Next generation research

If marketers are the architects of brand solutions, researchers are the engineers. The former can’t operate without the latter. The most imaginative designs, strategies and executions fall flat without the relevant facts, figures and insights to shape and guide them; it’s construction, and marketing, 101.

But in today’s ultra-competitive landscape, where consumers have more choice, less time and tighter wallets than ever before, research is increasingly critical.

Whether testing advertising, preparing to launch new products or testing products already in market, brands are forking out millions to get the scoop on what their consumers like and don’t like well before they lose out in market share, or bare the brunt on Facebook.

And, as the importance of research grows, so too do the scope of its objectives, data sources and collection methods.

The fragmentation of media channels over the last five years has opened up vast oceans of data which both research companies and businesses are working to translate into actionable insights.

Furthermore, the proliferation of new media, particularly social media and mobile devices, has revolutionised the way brands can find, interact with and analyse their sample audiences, making contemporary research fast, economical and far more fun for the consumers involved.

“The amount of change in the last three years has been amazing,” says Peter Harris, MD of Vision Critical. “Research has always been about making sure every ‘i’ is dotted and ‘t’ is crossed. It’s been slow and steady and accurate but the speed of decision-making in business has increased very quickly in the last three years, so now market research has to evolve to keep up.

Simplistically put, research provides brands with data and insights to help them understand consumers’ behaviour and spending patterns. It helps marketers build audience profiles and consequently target marketing efforts to relevant consumer communities.

Market research, as an industry, sprung to life in the 1960s in line with advertising’s ‘golden age’. Its mainstays were face-to-face surveys, telephone questionnaires and focus groups – the type where 20 people were lumped in a room to be observed by a brand scientist from behind a mirrored glass pane.

Then advent of the internet in the late 1990s turned the industry, like so many others, on its head. Since then, online and digital have become its linchpins both in terms of both data creation and collection.

The uptake of personal devices, like mobile phones and tablets, and the advent of social media mean clients now have far more behavioural and sales data at their fingertips.

“The research function is basically moving from a ‘we need to ask some questions and conduct surveys to inform marketing management’ to ‘what are all the different sources of data and touch points we have to our target audience? And how are we going to form that into a coherent knowledge and insights program to help meet our overall business objectives?’” says James Burge, MD of Research Now.

 Five years ago a brand’s annual research would consist of implementing a traditional brand tracker, running a number of usage to attitude studies and a few big segmentations during the year. The projects were fewer, slower and of much larger value.

The modern approach to research, however, is about “using existing intelligence, technology and capabilities to extract insights now rather than waiting for the perfect solution,” says MCN Multiview insights and analytics director, Murray Love.

Why? Because marketers need to be faster to market than ever before and that pressure, in turn, is passed on to their research teams.

“The speed to market is much faster than it was ten or 15 years ago,” says Kate Platter, New South Wales director of Ipsos ASI. “The speed at which you can launch a product is much faster, and the speed at which somebody can copy it is much faster, so your window of opportunity as a marketer has become much smaller. We have to match that now.”

Today too, marketing research is more and more about “integrative learning” and ongoing conversations. The typical research approach may be to ask your sample five questions, find out the answers two days later, change something in the business accordingly, measure the effects of that change, then come up with another few questions for your sample.

 Surveys can be written, distributed and answered all in a matter of hours online. Brands can also create “closed communities” of consumers to whom they can refer again and again at short notice – something brands like Telstra and Nestle – two of Vision Critical’s clients, are already doing.

Nestle’s is called the Nestle Kitchen Conversation and allows the brand to conduct survey discussions and qualitative research in a dedicated online forum which replaces the traditional focus group.

While the digital shift may provide the biggest opportunities for brands, it also presents some major hurdles.

In the words of Ipsos’ Platter, “The proliferation and fragmentation of media channels is one of the biggest challenge for marketers [because] brands need to integrate and push their product across all these different platforms.”

Media fragmentation, in turn, means researchers have to be broader with their data collection.

Now, instead of just looking at paid media like TV, print and radio, research needs to be across owned media – like Facebook, Twitter and branded microsites, and earned media – which includes people retweeting, sharing emails and posting messages on their Facebook pages.