The outbreak of Coronavirus is a rapidly evolving situation which is presenting challenges for people at all levels of society. At Acumen we’ve been working hard to prepare for these and many other adverse situations that can arise and impact the work we do day to day.

Our first priority is always ensuring the safety of our team, the clients who work with us, our partners in the research supply chain and, of course, the public who participate in our many and varied research projects.

We have been listening to the advice provided by the UK Government, the NHS and the World Health Organisation and have responded with a number of measures to help us as the situation evolves.

In terms of our day to day operation it is still very much business as usual at the moment. We are still operating at normal capacity, quoting on projects, organising research, and delivering our usual high level of service every day. In the event that the spread of Coronavirus would impact our ability to work from our office then we have contingencies in place to allow any of our team to work remotely, ensuring there would be no disruption to our services.

We have also implemented a number of measures to the way we’re working in an effort to mitigate the risk posed by Coronavirus to our participants, clients and research partners.

All screening material now includes questions which encourage participants to self-isolate and contact the relevant health authorities if they have either personally visited or been in contact with someone who has visited any of the most severely affected countries in the last 14 days. This is irrespective of whether they are displaying symptoms or not.

For participants who are due to take part in research we have implemented an SMS system to request that; “Given the evolving COVID-19 situation we request that, prior to attending any research, you follow the public health advice relevant to any recent travel you may have completed or symptoms you are experiencing.”

Additionally, we are providing all participants, interviewers and researchers with information on how they can practise good hand hygiene and advising them on how to minimise contact through social distancing and avoiding physical contact.

We have also been in constant communication with the many venues, interviewers and other suppliers that we work with to deliver our research services to ensure that all our following the latest advice on the ways to mitigate the impact of Coronavirus on our industry. Further information can be found via the MRS website here.

The main focus of our business is to plan for all eventualities but if you have any questions about current or future research projects that you would like assistance with then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

The Acumen team are ready to help.

LAST UPDATED: 11/03/2020 – 16:00

For the past four weeks the team at Acumen have been probing public opinion throughout the UK with a string of surveys to coincide with the upcoming General Election. The surveys, which were sent out to a database of over 110,000 market research participants courtesy of the team at Research Opinions, quizzed the British people about their views on everything from the prospective leaders, the party manifestos and the big issues facing the nation.

The surveys scrutinised two key areas of public attitude; how well each of the party leaders were perceived to be doing and which political party the public were intending to vote for. In addition to this we asked key questions on a range of issues which arose organically throughout the election cycle with each survey timed to gather responses at significant milestones over the past four weeks – such as the leaders debate and the release of the party manifestos.

Having access to such a large pool of potential participants from right across the UK gave us a significant advantage. Additionally, as the participants on the Research Opinions database have all opted in to participate in market research, it also meant we had a community who were engaged and willing to share their opinions. From this we were able to return results for a large sample of the population, from across the UK, and then track shifting attitudes towards the leaders and their parties as events unfolded throughout the election cycle.

Key Trends

The findings of our research showed an early lead for the Conservative party in the week following the announcement of a General Election, with the Conservatives proving to be more popular across the UK by 2-3{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456}. However, this lead seemed to plateau while Labour, who were initially trailing behind the incumbent government, began to increase their support with a steady upsurge in people stating their willingness to support Labour over successive surveys on 20th November, 27th November and 3rd December. This culminated in the Labour party taking a small lead over the Conservative party with 39{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} of people stating their intention to vote for a Labour government and 36{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} for the Tories.

While this seems to contradict many other pre-existing or established polls, we have seen a more consistent voting intention with regards to both the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party; with the latter losing support, possibly due to the arrangement with the Conservatives not to contest specific seats. This might also be key to any possible interpretations of the data as it’s not just the Brexit Party who have discussed tactical voting tactics in specific constituencies. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have all spoken at local levels about the need to vote tactically in a bid to forestall a Tory win.

The ‘least worst’ option

This idea of people potentially voting for their ‘least worst’ option may be at least partially substantiated by the results to another key question we tracked over the past 4 weeks. In addition to asking people about their voting intentions we also wanted to understand peoples’ perceptions of the leaders. The specific question we asked was to rate each leader’s performance in their role so far, with 4 graded options.

Taking all of the data together it paints a dim view of the leaders with Boris Johnson’s performance declining, but still maintaining, a lead. Jeremy Corbyn by contrast saw a minor increase in his performance rating but was still seen less favourably by the majority of the people we surveyed. Nigel Farage and Jo Swinson also received significant negative responses to the question of their performance. This, to some extent, could suggest a high level of apathy towards the potential leaders of the UK even among voters who have been highly engaged with the political process and the repeated surveys they’ve wanted to participate in.

Swing votes

Away from the broader view of the candidates we were also able to determine the public approval within their core audiences; specifically, the people who have stated their intention to back either the Conservatives or Labour. Within those groups the Conservative electorate were least likely to rate Johnsons performance negatively with 88{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} praising his performance and 12{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} viewed it critically. In contrast Corbyn managed to achieve a 76{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} approval score while 23{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} rated him badly. The view from both Liberal Democrat voters and The Brexit Party was somewhat more mixed with only 6{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} of Liberal Democrat voters rating Boris Johnson positively and 13{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} of sharing a similar view of Jeremy Corbyn. Meanwhile 74{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} of Brexit Party voters approved of Johnson’s performance versus 100{507235cd7bf177eea4c9d7ffa05443f1fb50bb3c683fc377ad5ed86dac05d456} disapproving of Corbyn’s.

There may be no surprises in any of these numbers for people who’ve been following the twists and turns of the General Election over the past four weeks, but it does seem to indicate that while people might be stating their broad support, perhaps one of the biggest obstacles facing each of the parties is that over their own leaders. How that materialises tomorrow in the voting booth remains to be seen. Some may set aside their personal dislike of the national candidates in favour of their stated party while others may choose to set aside party allegiance in order to secure a government which most closely reflects their political interests.

Is the end in sight?

It has been an intense period of debate with many unforeseeable moments both propelling and pulling down on the fortunes of all of the parties and their leaders. With 24 hours remaining there are still potential twists that could provide for a surprise ending but, from our perspective, it could also be something we’ve already seen before.

We’re getting into the festive spirit in the Acumen office with a Christmas campaign that’s sure to get you in the mood in the run up to the big day.

With only 15 working days left until we wrap up for Christmas, we’ll be running a competition where you can win prizes which include the Amazon Echo Plus, a Jo Malone Cracker, 3 Months of Fresh Flowers delivered right to your desk and a Luxury Spa Day for Two!

All you need to do to win some of these fabulous prizes is go to our Team page each day and discover who has received a Christmas makeover. To reveal who it might be, simply click or hover over one of the team pictures to animate the GIF and, if you’ve found the right one, you should see one of the Acumen team with some eye-popping animation on their GIF.

To enter into our daily prize draw simply email the name of the person you think it is to enquiries@acumenfieldwork.com

Winners will be selected at random and notified by email.

Good Luck!

Ahead of the General Election we’ve been asking people what they think about the major political parties, their leaders and what issues matter the most to them in the upcoming election.

In the first of our surveys that went out to the Research Opinions community last week we were able to collect a range of views from prospective voters across the country. One of the most decisive questions was about the big issues facing the nation. Top of the list was Brexit followed by concerns on the NHS, crime, the economy and the environment. Interestingly when we asked which issues concerned people personally, the responses we received put crime into fourth place while the NHS edged in front of Brexit – suggesting that people have different concerns when thinking about their personal circumstances versus the big issues they view as facing the nation.

This may have been reflected in another question put to voters. When asked about which leader’s government they’d personally favour to deal specifically with Brexit, people were equally divided. Only 39% supported the idea of a Boris Johnson led government while 36% supported the notion of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership; crucially the remaining 26% were unable to decide.

It seems that the potential leaders are proving to be particularly unpopular. When asked to rate the performance of both Johnson and Corbyn 59% of participants rated Johnson as performing badly while 68% gave Corbyn the same rating of disapproval. How this will play out as we head further into the election cycle remains to be seen with both candidates, vying for the top job in the government, take to their debating podiums this evening.

Acumen will be tracking the public sentiment and attitudes around the upcoming election with a series of polls going out over the coming weeks. Make sure you’re following all the news on our social media channels and checking our website for regular updates.

To find out more about how we can help with your research, whatever the subject, contact becki.pickering@acumenfieldwork.com

Hannah O Donoghue Hobbs shares some of her insights on making the most out of social media. As a marketing executive within the Fuller Research Group of companies, she’s our resident expert on all things social.

Whether it’s creating eye-catching content to reach new market research audiences or long-term brand engagement campaigns– she’s got some top tips for all social media channels.

1. Think about your audience

Before you can even begin creating content for social media you have to think about who you’re trying to target. The answer to this will inform everything that happens next. While LinkedIn is best for B2B audiences and Facebook is known for building communities and starting wider conversations there’s also a number of other factors to consider.

The time of day that post content is also a key factor in determining how successful your content will be in connecting with an audience. If you’re trying to communicate with people who work a typical working week then key times to aim for are 6am and 6pm when that audience is more likely to be checking their social media feeds.

To ensure that you are consistently hitting those important time-zones you can use an array of scheduling tools – many are freely available online.

2. Good Karma for Social Media

When it comes to building a consistent and strong presence on any social media platform there is really simple rule to follow; you get out what you put in.

One of the most common misconceptions about social media is that it’s all about distributing content that automatically taps into your audience. In reality most brands that are successful on social media have built their following by engaging their audience. This comes from starting conversations and returning to them. It isn’t a one-sided discussion and they’re flexible and dynamic to what their followers are talking about.

It pays to be social and savvy followers are more likely to engage when they feel part of the conversation.

3. Jab, jab, jab, right hook!

This highly technical term is actually a practical way to remember how to vary your approach to social media content.

Think of the right-hook as the curated piece of content which has specific aims, benefits or, more specifically, a clear call to action. This is the post that you want to land with your audience, inviting them to respond or act in a clear way.

For more information on how we can engage participants through social media get in touch with becki.harrison@acumenfieldwork.com

At Acumen we’ve always championed the importance of quality assured research services through our work within the industry. Whether that’s through Acumonitor, our bespoke tool for detecting fraudulent participants, or the rigorous standards of our ISO 20252 accreditation.

We’re thrilled to announce that our most recent ISO20252 audit can now be announced and, once again, we have passed with zero discrepancies – meaning that we are fully compliant with the industry standards for all methodologies of market research.

This year’s audit has been led by Liz Diez who took over the role of Head of Compliance & Business Development after working at Acumen as a senior project manager. With her keen eye for detail Liz has been ably leading our teams through the changes brought in by the implementation of the GDPR and ensuring this works to complement our existing ISO20252 accreditation.

With the news that we have passed once again without a single discrepancy we’ll be continuing in our work leading the way in the industry on high quality market research services.

To celebrate the International Day of the Girl we’re looking back over some of the important work done by members of our team when they volunteered in Sierra Leone as part of an initiative to help young women.

Earlier this year Lizzie Coultas, our Head of Healthcare Market Research, and Julie Fuller, our business founder, travelled to Sierra Leone to assist on a charitable project, organised by Teams4U. The objective of this initiative was to empower girls and young women by providing them with resources they need to succeed in life. This included basic items such as school resources, bras and sanitary products which, due to a lack of access, often prevent young women from staying in education.

The team were also involved with a local college, helping to refurbish classrooms to provide vocational training to young women and provide them with an income.

Hear about Lizzie’s experiences in the short video below

Beyond the voluntary work that Julie, Lizzie and the other volunteers did in Sierra Leone, we also raised funds of over £16,000 which went directly to the institutions we were working with in Sierra Leone. For this we would like to thank all of the generous donations we received, including The Research Club and all the individuals who helped with each of our fundraising activities.

International Day of the Girl is a United Nations initiative which seeks to highlight many of the unique challenges faced by girls and young women around the world. By working with Teams4U we have witnessed the reality of these struggles and welcome the broader awareness that today brings.

It’s World Mental Health Day and to mark this year’s awareness day we’re announcing the appointment of three Mental Health First-Aiders within the company. Laura Baxter, Charlotte Neild and Emily Basnett will be the first members of the wider company to receive this training.

We’ve always recognised the importance of an open and honest work culture and, as we’ve grown, we’ve also come to understand the importance of our role in providing effective and positive support for all the people who work with us. The average British person spends just over 1800 hours per year at work (a third of their waking hours!), so it’s essential that we continue to invest in the people that have made our business successful.

Stigma around mental health remains a key issue in the UK and we encourage our senior members of staff to keep an open dialogue with their teams. In a recent feedback survey, over 80% of our employees said that they were happy to chat with their line manager if they were suffering with work or home related stress.

We’re proud to put the wellbeing of our employees at the forefront and this investment in the MHFA scheme will ensure that that all of our teams feel safe and supported in the workplace. You can learn more about the training scheme by going to the MHFA England website and you can download materials relating to mental health in the workplace by visiting Time to Change.

Matt Barker recently joined Acumen’s Quantitative market reseach fieldwork team, after working in both Qualitative Recruitment and Fieldwork. Here he puts together his thoughts on the 5 things that made his recent Hall Test a success.

Location, Location, Location
The right location is key to a successful hall test. It’s worth thinking about what location is going to ensure you are getting your target completes. At Acumen we take various things in to account when deciding upon a location. Are you looking to speak to city slickers about a new snack smoothie targeted to lunch time shoppers? Or is your sample more of a suburban, family type? Ensure you are considering who you are wanting to talk to when picking a venue.

Dream Team
As with any winning team, you need the right players. It is important each and every member knows their role in the data collection process, as well as having an understanding of your research aims. Doing so will steer your players to make decisions that benefit your research, not hinder it.

Sensible Questionnaire
The importance of a sensible questionnaire is paramount; it must meet your research objectives firstly whilst being designed in a way to avoid leading questions, unnecessary repetition of details whilst ensuring you’re eliciting the right level of detail for your research. Balancing these demands can be a high-wire act but if done correctly, it creates a solid foundation to build your project on.

Incentives
Having run hall tests in one shape or form since Acumen’s formation, 10+ years ago, we know about setting the right price to get the completes we need. Incentives vary from project to project, and considerations include the length of time it takes a participant to complete the test, in addition to the research subject the level of detail needed. Generally, we follow the MRS Guidance that anything upward of 5 minutes should be incentivised. As with everything in life – time is money!

Good Communications
Without proper lines of communication, valuable data can be lost in the process of a participant coming through the door, to them leaving. A key to a successful Hall Test is a clear briefing before fieldwork begins, timely updates throughout and ensuring everyone involved knows that there is no such thing as a silly question.

With all these things in mind you can be sure that your Hall Test runs smoothly from start to finish. For more information on getting your fieldwork off to a flying start speak to Acumen on 0161 234 9940 or email