BY ALLISON ENRIGHT//MANAGING EDITOR

allisonenright@ama.org

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The sea change wrought by the recession is causing researchers to adjust their focus and reassess their processes to prove their worth

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BY ALLISON ENRIGHT//MANAGING EDITOR

allisonenright@ama.org

T he con� uence of demands forced upon businesses today by the new economy has created an opportunity for marketing researchers to prove their value to their organizations. But to do that, researchers need to

quickly adapt to some new realities.Consumers and businesses have dramatically changed their decision-

making and purchasing strategies. As a result, “[we are] trying to get context in a world where you have no context. [Consumers] are inventing context now,” says Rose Cameron, chief strategy officer at marketing agency Euro RSCG in Chicago, noting that this trend, while born prior to the economic recession, was magnified by it. The trend leaves a lot of the historical data and some research techniques researchers are accustomed to using carrying little weight now.

� e recession reinforced the importance of speed and nimbleness to business survival and this, by e� ect, has changed the types and amount of research being done.

“Tactical and strategic research initiatives still have roles in improv-ing the ways decisions are made, however during the recession the balance has shifted,” says Jamie Baker-Prewitt, senior vice president and director of decision sciences at Burke Inc. in Cincinnati. “Research execs unanimously reported [in a Burke survey to clients] that [companies] are making more tactical decisions without research.”

Instead, Baker-Prewitt says, businesses are redirecting research toward stra-tegic work—the potentially high-value projects that may be key to their survival. A study of market researchers and corporate line managers conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that, on average, 20-35% of a company’s market research budget is invested in strategic research studies. � e data for BCG’s Consumer Insight Benchmarking 2009 report was collected last spring.

Tree MailZZZZThe recession

reinforced the importance

of speed and nimbleness to

business survival, and this has

changed the types and amount of

research being done.

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Ravi Parmeswar, managing director of global consumer and market-place insights at Citi, a division of New York-based Citigroup Inc., and a featured keynote speaker at the AMA’s Marketing Research Conference last October, contends that long-term research is important, but research-ers working within business institutions must be ready to deliver on the changes demanded at the business decision-making stage, too.

“� ere will always be certain studies that are OK that take three to six months; those are strategic rather than tactical. � ere is space for that research, but when you are running a business and looking at this quarter’s numbers, you have to put systems in place that are more real-time, where it

is about getting the [essential] information [to help make a decision] faster. It is more about knowing that you are never going to have 100% of the information … and that you’re not going to mitigate all the risk. � e real compe-tency is about taking action and making real-time changes as you experience it,” he says.

Cameron gives an example of new-world-order thinking that crosses both the stra-tegic and tactical lines of research. A Euro RSCG client in the home category had spent two to three years developing a new product. � e housing crash and recession forced the company to confront the fact that the orig-inal target market was no longer the right customer. “� ey said: ‘� is product was orig-inally developed for a di� erent marketplace. What amendments do we have to make to this product to make it relevant?’ ” Cameron says. � e company did new research, made changes and launched it, understanding, she says, that research indicates that companies that continue to innovate in recessions o� en end up the leaders when the recession ends.

With mounds of historical data meaning less and less to the business decisions needed today and tomorrow, research studies and techniques that were seemingly set in stone are being revised. Baker-Prewitt says areas such as product positioning, market segmentation and price elasticity are under review as market-ers scramble to accommodate consumers’ and businesses’ new buying realities.

“Projective techniques are a more accept-able thing. … [It’s what before] might have been used as tertiary research now is primary,” Cameron says. Projective qualita-tive research techniques include open-ended, indirect questioning, word association and the like. � e use of scenario planning is also growing. “[Businesses are saying] the possi-bilities are endless, so let’s make sure that we have everything covered,” she says.

� e development of online research, such as monitoring for Web chatter rele-vant to your brand or product and speci� c online communities developed to glean research insights, also has been spurred by the need for real-time insights and budget constraints, Cameron says. “Online overall is, I think, getting a real workout right now. … � ere’s the whole need to do things faster and cheaper. [Researchers] can’t necessarily go out or have the time or budget. Our focus has gone to funding research based on the Inter-net because it is cost- and time-e� ective.”

The observational element inherent to online research is useful for researchers trying to determine where the new ground floor is for consumers. “The answers are being constructed right now in front of us. We have to observe, see what they are supporting or glomming behind so we know where the next generation of need will be,” Cameron says.

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Burke’s Baker-Prewitt recommends a balanced approach to online, saying it still has a long way to go to being able to deliver insights that are both quick and accu-rate. “Social media online communities, online listening approaches, many compa-nies are still determining how to learn how to use these. Even [the tracking firms] are still figuring out how to best integrate their findings into [helping make] tactical and strategic decisions,” she says.

Looking ahead, she says, the task for online research services is to create flexibility in the data structure so that operational data can be connected with attitudinal data.

All the changes happening in business and research today can be overwhelm-ing, however the key is to take action. “The old thought that you work on only a few big things is counterintuitive to the way we need to work in the future. [We need to] try things, identify what works and [what doesn’t] and make changes fast,” Citi’s Parmeswar says. Baker-Prewitt agrees. “Companies that don’t adapt well to these kinds of changes don’t last very long,” she says. Researchers need to take that advice to heart and adapt. m

Tree MailZZZZ

Companies that continue to innovate in

recessions often end up the leaders

when the recession ends.

You can view interviews, presentation summaries and photos from

the 2009 AMA Marketing Research Conference, themed “Making Busi-

ness Sense of What’s Next,” at http://mrc2009.ama.sixent.net/

Articles:Measuring & Maximizing the Return on Investment of Market Research A white paper examines why good market research is even more impor-

tant when times are tough.

New Market Research: It’s About Expression, Not Impressions An interview with Dan Neely, CEO of Networked Insights, about social

media trends, sentiment and the break between old-school and new-

world research techniques.

10 minutes with Patrick Gorman A signature Marketing News Q&A with research industry veteran Patrick

Gorman uncovers the formula behind Socrates, a projective qualitative

research program.

Webcasts:How Merrill Lynch Optimizes Inbound Interactions with Real-Time Decisioning

Events: Applied Research Methods 2010 April 19-21, Philadelphia

Find Out More @ MarketingPower.com

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