The Marketing Research Foundation (MRF) is pleased to announce its quarterly release of the Marketing All Product Survey (MAPS). The next release encompasses nine-month data (July 2020 to March 2021) and will be released towards the end of June 2021 before fieldwork continues for the first full year dataset, set for release in October.
“The data collection for the first quarter of 2021 has been completed and is currently being verified in preparation for the MRF’s scrutiny process,” says MRF’s CEO, Johann Koster. “I can confirm that this is an intensive task that tests the integrity and stability of the data, which is managed by the MRF Research Committee.”
Just as the MAPS Wave 1 data was completed, the data will be prepared for final release together with the data tree going to the software bureaux beforehand enabling subscribers and their agencies access to the updated data. The exact release date will be confirmed at a later stage by the MRF.
Data from Wave1 (July – Dec 2020 fieldwork period) was presented to subscribers on 18 March and to the broader industry on 25 March this year. “We are exceptionally pleased that the results have been so well received and feedback from subscribers has all been very positive,” confirms Koster. “I would also like to thank Plus94 Research for the sterling and professional work put in to complete, and the continuation of the MAPS fieldwork.”
“Conducting research during the global pandemic was challenging but it will be interesting to see how the consumer’s behaviour changed from the release of the first wave to the results of the 4th quarter,” says Virginia Hollis, the MRF’s Board Chairperson. “Notwithstanding the hurdles MAPS’s fieldwork faced during Covid, we and our subscribers are confident that this data will have a great impact in the daily planning and strategic focus of our marketers and agencies.”
Currently, the MRF is in the process of reviewing both the MAPS face to face questionnaire and branded diary. The first six-month fieldwork period and data release has afforded the MRF the opportunity to gauge the performance of the questionnaire in field as well as the data that has resulted. These learnings will be applied to improve the MAPS questionnaire.
Over and above the learnings taken from the results to date, MAPS subscribers were asked to send proposals of what changes they would like to see in the questionnaire, and excellent feedback was received. These proposals will now be considered by the Research Committee over the next couple of weeks, when the questionnaire will be finalised for fieldwork starting on the 1st July 2021.
“Fieldwork for the second quarter of 2021 has progressed well and we aim to release that data in October 2021 which will be the first full twelve-month dataset with quarterly updates continuing every three months thereafter,” concludes Koster.
“We look forward to sharing the updated MAPS quarterly data next month and getting the fieldwork started for the very first iteration of our full year dataset.”
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