I was scrolling through the intriguingly angled Market Research Deathwatch blog, writing about an industry where "the status quo is obsolete, and we face a choice between extinction and evolution". I came across the post, Panels have an image problem. The cry was that images on research sites of survey panel participants -unnaturally happy, unnaturally diverse - are destroying credibility of the firms. It reminded me of an idea I had to take four of my best friends and fraternity brothers, a ridiculously diverse of multicultural millenials, including one Caucasian from Minneapolis, one Hispanic from San Diego, one African American from Kansas City, one Persian born in Ecuador, and a Japanese guy. We could attempt to offer ourselves up for paid focus groups or product and event sponsorships. Pretty ridiculous, maybe unethical, ironically it would likely be unbelievable - but how cool would it be for a client to ask their request of their research firm, "We'd like as diverse a group of male multicultural millenials as we can find", and the response they receive, "We know just the guys..." Could at least make a difference in the war against kitschy survey panel photos.
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