Market Research seems in dire need of a makeover. Not in terms of its practices or workings, but in how it presents itself to the outside world. Research does not appear to have shaken off the ‘50s stereotype of bobble-hatted researchers standing on street corners with a clipboard or, worse still, thin and somewhat peculiar individuals sitting in front of Excel spreadsheets and data tables for hours on end.
Of course there is a time and a place to administer a questionnaire or analyse data, but this doesn’t represent the whole of a researcher’s responsibilities. Nothing is heard about the brighter sides of research. When do we shout about the potential for international travel, the chance to present to CEOs, Boards of Directors and company Chairmen, or having a direct influence on how almost any new product or service is shaped? The answer, it seems, is rarely.
Management Consultants, for example, have developed an image of empowerment and sophistication, yet they spend just as much time – if not more – in back offices, reading reports and playing with numbers; the same could be said for marketing professionals, branding experts, or ad men.
What, then, can be done to rectify this situation? Well, there are any number of ways in which we could revive the image of market research, but perhaps the easiest and most successful strategy would be to write a research book. This is not to say that researchers don’t already have access to a plethora of industry paperbacks. We do, and these have been excellent at helping to train, guide, and inform researchers themselves – but only once they have joined the industry. What they have not done is appealed to the general public, or gotten to the top of bestseller lists. In short, they have not had popular appeal.
At this point, a potential spanner in the works is the overriding problem of how to appeal to the masses while discussing statistical significance, interviewer effects, or sampling errors. And I agree, this is a challenge. Though not necessarily an insurmountable one. Just look at economics – the dismal science – which has been brought alive by books like Freakonomics. Mathematics has received a makeover thanks to the popular Radio 4 programme More or Less, and Malcolm Gladwell has come close to breathing life into Market Research with his books that pull together sociology, research, and psychology to produce a bestseller.
Why these books are successful is that they write about the topic rather than for the topic’s industry. Outliers is about statistics, but the focus is on the interesting anomalies found within it. Gladwell took the area of statistics, focussed on the most arresting areas, and made it successful. Freakonomics provides a peculiar and very readable account of data trends. Perhaps the most impressive book, though, is The Undercover Economist. Tim Harford manages to provide an overview of economic theory and practice – including a chapter all about economic externalities! – while at the same time creating an entertaining book which secured a place on The Sunday Times Bestsellers List.
This, then, is the challenge for Market Research. We have to believe that we are sitting on a gold mine of fantastically interesting theories, stories, anecdotes, and case studies. And we are. All we need to do is find an angle, a point of interest that the public can relate to, and write about it. Three ideas come to mind immediately.
What about how opinions are formed? We are living through a massive revolution in the way the opinion culture in unfolding (something I have discussed previously on this blog). This whole area urgently needs to be revisited. What we may have written 20 years ago about the way opinions and attitudes were formed and informed upon is now completely different. So why don’t we, as purveyors of attitudinal data and opinion research, write the book on it?
Or, how about the changing role of Market Research itself? Books documenting the rise and revolution of internet marketing seem to fly off the shelves. A similar change is taking place in the field of Market Research but little or nothing is heard about this. Surely many small businesses and entrepreneurs would be interested in the latest techniques to size their market, shape their offering, and appeal to their target audience? We know how to do this, so why not write a bestseller about it?
A final thought could be that we take a more whimsical look at research. Many years ago James Herriot brought veterinary science to life. Couldn’t Market Research do the same? I’m sure most researchers have got a cluster of entertaining anecdotes: staying in that Fawlty Towers-esque hotel in Scotland; running a focus group on prophylactics, and trying to convince Chinese immigration that being a market researcher does not mean you are involved in espionage…
Patrick Young
Tags: David Smith, DVL Smith Ltd, Freakonomics, James Herriot, Malcolm Gladwell, Market Research, More or Less, Outliers, Patrick Young, Tim Harford