Year 2022 in research

It is the same as every year. Both the public and the private sector leave research until the end of the year, when it becomes clear how much is left in the budgets and eventually the money for development and innovation must be spent. Even though there is often no money left for the " soft " projects at all. Companies are preparing for radically increased operating costs, and investing in innovative projects, which undoubtedly includes marketing research, can be complicated for them. But what the next year will bring is difficult to predict - after all, who in February 2022 could have imagined the challenges we have faced since then. Fortunately, this year is on an upbeat note (as far as research is concerned) and so the end of the year is marked by cancelled holidays and hours of overtime. In other words, we are not bored.

We have implemented several interesting projects for the state sector focusing on the social area. It turns out that price increases are becoming a major issue for 2022. Just as it was the so-called "refugee crisis" in 2015-16, COVID in 20-21, so now the Czech society is mainly being stirred by inflation and price increases, not only of energy, but of all services and goods in general. The real impact on Czech society will be huge and companies will have to adapt their products to the lower buying power of the population. Now, wage growth is certainly not keeping pace with price increase and consumers are beginning to change their spending behavior in real terms. It will be crucial for companies to be able to offer the population meaningful alternative products and services that reflect the self-imposed economic restrictions of the Czech consumers. Market research can still help companies in this regard, as it can estimate the potential of new products and, where appropriate, adjust services to meet the changing demand.

For the private sector, we helped to conduct a very interesting research on real-life viewing behavior for TV and online. A new metrics, working with an eye camera (on laptops and smartphones) can pinpoint what programs people are watching and how they behave while doing so. The survey was conducted in respondents' homes to simulate the real-life situation of watching TV or online shows. In addition to observing the actual behavior of the respondents, their perception of the content they watched was also evaluated. One day this very sophisticated system will probably replace the still used and somewhat historical methods of measuring TV viewing.

During the "covid" era, virtually all F2F research projects stopped and everything was researched online only. And for many types of research, face-to-face contact did not return even with the end of the pandemic. This is almost 100% true for qualitative research. Almost all the group discussions and face-to-face interviews that we conduct take place on online platforms. This brings new challenges for the moderators and the dynamics of an online group will never be as good as a face-to-face meeting. However, online discussions are faster, more efficient and allow people to participate in the convenience of their homes. We too have been gradually gaining more and more experience with online qualitative research, so that we now have fine-tuned our internal processes and technical background to run online discussions smoothly. So, we can certainly tailor-make research for you too. Just contact hundl@ppmfactum.cz.