(CelebrityAccess News Service) – Clickin, an Austin based marketing research company, captured the real-time opinions of attendees at the Austin City Limits Music Festival using mobile phones on a variety of carriers. "Our objective was to gather real-time insights on attendees' opinions of the festival while they were at the festival and while they're in the midst of the experience itself," according to Dr. Martha Russell, president of Clickin Research, Inc. "Audience protocols require muting cell phones during performances. Our research process allowed this audience to silently use waiting time and their cell phones to tell us what they thought about the festival."
Attendees, who had first completed a Clickin survey about their perceptions of Austin City Limits, received a text message on their cell phones. The message gave them a web URL to access, using their cell phones, for a survey about their ACL festival experience. Other festival attendees keyed in the survey URL at the festival or used mobile phones made available at the festival by Cingular Wireless.
"The results of this research will help us to better understand how the Austin City Limits Music Festival contributes to the image of the city of Austin as well as to help increase audience for the KLRU-Austin City Limits Television Program," said Bart Knaggs, managing partner of Capital Sports and Entertainment, the agency that manages and promotes Austin City Limits Music Festival and Program.
The research application for the cell phones is a real-time survey and data collection tool that operates on cell phones and connected PDAs. "As data collection becomes more real-time, wireless networks will be used increasingly for conducting survey research," commented Leslie Townsend, president of Mobile Memoir, LLC, the company that provided the data collection tool.
"Tapping consumer opinions while they are involved with the product — in this case, the Austin City Limits Music Festival — is very important to obtaining key insights that lead to optimizing the customer experience." Russell added, "In today's media environment, great brands are synonymous with great experiences. Capital Sports and Entertainment will use these on- site opinions of festival attendees to create the best possible experience at future Festivals and to strengthen the Austin City Limits Program, one of Austin's most widely known products." –Jane Cohen and Bob Grossweiner
