, while
quantitative research is finding out what a large number of people do, think, spend
and want.
When we started 15 years ago, quantitative market research was an obvious
industry to take online. Prior to this, research was conducted on the telephone
and on the streets. While there is still a place for this sort of work, if the opinion
of a representative sample of 1,000 citizens is required, it is far quicker and less
expensive to reach them through an online invitation and is also far less invasive.
We only invite people who have signed up to our panel, and typically give them
72 hours to complete our questionnaires. These days, everyone is online.
FACTS ABOUT
FLYRESEARCH
»Managing Partners:
DavidWaddell and Greg Ward
»Founded in 2004
»Located in London
»Services: Online market
research
»No. of employees: 23
FlyResearch
55FLYRESEARCH |
The market for research
There are a number of compelling
reasons why businesses carry out
market research, but they most often
boil down to establishing where time
and money should be invested. A new
product should not get anywhere near
production stage unless it is certain
someone is going to buy it.
An investor who has been impressed
by the pitching skills of a young
entrepreneur may want to know if
we all share their enthusiasm. If one
business is considering merging with or
acquiring another, it might be prudent
to know if the market will embrace
the change. A company that needs
to tighten its belt should find out
where their customers are prepared
to shoulder the burden. Advertisers
want to know what their target market
spends its time doing, and so on.
It need not cost a fortune to do good-
quality market research. We have
carried out projects at £150,000 and
£300. The key factors in play are how
many opinions one requires, how
easy they are to find and how much
work is required. We are capable of
interviewing thousands of people in
scores of countries as well as turning a
quick opinion piece for a PR company
around within a few hours.
Challenges
The world is barely recognisable
from 20 years ago. We live 35-hour
days, listening to podcasts and
receiving social media alerts while we
are travelling. We watch TV when
we are nowhere near a television,
and we shop when the shops are
closed. Vendors of socks, soap and
salami used to be in competition
with rival vendors of socks, soap and
salami – now Amazon may be their
biggestcompetitor.
Netflix is a verb, and measuring
viewing figures from what a television
set is tuned to is losing relevance.
The market research industry must
continue to find effective ways of
reporting what people are doing and
where they go to do it.
Everyone is familiar with questions
that ask you to rate something on
a scale from “strongly agree” to
“strongly disagree”, or “very poor”
to “excellent”. Social media is where
people go to strongly agree or
disagree. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
and their contemporaries can be great
fun, but they should not be used as
anyone’s sole indicator of what the
world is thinking. Social media is where
we go to watch a fight, not where we
FlyResearch’s African
team
Qualitative
research
involves a small
group of people
tasting, trying,
watching,
wearing and
discussing, while
quantitative
research is
finding out
what a large
number of
people do,
think, spend
and want
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