case study: Market Research

CHALLENGE: To help build an effective Website, CKS Partners and Citibank enlisted Strong Bat to create and implement a survey through Crisp which would procure the Website preferences of college students, a demographic notorious for its aversion to taking corporate surveys. Due to pressing deadlines, our clients needed the survey to be created as quickly as possible, yet to be alluring enough to secure results from an indicative number of participants in an extremely short span of time. They set their goal at 100 particpants, with performance bonuses rising incrementally right up to their highest tier of expectation: 200 participants.

IMPLEMENTATION: Strong Bat Productions worked closely with our clients to address their specific questions governing a successful Website, and then developed an innovative strategy to significantly increase survey participation: We masked the survey within the results of a modern personality test, calling it, um, her, Madam Clairvoyant. Each question was written in a way which provided the polltaker with information about his or her own personality while simultaneously providing answers which could be used to better understand the polltaker's Website preferences. (Click here for a survey clip.) Finally, we implemented the survey through a combination of editorial links in Crisp.

RESULTS: We quickly met our clients's goal of an indicative number of participants, 100, and then went on to exceed even their highest tier of performance expectation, 200, delivering results from a grand total of 241 participants - well within the frenetic deadline, and on budget. Hyo Yeon, Citibank Account Director for CKS Partners, expressed her gratitude by saying: "Strong Bat was instrumental in providing us with the true pulse of what young audiences are looking for in a Web site. Through a very creatively conceptualized and executed survey, they were able to guide us not only in the type of content that might be effective for college-aged audiences, but also in its tone and style of delivery." Our clients weren't the only ones appreciative of "Madam Clairvoyant." Crisp's readers described the column as "insightful" and "fun," and many requested that additional personality tests be included in Crisp.