Good morning. I'm Brendan Wycks and I'm the executive director of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, or MRIA for short.
With me is MRIA member Annie Pettit, who is vice-president of research standards and chief research officer at Conversition, a leading provider of social media research in Canada. Annie holds a PhD in experimental psychology and is regarded as an authority on research data quality, its relevance and reliability. Annie was also one of the Canadian representatives who was at the table in a global research industry associations initiative to develop social media research guidelines, which we'll address a little later in our presentation.
I'd like to start off by thanking the members of this committee for inviting MRIA to appear before you today and giving us the opportunity to present our industry's views on the matters you are considering.
First, a quick bit of background about MRIA. We are the national, voluntary self-regulatory organization that governs and represents both individual practitioners and companies in all sectors of Canada's marketing, survey, public opinion research, and market intelligence industry.
Our membership comprises more than 1,800 individual research practitioners and close to 400 corporate members. Our corporate membership is made up of small to large research agencies, which are suppliers of research services, along with many buyers of research services, such as financial institutions, major retailers, insurance companies, telecommunications firms, packaged goods companies, pharmaceutical firms, and other manufacturers.
As you will hear from Annie, social media research is a rapidly growing area of our industry. More and more, public policy and corporate decision-makers look to our members to help them gain a better understanding of Canadians through their digital activity, and in particular a better understanding of the opinions they share online.
MRIA is very supportive of this committee's initiative to undertake this important and relevant study. In that connection, it's an absolute priority for our association that our members adhere to high and rigorous standards, particularly when it comes to protecting the personal information of Canadians, whether on a survey telephone call, at a focus group, or online. And we would hope Parliament will help ensure that all other industries treat privacy protection just as seriously.
As you consider the testimony from various witnesses, we ask you to keep in mind the following with respect to our industry. There are three main characteristics that define marketing and survey research and that differentiate our work from other industries, such as social media marketers.
First, legitimate survey researchers never attempt to sell anything or solicit in any form. In fact, solicitation violates our rigorous code of conduct and good practice.
Second, we have a long history of industry self-regulation that has been recognized as effective by lawmakers in Canada and that has formed the foundation of a positive and productive trust relationship we enjoy with Canadians, trust that has been earned over many decades. In that connection, MRIA was the first marketing research industry association in the world to develop a charter of respondent rights, which we launched here on Parliament Hill in October 2006.
Third, survey research gives Canadians an opportunity to voice their opinions and to influence public policy and corporate decisions that will affect their lives, thereby serving a valuable societal purpose.
With regard to social media research specifically, MRIA has been an instrumental player in a global initiative to develop guidelines around ethical social media research. This initiative has been led by our counterpart organization in Europe, ESOMAR, with participation and input from MRIA and several other industry associations around the world.
Annie Pettit was one of two Canadian representatives from MRIA to participate in that important work. MRIA is now in the process of codifying those social media research guidelines and building them into our standards code, with which our members must comply.
I'm going to hand off now to Annie, who will provide an overview of the types of activities our industry undertakes in the digital world and of the many safeguards our members observe to protect the privacy of online Canadians. After Annie's remarks, I'll provide a brief conclusion.