“What do you want?”

It’s a simple question. But companies large and small struggle to engage consumers in even this basic dialogue. Consumers are difficult to motivate, and simple ‘surveys’ don’t always give retailers the tools they need.

Online Market research firm Hotspex takes care of the “what’s-in-it-for-me?” factor by incorporating elements of social networking and rewards programs into slick visual and interactive survey technology.

Hotspex rewards users with points called ‘bux’ when they participate in a survey; which could be a simple questionnaire or a sophisticated virtual reality experience.

Bux are redeemable for vouchers, music downloads and other program points, including Esso points and Airmiles. Hotspex bux can also be donated to charities or entered to win contests. For users, taking surveys and accumulating points not only becomes fun, but addictive.

Hotspex takes the results, crunches some numbers, and presents marketable ideas to their clients, who include Microsoft, McDonald’s and Petro Canada.

How it works

Becoming a “Hotspex Innovator” (what users are called) is free. Innovators join Hotspex’ online network, design their own profile and can chat with others through message boards.

“We make them feel like part of a community,” says Shane Skillen, who co-founded the company in 2000.

Depending on the results of a user’s personality questionnaire, only the surveys that are within their categories of interest are made available to them. Users can swap their ‘bux,’ through Hotspex’ partnership with Points.com, an online network that tracks and manages multiple reward program balances.

Three years ago Hotspex was a nine-person operation, today it boasts 51 employees, and the company has offices in Toronto, New York, London and Nelson, New Zealand. Hotspex reaches more than 4 million households in 40 countries.

The product(s) of conversation

One of the reasons for Hotspex’s growing client base is its method of gathering accurate and descriptive feedback, made possible through its products, each dubbed with the suffix “spex.”

IdeaSpex is a product development service. Users submit ideas into an ongoing contest for approval by their peers. Ideas rated highly by other users bubble up to the top of the list, providing submitters with notoriety as well as reward incentives.

Clients can take the highest-potential ideas into their own product development process. It’s this model that earned Hotspex the title of being the “Google of research,” by Len Gill, president and CEO of Twenty6two International, a Toronto-based venture capital marketing company.

ShopSpex provides a virtual interactive store, which helps respondents feel as though they are in a real retail environment. Once respondents “walk” to the aisle, they can interact with the shelf, revealing their individual shopping patterns.

Skillen understands the power of using visual tools to gauge consumer behaviour.

“Decision-making is emotional,” he says. “Different emotions drive intent and brand loyalty.”

Another product, EyeSpex, tracks mouse movement as a proxy for sight path, in order to determine how people navigate over an image. Respondents are asked to click on areas of the image that they find most appealing.

The application tracks the user’s cursor and records how much attention was paid to locations on the screen, offering insight to clients on how to create more eye-catching displays.

Similarly, ClickSpex is a visual diagnostic tool that maps “hot zones” – hyperlinks that are attached to an area of the image. Respondents are asked to click on whatever they like and/or dislike and rate on a 10-point scale their feelings about the graphical element. They’re also given the chance to explain in words what they liked or disliked.

“We spent a year and a half developing [our] technology,” says Skillen.

That investment seems to have paid off.

Skillen was recognized as one of Marketing Magazine’s Ones To Watch for being a young entrepreneur that has had a significant impact on the marketing community.

An award-winning client

With a team of researchers, analysts, consultants, and marketers, Hotspex gathers respondents’ input from surveys, analyzes the results, and comes up with new ideas for clients.

Last year Hotspex presented Labatt with 350 new ideas, including the Labatt Blue Cold One and the Easy Carry case. The idea for the Labatt Blue Cold One came from the results of users who were presented with images of various beer cans; using Eyespex (see below), the technology tracked which design received the most positive feedback.

Later that year, Labatt was honoured as one of the world’s leading innovators for its Labatt Blue Cold One can at the 19th annual DuPont Awards for Innovative Packaging ceremony.

Humour and a happy workforce

In its early days, finding good people to work for the company was a challenge.

“We couldn’t pay much back then,” says Skillen.

Instead, he offered prospective employees a one-of-kind work environment.

The National Post wrote an article about the connection between work humour and employee productivity, citing Hotspex as a prime example.

“[Our] environment enabled us to attract the best marketing research consultants in the world. If you have the best research consultants, [every] client wants to work [with] you,”

The future of Hotspex

Hotspex’ 30-year-old co-founder has no plans of stopping.

“It’s all about going global for us. We’ve established a great company in North America. Now I want the European market,” he says.

If Skillen’s success so far is any indication, then his goal is close at hand.

By incorporating rewards, social networking and innovative technology, Hotspex gives companies a channel in which they can discuss new products and services with their users.

And that means more and better answers to the quintessential question:

“What do you want?”