The Tyranny of Market Research
The fallacy of consumer omniscience
Most of the marketers assume that the consumers have all answers to their problems. Do you need to develop your brand? Ask the consumers, they will tell you how! Do you need to come up with new packaging? Ask the consumers, they will tell you what looks pretty! Do you need to extend the product line? Ask the consumers, they will know what is missing in their lives!
This conventional approach often leads to stagnation and awful communication. Malcolm Gladwell has shown us that the consumers are not omniscient. Jaroslav Cir also confirms it in his post about the outliers and normal distribution (in Czech). I will now contribute to the debate by indentifying some problem areas in consumer research.
A quick note on focus groups
The marketers often get an unrepresentative sample. A consumer from Northern Moravia does not think the same way like the one from Prague or Cheb. We can’t get an accurate picture out of that research. This is also one of the reasons for diversity marketing becoming increasingly popular.
Getting to the results
This is the most difficult part of the journey. The moderator asks questions and makes the group participate in a discussion. Answers often depend on what question is asked, and in what manner it’s asked. The consumers often feel threatened, because the moderator keeps asking questions they can’t relate to.
This leads to the participants closing their communication lines, and not sharing their intimate experiences with the brand. In the end, you will end up with most of the subjects saying one thing, but thinking something else. This fundamentally skews the research.
There is also a danger of groupthink (more on it here and here). Once one person psychologically dominates the situation, others subdue to his opinions. It often means that the most outspoken person owns the group. This dominance is correlated with language. Use of very certain expressions and ambiguity avoidance frames others’ minds.
Why don’t big corporations step away from this model of research? It is convenient – they have done it for ages, and they have a lot of comparable data. It is easily quantifiable – the brand manager cannot say “We have understood the psyche of some of our customers, but we can’t measure the results,” otherwise he becomes jobless overnight.
Statistics
Those who understand statistics will know better about this point. The results are often a matter of applying the right evaluation method to the data. Getting overly creative with the numbers can distort the whole work, let alone, waste your precious resources.
It is vital to look at factors influencing the consumers from different perspectives. That involves time and money which are crucial resources for everyone. The firms are getting locked in their comfort zone by passing on these opportunities.
Do you / your company take the easy way out too?
