Marianne Campbell
Marianne has worked in consumer and social sciences for close to two decades, having worked for the Cancer Council South Australia, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, and a leading national market research agency. Most recently, she ran a boutique social research and insights agency in Adelaide, working with government agencies, not-for-profit organisations, and businesses.
Marianne is an experienced quantitative and qualitative researcher, and is insistent in her ethical and rigorous approach used in the design and execution of any investigation or evaluation. She thoroughly enjoys undertaking research to understand consumer and stakeholder perspectives, guide effective communications, and ultimately shape policy and guide strategy.
As the Senior Research & Engagement Advisor at the CPRC, Marianne designs and undertakes comprehensive consumer research to inform and underpin policy recommendations that will protect and advocate for consumers.
Sessions
Today’s digital information ecosystem is complex. There are unprecedented amounts of personal information collected and shared for different purposes. It is unreasonable to expect Australians to engage meaningfully with notices from the large number of entities seeking to handle their personal information. Industry has been vocal about having to shoulder the cost of privacy regulation. But what is it costing Australian consumers?
The Consumer Policy Research Centre devised and undertook a unique social research study using an online ‘privacy sweep’ methodology across a 24 hour period from 15-16 May 2024. The aim of our research was to pilot a methodology designed to quantify the burden of time and effort placed on Australian consumers in what it takes to manage their online privacy in 2024 in Australia. This research contributes to CPRC's ongoing recommendations to the Federal Government to take a series of measures to reform the Privacy Act.
A group of citizen scientists participated in a 24 hour 'privacy sweep', which involved two tasks and a series of evaluative metrics to be undertaken for each new website or app visited within the 24 hour period. Task 1 required participants to locate and adjust the privacy settings of every website or app they engaged with, whereby the survey timed how long each action took. Task 2 required participants to use an automated word counter to conduct a word count of the privacy and cookie policies of the apps and websites they were using, logging this information into an online survey. Ease of performing each task, and understanding the policies was measured using a series of 5 point Likert scale metrics.
In total, 98 records were collected from a group of nine citizen scientists from consumer organisations and universities including CHOICE, Reset, the University of Melbourne, and CPRC; eight were based in Australia and one based in Europe. We discovered that on 45% of occasions, participants found it difficult to locate and adjust privacy settings. We also found that each site or app required anywhere from two to ten minutes of time for Australian participants to locate and adjust privacy settings. This was in stark contrast to the participant based in Europe who spent on average only 3.1 seconds per website to manage privacy settings. The sweep also revealed that the average word count of a privacy policy was 13,323 words, equating to an average reading time of 56 minutes per policy, and when aggregated over the 24 hour period, would take 14 hours on average to read all policies encountered.
Our research highlights a mismatch between community expectations and data practices. While businesses can quantify regulatory costs, the time and effort required by Australian consumers to manage their digital privacy often goes unaccounted for.
This methodology provided a rapid turnaround study that quantified the time impost placed on consumers in 2024 in Australia to manage their own privacy. While this pilot test was modest in size, it could easily be expanded in scope and tracked over time to determine if businesses practices are changing as a result of government pressure or changes to legislation that we hope to see very soon.
Increasing cost-of-living and energy prices are nudging Australians towards products that save energy and are cost-effective. In addition, climate change, sustainability and the impact of consumerism is also top of mind for many Australians, elevating the importance of environmental and social responsibility motivations and the circular economy when purchasing across various sectors.
Given these motivators of cost, and environmental consciousness, in crowded marketplaces, businesses are leveraging the use of energy efficiency and environmentally-adjacent terms to market their products, some of which can be considered "greenwashing".
Common terms used in marketing materials include “efficient”, “clean”, “green” and “sustainable”, and there are growing concerns that many ads using green terms are vague, unhelpful and unclear. These words give companies a “green halo” without helping customers to genuinely compare their options.
CPRC is part way through a multi-stage research study, funded by a grant provided by Energy Consumers Australia. The study seeks to investigate and audit the information present at the point of sale of large, energy-intensive home appliances, and provide an in-depth understanding of the consumer decision-making process when faced with a plethora of information and marketing at the point of display/purchase. We have appointed an experienced Reference Committee comprising consumer and energy policy representatives from consumer organisations and government, including CHOICE, Justice and Equity Centre, Care Financial Counselling, and the Australian Energy Regulator. Our Reference Group is assisting with content of the research as we progress through the stages.
Research stages include:
A. Mystery shopping and auditing consumer information in large appliance retail environments (August 2024). We are assessing the information and claims made about energy/environmental factors in online and offline retail settings to determine what consumers are faced with at the point of purchase. Appliance types were selected in collaboration with CHOICE’s Product Category Manager (Household), and comprised six of the more energy-intensive home appliance types: fridge, washing machine, clothes dryer, electric oven, split system air-conditioner, and electric heater.
B. Qualitative exploration of consumer views on what information they value, need and are influenced by at the point of purchase (October 2024). A series of 8 focus groups across four states with renters and home owners will explore consumer responses, attitudes, perceptions, expectations and experiences of energy-related information – overall and used in the context of large home appliances – with recent purchasers and purchase intenders. Broader issues such as barriers to electrification and energy bill stress will be explored also, highlighting differences between home ownership status and life stage.
C. Quantitative measurement of the impact of various pieces of consumer information in large appliance purchase decisions (early 2025). This stage will employ a discrete choice experiment which draws upon all information collected in the first two stages. We will be surveying n=1,500 Australians in the market for a large appliance, in a discrete choice experiment to derive the hierarchy of decision-making factors and information usage when consumers purchase large home appliances.
At the end of this study, we will understand if consumers have the information they need to assess the energy efficiency and environmental impact of home appliances, and what may need to change in the regulatory environment to ensure consumers can be confident and supported to make energy-efficient purchase decisions on large, energy-intensive home appliances.