New omnibus survey launched

Misco International is launching the latest in its suite of research products, Misco Omnibus Research, purposely aimed at companies and organisations which do not need a standalone survey but still want to approach the market with the questions that matter most.

“In transport and logistics there is what is known as ‘groupage’ – when individuals pool in together to bring their respective cargos from the same, shared destination, using one vehicle,” explains Morgan Parnis, business development manager at Misco International.

“In market research, we refer to this concept as ‘omnibus’, whereby clients supply their questions and contribute towards a collective survey at a reduced cost,” Mr Parnis went on to explain.

“However, although this gives the impression of a shared survey, it is not, and participating agents will enjoy full confidentiality.”

Explaining the basic concept, Mr Parnis outlined how an omnibus survey is intrinsically a method of quantitative marketing research where data on a wide variety of subjects is collected during the same interview.

“Usually, multiple research clients will provide proprietary content for the survey (thus paying to ‘get on the omnibus’), while sharing the common demographic data collected from each respondent. Omnibus surveys generally apply stratified sampling and may be conducted either by mail, telephone or internet.”

One of the main advantages, and perhaps the most obvious one, is cost-effectiveness since sampling and screening costs are shared across multiple clients. This cost-sharing method provides information from a large sample for a much lower cost than funding a standalone survey.

However, the client may gain from a number of other advantages. One is timeliness, since omnibus samples are large and interviewing is ongoing. Omnibus surveys should provide statistically robust aggregate data by sampling a large population.

The instrument design combines the use of standard questions which collect demographic and core data, with questions devised and funded by other individuals or organisations, be they government, business or academic.

“This provides survey contributors with a data set containing data resultant from their sponsored question variables, along with all core and demographic data,” said Mr Parnis.

While omnibus surveys are generally employed to gather customer feedback in a variety of areas, including buying habits, consumer attitudes and opinions and market trends, other frequent applications include studies about awareness and usage, concept testing, incidence checks and PR applications, among other things.

Misco International said its omnibus research is carried out along the lines set by professional research companies in this field.

Questions are categorised by age, gender, occupation, socio-economic grouping and size of household. As few as one and as many as 25 questions can be included in a survey with a descending scale of rates.

The sample will be selected randomly and respondents will be interviewed by a team of 20 trained professionals, using Misco’s CATI (Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing) system and supervised by a purposely trained superviser, while the coordination of the project will be in the hands of the research director.

Although an omnibus survey involves a collection of questions coming from various sources, Misco International claims it is able to assure participating companies that neither the results of the questions nor the names of the other participants will be divulged under any circumstances.

Interested parties wanting to find out more about this new service can call Mr Parnis on 2122 0303 or e-mail mparnis@miscomalta.com.