When considering the participant’s role in traditional survey research, you could think he or she takes up the role of a ‘judge’. In this role, consumers rate you on your performance and help you improve. Nevertheless, the extent to which we allow participants help brands improve, is rather limited in surveys. Survey research mainly focuses on consumers rating your brand, without taking into account the other collaboration roles they could take up in research.
There are three other collaboration roles consumers could play in research, namely:

• The role of peer, where consumers help brands immerse in the consumers’ daily lives and develop fresh consumer insights. This is where consumers help us get a deeper understanding of their own daily lives.
• The role of colleague, where consumers help brands generate new ideas, co-decide and review their strategies and plans. This is where consumers become part of the team.
• The role of advocate, where consumers are activated by your brand and drive positive conversations. These consumers are your real brand advocates.

Judges, peers, colleagues and advocates… so what do we really need in survey research?

We believe the value of the future of surveys lies in a second survey dimension which we call ‘The Village‘. This village concept taps into the 3 learning dimensions we tackled in our previous blog post, namely engagement, conversation and consumer context, while also taking into account the different roles consumers can take in research.
The village is an additional survey element that participants, who have completed the regular survey, can access to participate in other fun task-based elements. This second survey dimension is optional, as we believe that only topic-, experience- and brand-engaged participants will bring more valuable learnings through richer content.

Village what?

As the name reveals, the platform visually resembles an actual village with different buildings. Behind each building lies a specific task which focuses on a different consumer collaboration role.
A central building in the village is ‘The Lounge’, which is the social corner of the village in which participants can connect with other participants, researchers and brands. In this building participants can give additional feedback and advice to a brand. This is where consumers take up the role of both judge and peer.
‘The Photo store‘ is a building where we ask consumers to upload pictures and reflect upon them. This is where consumers clearly take up the role of peer as they help us immerse in their daily lives.
In the ‘Ideation building‘, participants are asked to think along with brands and provide ideas on different topic areas. It is a brainstorm tool where participants help brands to capture the solutions space and build recommendations. This task-based element allows consumers to take up the collaboration role of colleague.
Curious to find out more about the details of our new tools, story and cases…? Read our full paper on Collaborating beyond responding: