News April 2011

We are pleased to report that after a very 'dry' 2009/10, and horrible losses in 2008/09, we have at the end of the fiscal 2010 period (ending 2011-06), a much improved position. All key metrics are up, including total number of projects, value per project and ongoing new requests. However we also notice that some sectors of the global economy are still under pressure which means our forecasts near-term remain modest. We note especially that a core region (the USA) remains far below what it used to be in spend levels in our region, and several core sectors globally including financial services, travel products & services, for example, remain 'soft' in their regional expenditure compared to our former observations. And the continuing saga of potential currency volatility is a concern.

Beyond this we are seeing strong gains in many other sectors and increasing interest even in emerging markets such as Mongolia, where we have now established field coverage competencies closely supervised and managed form our regional project management centre.

As one of the few (to our knowledge) agencies with its own proprietary databases of the rich, and even some super rich, in the developing markets of china and India as well as the 'modern' markets of HK and Singapore, we already help clients in spheres as diverse as private banking, luxury automobiles, high end fashion and accessory brands, travel and more, to study the wealthy buyers and prospective buyers in these and other markets.

Rather than repeat here the already often reported mantra of how many new millionaires there are in each country, we simply set out a few interesting 'factoids'.

** in China, many western marketers are still failing to appreciate the huge potential of the 2nd and even 3rd tier cities. For too long many marketers focused on the top 3-5 cities and did not ... in some cases still haven't, gone further. The fact is that there is huge wealth, and the same desire among the newly 'arriving' middle class to show that they have, well, 'arrived' in Shenyang or Dalian as there is in Shanghai.

In my mind, and as I keep stressing to the marketing and research buyers I meet in Europe, tier 1 cities are a marketing battle. Even if you have a good share there, and your top management are happy about the profits from these huge cities, you need to remember that the marketing war is about the next 50+ cities…..until you have 'conquered' all or most of these you cannot say you are 'in china'.

increased mobility……more direct aviation routes both domestic and international, and relaxing of (some) international restrictions / better visa access mean wealthy Chinese are traveling more and more even when they reside in smaller cities.

The rich exist beyond the top 3 cities.

Strategies which worked in the top 'point of entry' cities like Mumbai may fail in other cities ... tastes and attitudes vary, often dramatically and research is extremely helpful to understanding this!

The Research Pacific Group's President, Irwin Hankins was reelected at the AGM of The Research Alliance in Moscow as Chairman for the 2011-2012 term. Thanking the Members who voted him back in Irwin said “this I hope can be said to reflect the increasing importance of the AP region not only to other The Research Alliance members as a research buying 'destination' but also is welcomed by me as I see our own business becoming increasingly global, with clients in Asia itself looking more and more to European markets and emerging markets such as Turkey and Russia where The Research Alliance also has Members”.

James Washington, Managing Partner of Research Pacific India was elected to the management committee of the Market Research Society India. While his primary tasking in the committee is to work with other industry and external stakeholders to address issues surrounding new 'do not call' laws' impact on the Industry, he will hope to play a role in the 'democratization' of the Society to more strongly promote the views of independent agencies such as RPI, than has been possible in the past.

As always much of what we do remains impossible to describe here due to the fact we are, mainly, a custom research agency and much of our work is confidential and even subject to strict NDA conditions. To the extent that we can describe some of our more exciting and interesting current work we show a few examples below.

In Singapore the award of a large government tender from the Health Promotion Board to conduct 2,700 interviews nationwide. This survey is valued at 130,000 USD and runs until early 2012. Data collection is made using an innovative confidentiality preserving methodology called Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) which permits respondents to record their open answers orally on sensitive topics, with minimum interviewer intervention.

Also in India we are now embarking on the third round of a study among the country’s rich, for an international banking client. (Such surveys are extremely hard to conduct in India due to reticence of most rich people to self-identify, the social distance between them and even research agency management let alone fieldworkers, and a less than sympathetic disposition to surveys). Nevertheless Research Pacific India team has overcome these obstacles and has found innovative ways to reach such people with US1MIO++ assets, and is in the process of expanding its proprietary database of them across, currently, 5 cities.

From our regional project management centre we are excited to report that we have just embarked on our first ever survey in Mongolia. (As this emerging market’s economy expands we foresee a growing demand from global clients to learn about the market in both b2b and b2c spheres. Our President just spent 4 days in-market learning about the market, and establishing a local partnership to handle fieldwork here with a current focus on public issues polling).

In China Research Pacific China is currently completing a comprehensive study of soon-to-graduate college students in one province, to ascertain their awareness knowledge and preferences regarding university education, especially international universities such as our client. (Research Pacific Group has in fact developed considerable experience not only in China but in other markets in the region in the execution of carefully targeted studies in the educational sector for a variety of clients including educational publishers and service vendors as well academic institutions).

In Pakistan, our regional management centre, in collaboration with an overseas research agency, is just winding up a large-scale quantitative study among urban young adults with regards to their attitudes and 'affinity' to certain Western countries.

We ran a mystery shopping audit across more than 50 dealers of an imported luxury automobile marquee and its competition. (This is extremely hard in Japan due to the profile of the typical imported luxury auto buyer, who is a clear and distinct ‘type’ of person not normally a member of any panel or mystery shopping service! Coupled with this problem is an issue of the manner in which cars are sold in Japan, in particular the ‘research’ which salespeople do on the bonafides of every prospect, so that organising such studies can be a nightmare. Research Pacific Japan has now operated such studies several times and has found ways to develop a 'panel' of both 'real' luxury auto owners willing to handle such work as well as 'surrogates' who can 'pass' dealer scrutiny. (The same people are able to run programmes in, for example, high-end watch shops, fashion outlets etc)

Parallel to this we were running a difficult qualitative study with farmers of various types of vegetables. (Unlike most other agricultural countries in Europe for example, there is little if any 'market research infrastructure' or even interviewers outside of top cities, and certainly not even remotely close to farms!! Recruiting farmers to surveys is a major challenge, as even sometimes is locating them!) And our interviewers have discovered that the much vaunted 'Japanese politeness' is sometimes over stated…many of our interviews were conducted while walking with the farmers around their field, in their greenhouses and under other less than comfortable conditions!!