The current Canadian government has made no secret of its disdain for traditional public opinion research. They have slashed budgets for public opinion research and curtailed the number of studies being commissioned.

So, it’s not surprising that alternatives to conventional market research should be a hot topic in Canada’s capital.

The Ottawa Chapter of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association will feed this discussion at an upcoming luncheon seminar. According to the event description:

Michael Sloboda, Director of Media Intelligence for MediaMiser, will give a presentation revolving around both social and traditional media scans, content analysis and how to combine tone, attention, and prominence to derive a metric for Media Visibility. This will apply to print, online, and broadcast media.

This concept (Media Visibility) is being used both private and public companies and departments as a surrogate for primary market research such as surveys and to corroborate other types of analysis in activities such as program evaluations and benchmarking. The presenter will review the method, tools, and present a case study.

This presentation will provide the audience with a new approach to get an understanding of public opinions on issues, programs, or brands via media scanning and content analysis.

This sounds interesting. It’s not something I’ve gotten my mind around. So I plan to attend to hear what Michael has to say.

What do you think? Is this a concept you’re familiar with? Do you subscribe to the notion that “media visibility” can be used as a surrogate for primary market research?