Insight Annual Round-up 2014: vouchers to be WON! NOW CLOSED

[annmumsnet]

The time has come for the insight team at MNHQ to do our annual round up of the year, to plead for those of you not yet on our panel to sign up and to thank you all for taking part in some amazing projects this year!

(In case you don't know insight covers surveys, product events, product tests and sponsored threads on MN, as well as bloggers reviews, and reviewers recruitment)

Read on for the chance to win...
~ A £100 giftcard to spend at M&S or
~ one of four £50 giftcards for Bella Italia

In 2014, we have given away around £40,000 in prizes - mainly in the form of vouchers but also including plumbing jobs, products but also Cetraben excema cream!

The range of products you have tested and given feedback on is as varied as ever – from Miele vacs, TomTom’s Go 5000 sat nav and Microsoft's Lumia 735, Xbox One Console and Linx tablet to Barny cakes and Ambrosia mini pots!

Plus we were thrilled when Mumsnetters had help getting pregnant by participating in the Clearblue Ovulation Test with Dual Hormone Indicator product test .

We have also run some extremely popular threads, enabling you to have your say on wider political issues such as the Scottish Referendum and the Cabinet Office. And really, who would have thought porridge was SUCH an engaging topic?!

We love meeting you face to face – and giving you the chance to experiences something new – from preview screenings of Annie to the family holidays at Butlins and Haven.

And loads of you enjoyed breakfast at Bella Italia with your family and recently some of you had a ‘behind the scenes’ visit to M&S.

There was even the chance to test drive the Renault Zoe, to see the videos click here

For a chance to win one of the vouchers, please share on this thread what you have enjoyed taking part in this year, or appreciated reading about. Or tell us what you’d to product test next year?

Most of the product tests are on site but we also do a lot of projects with our lovely (and fast growing) insight research panel, as well as often giving them the heads up about the latest things and chances to win on site. If you are not yet on our panel please do insight sign up now. You can select how often you get emailed and you can leave at any time if it’s not for you.

Thanks as ever for your time and feedback - all very much welcome
Happy Christmas!
AnnMumsnet, LaurelMumsnet, AngelieMumsnet, MichelleMumsnet and KathrynMumsnet.
x

I've only just joined but my daughter and I loved completing the mother and kid book survey

I tried out the Cetraben this year and love it.

I was also very lucky to go to MNHQ in March, so thank you :)

As a result of other mumsnetters trials, I purchased and love my new Dyson Cinetic Dc54 :)

I have been selected to test Tena Lights, but to my deep sorrow, I was not chosen to test a Tassimo (I think it was tassimo) coffee maker - I had to buy my own coffee maker, to better feed my addiction!

If there could be a MN test of some new yarns, next year, the mumsnet Yarnaholics would really enjoy that, I think!

It has been great fun, doing things I would never dream of like that tomatoey, oniony cheesy snack and the Bear cereal. I enjoy these little things, but would love something bigger one day, like a trip to an Ice Hotel....or a super duper bed or PC. I think it is good to keep having the little things, so we all get a chance to participate. also approve of the political and opinion ones too.

I tried a Photobook, something I have never used before. We had our son's celebration hearing in August and I had a lot of lovely photos that I wanted to make a special album from. Because it was such a special occasion I wanted to make the album a thing to look at for years to come and to look beautiful and I was really pleased with the easy way it was to order and the quality of the album. such a wonderful day remembered forever in a high quality product. Thank you

Love being on the panel and find the surveys interesting to complete, and sometimes enter the competitions.

I've been lucky enough to be picked for a couple of product trials too which I absolutely love doing, so more opportunities to try things would be fabulous.

I never buy anything now before checking if it's been trialled on MN now, and getting a review.

Merry Christmas to you all and thanks for all the opportunities!

I've entered most of the surveys and competitions (on the site, in the various talk threads and the Insight emails) this year and they've been interesting to fill out - a lot of them have made me think which is a good thing! I've not won anything though!

Despite putting my name forward for an awful lot of things I was only selected to take part in one product test this year (that I can remember) - for the Deep Freeze patches aimed at pregnant women - unfortunately I had a miscarriage before they arrived. There were a couple of trials I was really disappointed not to get on - the Bear cereals being one that sticks in my mind as I knew my daughter would love them but I ended up buying a box to try anyway after seeing the feedback and they are a regular favourite now!

I was also really keen to try the FitBug as it was a product I'd been considering buying but the feedback really put me off (and made for great reading). The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active (was that this year or last year) was similar as my iPhone had just given up when I saw that test launched and the Galaxy was a phone I was considering - the feedback saw me running back to Apple though!

I'd love more information about the number of people who apply to take part just out of curiosity - having tried for so many this year I think you have to be really, really lucky to take part so I'd be really interested to see in the feedback test threads "This thread is for the 10 Mumsnetters chosen out of the 10,000 who applied to take part in product test XXX".

In terms of products anything health and fitness would be a big hit for me, as would anything toddler food related (one increasingly fussy eater in the house here). My house is a permanent state so cleaning products are good too (gosh I'm dull!).

Make up and skincare would also be good - especially some of the premium brands. It was a while ago but the Clinique BB cream test was interesting to read about and I'm still looking for good products (and you only have to dip into Style and Beauty to find a lot of Mumsnetters also looking for good product recommendations).

Of course a nice cocktail test would go down a real treat (and would obviously help with the messy house and lack of fitness because after a few cocktails neither of those things bother me so much ...).

I really like my cewe photo book, it is a great keep sake of family photos, in fact we are planning another book.

So many of the surveys are about advertising, it is repetitive, more variety of surveys would be better.

I would like to test some cloth nappies actually.

I've enjoyed doing the surveys this year .

I'd like more events which are not in London or the south east . There are millions of us living elsewhere in the UK you know !

And I'd like feedback from the companies letting us know what they are doing with the information we have given

I also think the companies could be a little more generous with the vouchers - £100 isn't very much for a large company getting so much free market research

Very sorry we couldn't make it to Annie. I hope everyone who went enjoyed it. I'd like to test anything that can cure a 3-year-old's sleep problems!

Wow some people have been really lucky this year. Keep the tests coming and hopefully I'll get some exciting ones next year! I've enjoyed sharing my opinions and being on the chocolate panel (especially the treats we were sent early in the year!).

I wouldn't say it was exactly enjoyable, but I was very glad to have had the chance to review the fitbug, as it made me realise that I am better off without something like that and that I just need to get out more, do a bit more, eat a bit less (crap) and not think about gadgets.

I'd very much like to see more relating to older children too (14 - 18) as there does seem to be a lot of exclusively baby related surveys and would be good to have more balance.

I tend to avoid surveys etc with a 'Love to Shop' voucher forva prize as I don't know what itbis and fear Ibwill have to sign up to something and give personal details online (yet again) in order to use it.

I always check to see what topics are available... I applied for the Miele and Karcher trials, but was unlucky this year. I have enjoyed reading people's thoughts when they have tried them though. I did do the Always trial, and gave my opinions for others to read.
I am looking forward to 2015's new things to experience.

My favourite was the photo book because I loved it and will use the. Company again,plus it saved me the cost of one of my regular family photo books.

I've done loads of surveys and applied for a fair few trials (although there were lots where we didn't quite fit one of the criteria, and some of the big ones were for appliances we'd just replaced) but I never win any vouchers, and when we didn't get to try the Bear cereal, which was a huge test, I was feeling a tiny bit disheartened.

However, as my name suggests, the year ended with a bang, and we're currently testing a huge bundle of stuff for Microsoft which was absolutely perfect for us. So thanks MNHQ and here's hoping that all the testers who had a poor run of luck in 2014 get something great to test (or a voucher) in 2015.

As for what I'd like to test, I think personal clothes shoppers would be good. Or clothes - even tights and knickers. I agree that food testing is always fun (I do loads of that for Ocado), and there doesn't seem to have been much toy testing recently, although my DC are a bit old for that now. I'd definitely love more film screenings. The Despicable Me 2 preview a couple of years ago was fantastic, and I was gutted that we weren't available on the day of the Star Wars Rebels event so couldn't even apply - (Annie wasn't our cup of tea).

Thanks again.

I've found I tend to get to test something good every other year or so, which seems pretty good and fair. I've never won any vouchers though (there must be so many people to pick from, hardly surprising.)

No product tests Thi year as far as I can remember - possibly srair gates (which was very useful) but cant remember how long ago! Would love the chance to test things next year - especially yummy things to eat or things to make housework easier!

I have really enjoyed being part of the panel again. One of the highlights for testing for me were the ambrosia pots :) they tasted very good!! I was so grateful to win two vouchers this year, I'm going shopping tomorrow to buy my first ever nice new changing bag with it (farewell old second hand bag!). So thankyou :)
I'd love more of the same type of things that you are doing really. I'd love a chance to eat out somewhere, go to a cinema, holiday, or experience something or test something like a road bike? And test more baby/ toddler things.
Thankyou and merry Christmas mums net!

I have had another year of food relating testing, the children have enjoyed cereal, cakes and cheese products and I have enjoyed avoiding all of those on a three month weight watchers test.

Fingers crossed next year we will get a non food related test as well as some more food.

The children take it very seriously and give me very detailed reports on their views of the products which I have to try and condense into concise reviews.

I was really lucky to start the year by testing the Pruhealth Vitality programme. It was an amazing 8 weeks that the rest of the year didn't quite live up to in terms of personally being so treated or spoiled!

As you can tell I did really enjoy that! I eased off for a bit after that but still like to fill out surveys on my commute. I do like checking MN opinion on products & DP also gets me to look before we buy things. I would like to see more health & fitness surveys, travel (especially with toddlers and/or Tweens) bit specialist but something that can include dc's with a bit of an age gap as it is difficult to find things we can do as a family.

Thank you for everything!

We enjoyed our Bella Breakfast and the Aldi washing powder. I like getting to be part of trying different things and hope that companies take our collective feedback seriously and that we are not just cheap advertising.

Thinking about things to test in the future, pens, food, craft things for the children would all go down well.

I haven't been picked to test anything yet. However, I have won a couple of things on MN sponsored threads which was lovely.

I'd love to test pens (stationery geek!) and food items.

I just feel lucky to be involved. The information asked for is normally minimal and not labour intensive so I can sit and do it in the evening. I would defiantely encourage people to join in or up :)
I have been picked for a couple of things but not won anything yet. Am hoping 2015 is my year :)

Thanks for giving us these opportinities! i was lucky and got a bella italia braakfast which was fabulous. everyone enjoyed giving their comments, the whole damily joined in. I would love to test out some shoes in 2015, or some camping equipment.