Economists forecast that the Asia Pacific region will become the world’s biggest market and largest economy by the middle of this century. Can research bring this date closer and make these predictions a global reality? ESOMAR looks at these issues in this article with a view towards the upcoming Asia Pacific Conference and Exhibition.

the 9th ESOMAR Asia Pacific Conference and Exhibition taking place at the Ritz Carlton in Singapore from 7-9 April - examines the drivers for social and economical development in the region and the role of research to accelerate growth.

“As the fastest growing region in the world, it is not surprising that our latest Global Market Research study reports a healthy expansion in the region with 8.7 % growth and a turnover of $US 3.5 billion last year. This provides a clear indication that market research in Asia Pacific has an increasingly important role in everyday practical and strategic business activities,” confirmed Véronique Jeannin, ESOMAR’s Director General.

The annual ESOMAR Asia Pacific Conference and Exhibition is the only event dedicated to sharing research best practice across the entire region. The event this year has already attracted over 250 participants who are all doing business in Asia Pacific. To complement the programme, there will be a full exhibition showcasing the latest research tools and software available.

Opening the programme, Tony Fernandes, Group CEO of Air Asia, illustrates the huge potential for the region in his keynote speech on 8 April. Tony introduced the first budget no-frills airline to Malaysians with the tagline "Everyone can fly" and truly revolutionised the air travel industry in Malaysia.

The programme closes on the afternoon of 9 April, with a high level discussion “So what needs to happen?” which invites local, regional and global experts including David Lowden, Chief Executive of TNS to take a critical look at the role of research and determine the next steps in building an even more effective research industry across Asia.

In addition to the discussions and debates, speakers from seven countries across Asia as well as the USA and UK will present a rich body of research studies and show how the insights developed have lead to real change and more effective business action.

Susan Burrell, Programme Committee Chair and Director for client research at the Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore explains “In this conference we will take time out from this furious pace of change to reflect on how we need to respond: by better understanding the Asian consumer, by leveraging online tools and Web 2.0, reaching out to very connected and rapidly changing Asian youth market, and by building brands in Asia. For each presentation you’ll be able to create your own change agenda for improving the effectiveness and impact of market research in Asia” 

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They didn't make it to SMRN:s top ten of the Innovate conference, but they got what is even better: the chance to win ESOMAR:s most prestigous price for excellence. This is no contradiction and no sign of bad judgement on either side: the ESOMAR jury reads the papers, we don't.

Peter Hartzbech, CEO of innovative and fast growing Danish research software company iMotions, found time in his tight schedule to sit on the program committee for the newly ended ESOMAR Innovate conference in Copenhagen. In this short web-TV interview with SMRN, he explains why he enjoyed being on the committee and why ESOMAR is an organisation we should all support.

Far from everything was perfect at the Innovate conference in Copenhagen. How could it have been? The subject is a very tricky one and the conference was only run for the third time. Seventeen presentations from ten countries couldn't possibly all be fantastic - it is rather a success that none of them was poor.

Approaching the end of the second and last day of the Innovate conference in Copenhagen, the pieces are beginning to fall into their places. What yesterday seemed like an endless and futile row of attempts at definition innovation, today proved to be a vital build-up of the foundation the following presentations needed. Todays presentations provided the specific research innovations I hoped to find from the start.

Impressions after the first day of ESOMARs Innovate conference in Copenhagen. Found myself wondering somewhere around afternoon coffee break when the conference was actually going to start. I realised it could have ended already around ten, after the keynote speaker.

The German MR organisations had raised serious objections against the proposed new ESOMAR code and the resistance hasn't stopped just because the code has been approved in a member referendum. The four organisations, headed by EFAMRO member ADM, have issued a statement that overrules parts of the ESOMAR code and which is binding for market research conducted in Germany.

The newly arrived ESOMAR directory reveals a fundamental difference in membership development for the three Scandinavian countries. While Denmark and Norway are found slightly below last years numbers, Sweden has for the second consecutive year increased its membership in the world organisation for market researchers considerably. We have looked further into potential reasons for this and we believe the outcome is no coincidence.

As Swedish Open in Båstad is being finished this very moment, news reach us that the ATP tour will look very different next year, thanks to market research.

Danish MR software company iMotions has obtained another two million dollars in bridge funding and CEO Peter Hartzbech gets qualified help in managing the rapid expansion from a new COO.

FDIM har nu uppdaterat sitt internet index med surfare. FDIM är danska motsvarigheten till KIA Index och arbetar likt KIA med att skapa en standard för internetmätningar. FDIM har tagit ett steg till i sin utveckling och numera stoltserar med antalet surfare i sitt internet index. I Sverige visar KIA Index bara antalet unika webbläsare.

The Almedal week is the largest political happening in Sweden each summer. Everybody who is anybody in politics, media and lobbying meet on the island Gotland to listen to political speeches and sit in on seminars Novus Opinion has established an expert panel consisting of 60 important creators of public opinion, all present in Almedalen. The panel answers questions via SMS during the week.

Babyboomen i Sverige har lett till fler barnvagnar och spädbarn på exempelvis restauranger och caféer.Men en ny Sifoundersökning visar att nio av tio inte vill ha barnfria zoner på tåg, flyg, hotell och restauranger.

When you name a conference with such an ambitious term as "Innovate", you immediately open up for reflections about how you live up to being innovative. Is it really OK to arrange an innovative conference in a traditional way? What can you expect from the venue, the presenters, the sponsors, the delegates. We captured a few pieces of food for thought in pictures from ESOMARs Innovate conference and ends our conference coverage with a suggestion for a very bold and creative change in the way international conferences are arranged.

Bill Gillham säger i introduktionen till Forskningsintervjun - Tekniker och genomföranden att han sett att det finns ett behov av att få hjälp att hitta passande intervjumetoder. Det förbryllar mig - jag har sett åtskilliga metodböcker och nästan samtliga har varit mer heltäckande, välbalanserade och informativa än denna. Den enda målgrupp jag verkligen kan komma på som kan ha nytta av Bills bok, är hans egna doktorander vid University of Strathclyde.

They didn't make it to SMRN:s top ten of the Innovate conference, but they got what is even better: the chance to win ESOMAR:s most prestigous price for excellence. This is no contradiction and no sign of bad judgement on either side: the ESOMAR jury reads the papers, we don't.

Veronique Jeannin and her team at ESOMAR has shown a constant line of progress in a few years and recently achieved an important figure to stress that the world organisation is on the move upwards when member number 5000 signed up.

The Swedish jury for "Market Researcher of the Year" are not the only ones to have discovered the young company Brandjobs. In the new edition of "Strategic Brand Management", also referred to as the bible of branding, their model is mentioned as a good example seven times!

At ESOMARs qualitative conference in Barcelona 2005, an ad hoc group of extremely experienced gentlemen, summed up their life times in research with a piece of comedy that could very well have been the best presentation ever at any market research conference. Until now, no one who was not fortunate enough to be in that room, have been able to share this piece of magic.

Internet giant Yahoo has launched an insight strategy team to develop a common policy for the use of data and analysis across the company’s online platforms.

Google has unveiled a free web analytics, research and media planning tool to enable media buyers to determine the web sites where their online ads will have most impact, based on demographics and traffic info.

The new Google Trends product that measures website traffic (the old product simply measures search queries) is a great way to get data on website traffic.

Peter Hartzbech, CEO of innovative and fast growing Danish research software company iMotions, found time in his tight schedule to sit on the program committee for the newly ended ESOMAR Innovate conference in Copenhagen. In this short web-TV interview with SMRN, he explains why he enjoyed being on the committee and why ESOMAR is an organisation we should all support.

The sale of its share in the jointly owned Finnish fieldwork company to Norstat, does not mean a withdrawal from Finland, according to Hermelins owner Dacke Group. The move is rather a consequence of the group strategy to place all market research activity in Swedish Hermelin and from there work with subcontractors in other countries. Modernisation of the core business and restructuring are the key words of Dackes activities in the near future. CEO Peter Zakrisson sees a bright future in market research for Hermelin and the group.

Maris Poldveer, one of the top persons at the Swedish bank SEB:s Estonian branch, says in a newspaper article that the Swedish love for doing market research is a major reason why the Estonian economy is doing better than the Latvian and Lithuanian.

Scandinavian fieldwork giant Norstat assumes full ownership of the up til now jointly owned CATI center in Pori, on the west coast.

IT-branschtidningen Computer Sweden tipsade på midsommarafton om hur inköp av analyser ska göras så effektiva som möjligt. Tipsen avser främst IT-analyser från företag som Gartner och Forrester, men kan i mångt och mycket appliceras på inköp av vilka marknads- och branschanalyser som helst.

Far from everything was perfect at the Innovate conference in Copenhagen. How could it have been? The subject is a very tricky one and the conference was only run for the third time. Seventeen presentations from ten countries couldn't possibly all be fantastic - it is rather a success that none of them was poor.

SMRN wishes all you dear readers a happy and hopefully sunny midsummer: one of the most important festivals in Sweden from heathen times into our days.

Research and predictive analytics software giant SPSS has launched a text mining tool to enable users to analyze unstructured data from social media, consumer blogs, community boards, e-mail, call center notes, RSS feeds and surveys.

ClickTale, a hosted website analytics service that has provided a range of solutions from user experience videos to interaction heatmaps, is releasing a new tool today for identifying pain spots in online forms.

Varje år ställer Olle Findahl och hans kolleger på World Internet Institute samma frågor till samma grupp svenskar. De vill veta hur de använder nätet och vad de tycker om det.

Höjda räntor, skenande livsmedelspriser och bensinpriset på en ny toppnivå - men hur upplever konsumenterna att detta påverkar deras ekonomiska situation? Hushållens eventuellt ökade intäkter har en besynnerlig förmåga att raskt besvaras av motsvarande utgifter. Av detta skäl är hushållsinkomst och personlig inkomst ibland svåra att använda som indikatorer på ett ökat välstånd.

Danish web analytics organisation FDIM have hired Annette Romme as head of analytics. She will be responsible for the organisations vast flora of measurement and analysis.

Approaching the end of the second and last day of the Innovate conference in Copenhagen, the pieces are beginning to fall into their places. What yesterday seemed like an endless and futile row of attempts at definition innovation, today proved to be a vital build-up of the foundation the following presentations needed. Todays presentations provided the specific research innovations I hoped to find from the start.

Impressions after the first day of ESOMARs Innovate conference in Copenhagen. Found myself wondering somewhere around afternoon coffee break when the conference was actually going to start. I realised it could have ended already around ten, after the keynote speaker.