CyberFootprint

This is the first part of a larger text dedicated to the collapse of the old paradigms in market research and finding new ways to know what is in the customers’ heads.

The classical model of market research went like this.

• Narrow down your target market
• Grab a more or less representative sample
• Distribute a few surveys and gather data
• Throw a focus group and take notes
• Feed the target market with messages distilled out of content you harvested from the focus group
• Call it a new campaign, launch it and wonder why it turned into just another mediocre waste of resources

If you are talking about research in communication, you can add another step to the aforementioned process, and that is “poll the message among the target audience”.

This model has been consistently applied throughout the years and has led to some good campaigns but never to anything truly exceptional. My concern is how do the marketers create an exceptional campaign and distill more interesting data from the audience. It’s definitely not by following the steps and coloring within the lines.

The false dogma

The dogma and behind the classical approach to market research is that the answers to the problem at hand are in consumers’ heads and if the marketers interrogate them well enough in a controlled environment, the subjects of the focus group will unveil the answers. That does not happen, though.

Why doesn’t it work? Focus groups fail to provide the marketers with good insights because the truly original ideas in consumers’ minds have to pass through layers of filters that strip them down of their originality. The most frequently used and the most hated filters are peer pressure and the need to please the questioner. And they always kick in no matter what happens in the group or for what product you are doing the testing.

Peer pressure hinders individuals

Imagine a focus group for a “boring” product, like a detergent, where there is no logical reason for peer pressure. You are one of the housewives sitting in the room and discussing emotional benefits of a brand that you seldom use and very much dislike. Then there is a group of your peers who love this brand, use it regularly and appear very vocal and sincere about both of those factors.

Even though you would love to say that you actually hate this product and cite why you do, the fear of losing face among your peers is stronger, so you tone down the response to how you are sometimes mildly dissatisfied with the detergent. Why? Because you do not want to look like the only one who is upset with the brand. Opposition is hard work and you just feel that if you disagree with the group, its members will dislike you due to your different opinion.

Marketer’s desperation

Cut to the marketer’s point of view. As the housewives are sitting in a room trying to sum up the benefits of your average detergent, sales of the product continue to take plunge. You need some high-quality input to help you to restructure the product and turn around the plummeting sales. You need an honest opinion, albeit a negative one to keep the product development going and to find new ways of marketing it to the consumers. Too bad that you are not getting any, because most of the housewives are just reiterating the messages of your latest communication campaign.

The real insight never manifests itself and you will have to base your next campaign on unsubstantial claims because the consumers just don’t tell you what they really want. They tell you what you want to hear. What are the chances that you will create an exceptional campaign out of that input?

Let us substitute this malfunctioning paradigm for something completely different. Let’s search for the answers to our questions in the social environment, mainly in culture. Analysis of the phenomena embedded in culture that surrounds us reveals observations about our target market that we wouldn’t have discovered by just asking the consumers directly.

Yes, there is a solution to this problem. You will find it in the next post that is coming up soon.

Image credit: fireflythegreat