Demographic Best Practice Recommendation - Age

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Demographic Best Practice Recommendation - Age

Age: The new ESOMAR Demographic Best Practice Recommendations for multi-country work

ESOMAR has developed a recommendation on how to ask the age question in a way that is comparable from project to project and is also good practice from a privacy point of view and more considerate of participants. The question should lead to more accurate information, lower participant drop-out and less privacy exposure for suppliers and clients.

The process of describing and defining populations is currently very varied. Methods differ from one research company to the next, measures go quickly out of date, and research respondents don’t always give a proper answer to some demographic questions, which results in poor-quality data.

For instance, when asked their age, “How old are you?” or “What is your age?” some people give the wrong answer as they might wish to appear younger, or they don’t want to scroll down lots of years to come to their year of birth. Other people might not like being asked a question they have already been asked when signing up for a panel. Plus, many clients use different age bands, depending on the segment in which they are interested. All this leads to inconsistencies which create barriers in the exchange of international data making it difficult to compare the results of data from one country or one study to another.

ESOMAR’s new recommendation, founded on evidence-based best practice, is designed to improve quality standards and produce results that are more comparable from one project/region to another, thus facilitating multi-country research projects. With growing levels of international market research, this will help researchers and clients everywhere to improve research standards.

Who's working on it?

An introduction to the expert project team

An expert project team from a range of international suppliers has reviewed best practice to describe demographic questions in as globally consistent a way as possible to develop a best practice recommendation for key geographies worldwide. The proposal has been validated by ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee.

The recommendation was sent to a Client Sounding Board from global companies such as the BBC, Coca-Cola, Colgate Palmolive, Diageo, Etisalat, Google, Microsoft, Mondalez China, Nissan, P&G and Unilever for comment. With the Board’s help, we have fine-tuned the proposal to speed up adoption, and some clients will be applying or trialling the recommendation in their international work.

The team is chaired by Judith Passingham, chair of ESOMAR's Professional Standards Committee and Jon Puleston of Kantar, a member of the Standards Committee.

The Project Team

The Co-Chairs

Judith Passingham, Chair of ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee
Jon Puleston, Kantar, and Member of ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee

The Project Team Members

Dr Otto Hellwig, Corporate Integration Director at Bilendi
Tre Rials, Director, Partner Programs at CINT
Katy Mallios, Vice President, Programmatic Supply at CINT
Sonali Kaushal, Senior Manager, Trust and Safety Ops at CINT
Jimmy Snyder, Director, Platform Ops Support at CINT
Nancy Brigham, PhD, VP & Head of Research Science at Dynata
Pete Cape, Global Knowledge Director at Dynata
Bob Fawson, Executive Vice President, Business Operations, USA at Dynata
Sandy Casey, SVP of Global Supply at Innovate MR
Cecile Carre, VP, Global Respondent Quality & Research at Ipsos
Leah McTiernan, VP, Marketing and Communications at Ipsos
Sara Wilkinson, Director, Research on Research at Ipsos
Eva Wittmann, Director, Research on Research at Ipsos
Chris Stevens, CQO, Kantar
Deborah Fox, Operations Expert, Kantar
Joan Garriga, Panel Manager Specialist at Netquest
Salvador Masdeu, Automated Business Director at Netquest
Marie Hense, VP of Online Data Quality at Toluna
Mathilde Lelievre, Chief Operations Officer, COO at Toluna
Susan Vidler, Global Chief Research Officer Toluna

ESOMAR Team

Kathy Joe, Consultant to the Professional Standards Committee at ESOMAR
Jules van Vlokhoven, Government Affairs & Professional Standards Intern at ESOMAR

The Client Sounding Board

Kevin Cowan, Insight Manager, BBC
Begonia Fiafan, Insights Lead, Coca-Cola Latam
Nicola Dean, Shopper Insights Lead and Aileen Cabelly, Senior Sensory Scientist,
Colgate Palmolive
Rachael Popoola, Consumer Planning (Insights) Manager for Africa Innovation, Diageo
Muhamad Masood Ali Khan, Etisalat
Mario Callegaro, Senior Staff User Experience Survey Research Scientist, Google
Barry Jennings, Director, Cloud and Commercial Business Planning Insights, Microsoft
Amy Lee, Big Data Insights & Analytics Lead, Greater China, Mondalez China
Naoki Takahashi, Senior Manager, expert Leader, General Manager, Nissan
Japan/Global
Vinay Ahuja, VP, Europe Analytics and Insights, P&G
Manish Makhijani, Global CMI PDC Director, Unilever and VP MRS of India