As you assess the capabilities of consumer survey companies to support your Las Vegas case with precise, reliable survey data, consider a specialty research consultancy like Keegan & Donato Consulting. We are highly qualified experts who can quickly deliver intelligence within a wide range of budgets.
Keegan & Donato Consulting, located in Rye, New York, serves clients across the nation. We work on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants to provide research, analysis, affidavits, declarations, expert reports, and rebuttal reports as needed in support of trademark infringement and trade-dress litigation, and have collaborated extensively on cases involving a wide range of marketing, business and financial issues.
With a combined 25 years of experience in conducting consumer research studies, and membership in the International Trademark Association (INTA), the American Marketing Association (AMA), and ESOMAR, the leading global association for market, social and opinion researchers, principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato have wide-ranging skills and exceptional tools that can help strengthen your case.
Value of Consumer Surveys
Consumer research studies are commonly employed to prove likelihood of confusion, strength of mark, acquired distinctiveness, secondary meaning, dilution, and other Lanham Act issues in the context of trademark and trade-dress litigation.
Consumer research studies are also an invaluable tool for gauging consumer perception of products or services and examining issues such as the extent to which particular marketing claims influence consumer demand for a product, how marketing communications impact consumer likelihood of purchase, and the relationship between marketing communications and the consumer’s willingness to pay a premium for a product.
Although good survey evidence can be powerful, consumer surveys typically are not accepted without challenge. Courts demand accurate, real-world data, and poor designs and methodological flaws can result in partial or full exclusion of survey evidence from a case.
Survey Flaws Can Damage Your Case
An overly broad survey that fails to address the key issues in a case, asks leading, suggestive or ambiguous questions, samples from the wrong geographic area, etc., even if based on an accepted standard methodology, may be deemed inadmissible or given little weight.
For example, in Elliott v. Google, Inc., 45 F. Supp. 3d 1156 – Dist. Court, D. Arizona (2014), the plaintiff’s surveys were deemed inadmissible because the Court determined them to be unscientific and poorly constructed. The survey expert was also rejected as unqualified “to design a survey or to interpret survey results.”
In Pinterest, Inc. v. Pintrips, Inc., Case No. 13-cv-04608-HSG, Dist. Court, N.D. California (2015), the plaintiff introduced two surveys to support its claim of consumer confusion over the defendant’s use of the word “pin.” The Court determined that “fatal defects in the design of each survey render their results meaningless to the resolution of this lawsuit.”
Survey Best Practices
At Keegan & Donato Consulting, we consider methodological design among the most important aspects of designing a consumer research study. We have conducted and critiqued hundreds of studies across industries ranging from designer apparel to high-end audio products and everything in between.
We obtain high-quality information from a representative sample of the targeted population and have strict procedures in place to minimize potential biases in data collection. Survey samples are obtained from prominent marketing research companies that maintain multi-million-member online consumer panels.
Some of the industry best practices we have built into our survey designs include:
- Rigorous and valid design;
- Appropriate universe selection and sampling frame;
- Inclusion of representative, qualified respondents;
- Use of objective, non-leading questions;
- Use of procedures to reduce guessing among respondents; and
- Full analysis and reporting of survey data.
Consumer survey companies like Keegan & Donato Consulting can help you solve your biggest IP litigation and marketing research challenges in Las Vegas with the help of the actionable insight gained from a methodologically sound consumer survey. Call us today at (914) 967-9421 to find out more about our services.