Market research is meaningless if you’re answering the wrong questions
March 2018 a book was released with the thought provoking title ‘What’s the Question?’. The authors claim the book contains the universal key to more efficient and effective market research. The book shows how a better mutual understanding between researcher and marketeer will increase the value for money the insights industry can offer. The book was written by Dutch market researchers Erik de Kort and Durk Bosma, who worked together at Research International and have been entrepreneurs and independent market research consultants for more than a decade.
The actual added value of market research is not collecting data.
Who should read this book?
The book is aimed at ‘anyone who’s daily work includes setting up market research, writing market research briefings or using insights as a foundation for marketing decisions’ according to the authors. Researchers working on agency side, will find that the book helps them to understand the internal context of their clients’ organization. What forces is a brand manager dealing with? Which decisions is he or she facing? Researchers on client side will find that the books helps them by making it easier to write effective research briefings for their agencies. To them it’s not always clear what information an agency requires to write a really good proposal.
Lastly, students writing their thesis can benefit from the book. Students often find it very difficult to choose what they should include in their research (and what not).
What is your most important message for readers of What’s the Question?
‘It’s rather simple’ according to the authors. ‘Market research supports marketing decisions. And in order to deliver meaningful insights, market researchers must fully understand the decisions their research project supports. And this can only be done by clearly mapping out the internal and external context in which the problem you are trying to solve, has arisen.
What led to the writing of this book?
‘On my first day working at PepsiCo as a market researcher, my boss asked me to make a summary of a thick report that was the result of a large scale study into the rise of Pringles in the Dutch market.’ says Durk Bosma. ‘For years the brand Lay’s had few competitors. But now Pringles was on the rise and this caused some slight panic. The aim of the study was to find out what could be done to stop the rise of Pringles. To figure this out, samples of Pringles users and Lay’s users were asked a lot of questions. Questions about what chips they ate, where, with whom, what flavor, etc. But with all of this information available, it was still not possible to answer the key question: what should be done? The report contained a lot of information in numerous tables and graphs. But there was little tangible and usable advice except for the obvious recommendation, to make a product that was similar to Pringles in shape, texture, flavor and packaging. I spend 3 days digesting all this information and talking to the agency that conducted the study. But I couldn’t find the answer either. This got me thinking. How is it possible that such an important and expensive piece of work, led to nothing? After all, we are talking about a professional organization that has a lot of experience with conducting market research and has a lot of smart market researchers and marketers working there. This was the seed that was planted in my head. Later I understood what went wrong. The study was set-up by the market research department in isolation, with little dialogue and consultation with those who needed the results. The brand managers gave only a short and vague briefing. The idea was that if they would include everything in the study, the right answer would surely pop up somewhere.
How to avoid these pitfalls?
A lot of what went wrong with this project could have been easily avoided. By increasing mutual understanding between user and researcher. And by thinking ahead, trying to understand upfront to what use the results were going to be put, clarifying the decisions the marketers were facing. And how to do this is exactly what we describe in our book’
‘The actual added value of market research is not collecting data. The real added value of the insights industry is helping marketers make better decisions. This begins by making a clear analysis of their marketing or research challenges, resulting in the right research questions and a rigorous approach for answering them. And afterwards, if the answers are there, make sure they are used in the client’s organization. In other words, make sure the insights have impact.’
The writers claim the approach described in the book helps to create a better mutual understanding between end user and market researcher. And that mutual understanding is the key to providing better value for money, by answering exactly the right questions, nothing more and nothing less.
The book is aimed at ‘anyone who’s daily work includes setting up market research, writing market research briefings or using insights as a foundation for marketing decisions’ according to the authors. Researchers working on agency side, will find that the book helps them to understand the internal context of their clients’ organization. What forces is a brand manager dealing with? Which decisions is he or she facing? Researchers on client side will find that the books helps them by making it easier to write effective research briefings for their agencies. To them it’s not always clear what information an agency requires to write a really good proposal.
Lastly, students writing their thesis can benefit from the book. Students often find it very difficult to choose what they should include in their research (and what not).
What is your most important message for readers of What’s the Question?
‘It’s rather simple’ according to the authors. ‘Market research supports marketing decisions. And in order to deliver meaningful insights, market researchers must fully understand the decisions their research project supports. And this can only be done by clearly mapping out the internal and external context in which the problem you are trying to solve, has arisen.
What led to the writing of this book?
‘On my first day working at PepsiCo as a market researcher, my boss asked me to make a summary of a thick report that was the result of a large scale study into the rise of Pringles in the Dutch market.’ says Durk Bosma. ‘For years the brand Lay’s had few competitors. But now Pringles was on the rise and this caused some slight panic. The aim of the study was to find out what could be done to stop the rise of Pringles. To figure this out, samples of Pringles users and Lay’s users were asked a lot of questions. Questions about what chips they ate, where, with whom, what flavor, etc. But with all of this information available, it was still not possible to answer the key question: what should be done? The report contained a lot of information in numerous tables and graphs. But there was little tangible and usable advice except for the obvious recommendation, to make a product that was similar to Pringles in shape, texture, flavor and packaging. I spend 3 days digesting all this information and talking to the agency that conducted the study. But I couldn’t find the answer either. This got me thinking. How is it possible that such an important and expensive piece of work, led to nothing? After all, we are talking about a professional organization that has a lot of experience with conducting market research and has a lot of smart market researchers and marketers working there. This was the seed that was planted in my head. Later I understood what went wrong. The study was set-up by the market research department in isolation, with little dialogue and consultation with those who needed the results. The brand managers gave only a short and vague briefing. The idea was that if they would include everything in the study, the right answer would surely pop up somewhere.
How to avoid these pitfalls?
A lot of what went wrong with this project could have been easily avoided. By increasing mutual understanding between user and researcher. And by thinking ahead, trying to understand upfront to what use the results were going to be put, clarifying the decisions the marketers were facing. And how to do this is exactly what we describe in our book’
‘The actual added value of market research is not collecting data. The real added value of the insights industry is helping marketers make better decisions. This begins by making a clear analysis of their marketing or research challenges, resulting in the right research questions and a rigorous approach for answering them. And afterwards, if the answers are there, make sure they are used in the client’s organization. In other words, make sure the insights have impact.’
The writers claim the approach described in the book helps to create a better mutual understanding between end user and market researcher. And that mutual understanding is the key to providing better value for money, by answering exactly the right questions, nothing more and nothing less.
How to figure out what the real research questions are, is one of the most difficult things for market researchers.
