Storytelling Using Online Market Research | Great Recession Woes

More and more, companies are turning to online market research to understand how people are thinking and feeling.

Although this offers remarkable opportunities to reach out to respondents throughout the world without ever leaving your office, it also presents a number of challenges with regard to how the story is presented.

Unfortunately, the quality of the video footage that results from interviews via webcam through video chat services like OoVoo, iChat and Skype is sub-standard in comparison to that obtained via offline production. And since you only have one angle from which to “shoot,” you’re also limited in terms of editing. It’s harder to make the brand storytelling flow visually.

Fortunately there are solutions. Our experience in commercial directing, photography and motion graphics comes in handy. Even with a web cam, there are ways to create decent compositions and obtain good lighting. And by employing a few simple graphic techniques, one can move the image around the screen in a way that not only looks good, but more important, helps support the story.

That’s how we approached this online market research study with Austin-based video editor, Andy Corwin.

Like so many, Mr. Corwin had a good business until the fall of 2008.

We’ve Been Devalued

Here he discusses how the Great Recession, combined with advances in technology, has affected both his feelings about himself, his craft and his future.

“People and what they do have been devalued,” says Mr. Corwin at the opening of the video. “It makes me feel somewhat impotent, unempowered.”

“Because it [technology] has made it easier for people to accomplish their tasks,” he continues, the perception is that “you can’t be as smart as the people that used to have to do this the hard way.”

Corwin adds that “it’s unfamiliar territory, people are confused and frightened,” and closes the video somewhat resigned to the fact that he’s simply going to “wait for the next thing to happen.”

What’s ironic is that the market research study he’s participating in is the result of the very same technologies that he claims threaten his professional future.

After viewing this story, we suggest you check out Meet the Bubble Babes, the in-home market research study we made of a market segment that’s experiencing the Recession in a whole different way.