Time: Thursday, 06/03/2014: 15.45 – 16.45

Is anonymity a blessing or a curse, a bastion or a tombstone for MR? Join six well known experts from market research, customer relationship management, social media, big data analysis and law in their discussion.

The promise of anonymity is a corner stone of market research. Protecting personal data is meant to encourage participation in surveys and honesty of answers. Furthermore, in many countries a strict distinction between anonymized data for research purposes and personalized data for sales purposes helps to exclude research activities from restrictive legal regulations that apply to direct marketing.

On the other hand anonymity seems increasingly to become a stumbling block to the MR industry. Social Media and Big Data tend to act beyond privacy. Clients demand individualized information for individualized marketing purposes. Big data and customer panels open new access to samples and behavioral data. Thus, many established MR providers experience massive competitive pressure from non-anonymizing competitors.

So, is Mr. X dead? Or even more essential to the profession than ever before?

Participants:

• Jörg Blumtritt, founder and CEO of Datarella
• Dr. Lorenz Gräf, founder Globalpark, Boostpark and StartPlatz
• Hans-Werner Klein, DataBerata, market research consultant
• Finn Raben, Director General ESOMAR
• Professor Dr. Rolf Schwartmann, Cologne Media Law Research Center
• Stephan Thun, CEO Maritz Europe
• Moderation: Professor Horst Müller-Peters, Editor marktforschung.de

You can register for conference participation here.