The truth about market research

So let me get straight to the point, what I really want to talk about is the pursuit of the truth in market research. I agreed to do this piece because I am passionate about the industry and want to share what I have come across in my 20 years of doing this that makes my stomach churn which is; how there exists amongst some players, a lack of accountability and responsibility in collecting data for their clients.

I have to at least throw in one dull fact - The European Society for Opinions and Market Research (ESOMAR), estimated that in 2009, the global market research spend was US$28,945 billion[1]. Stop. Think of the amount in your head. How much of this spend really uncovers what people think or feel towards a brand or a product?

Let’s say you have everything pat down in executing a piece of research; the design, the sample, the analysis structure etc. What is going to negate all of this?

Well, what is going to give you rubbish on which you base your business decisions on despite excellent research design is if people are dishonest and the people managing the process do not implement sufficient checks or balances.

Forget about online surveys for the moment; it’s not my area of expertise so I will not cover this and I’m sure the professionals in these fields have their ways of addressing the question of honesty in conducting research.

I am talking about research projects that are executed with someone conducting the interview, when the accuracy and integrity of the research findings rely on a group of people to conduct an honest piece of work. Here are a few ingenious examples:

1. Questionnaires are completed with full names, addresses and telephone numbers by going through the residential phone book, searching for listings of people living in addresses allocated. The details such as age, gender, race and occupation of the named respondent is correct but no interviews were conducted.

2. The questionnaire consisted of say, a section with a long battery of statements. For every one statement that was asked, two were skipped.

3. An interviewer buys say 10 Hi-cards and writes these numbers down as contact number of people they have interviewed. The numbers all work when you call. It either rings or it says the subscriber is unavailable.

What do you, particularly if you are a buyer or user of market research, make of all of these examples? They all happened. Is all research nonsense? Of course not, but what differentiates the good from the bad is the process of due diligence that the data is put through before it becomes a report.

What can you do if you have commissioned a piece of research? Well for starters, you should only work with vendors that are properly accredited with market research organizations such as ESOMAR or at the very least, your local research society such as the Market Research Society of Singapore (MRSS). It would mean that the vendor agrees to a code of ethics and an industry standard of work.

You should also get a quality control report from your vendor documenting what was done to ensure the authenticity of the work completed. You could also randomly ask to inspect the raw data collected. You should also ascertain if the person managing your project have the necessary qualifications and experience to execute and manage the project to the level which you require.

Over the last few years, more clients are requesting to audit research work in progress or research work that has been completed. Ultimately what clients want to know, is if an interview was properly conducted. This is something that was quite unheard of say, just 5 years ago. I think it’s because some cracks are starting to show. The pressure on pricing has been going up so something gives when the costs are getting lower.

The purpose of market research is to collect information to help make decisions. The decisions may be purely commercial but it can also be social or political; to implement policies that will affect the lives of people in a country, for instance. So consider carefully the next time you play a part in commissioning a research project. Choose a responsible partner.

I leave you with one of my favourite quotes “After all, the ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth” - Helene Deutsch (1884-1982), renowned Austrian-American psychoanalyst and psychiatrist.

Katrina Goh, Chief Executive Officer, Agri Opus PRoBa Pte Ltd