“A good story cannot be devised, it has to be distilled”

James Smythe of Culture of Insight draws conclusions from his research into the health of market research in the media and advertising business…

In good times past, market research has informed the creation of quality media products and services, and provided a great story to help sell them. But times are different. Businesses are looking for a tangible Return On Everything. Is the value of market research felt sufficiently to protect it from being forgotten until the good times return?

This is the question I face as I start up a new MR company, and which I sought to answer through research among research buyers in the business. After many questions and conversations, I think the title of this article (attributed to American crime writer Raymond Chandler) hits the issue on the head. It is the market researcher’s skills as a storyteller, not a project manager that makes the greatest difference.

Last month, 52 research buyers in the trade completed a 10-minute online survey, designed in collaboration with Aurora Market Research. Questions included budget changes, opinions of the value of MR, where it needs to perform well, and it was falling short for media and advertising companies.

There’s a pulse! The 2009 budget situation is not catastrophic, even if half of respondents’ companies were cutting MR budgets, compared to a quarter who were increasing them. The same picture emerged for spends on marketing and commercial teams, which suggests that MR punches its weight within these circles. Only those budgets dedicated to supporting the core brand were being increased.

Despite apparent fair treatment by the FD, media and advertising businesses still don’t put as much faith in research as its buyers think they should. Parallel importance vs performance questions showed that while “maintaining research spend in a recession” scored an average 8.5 out of 10 for importance, companies’ performance on this was only given 6.9.

Similarly, “putting consumer insight at the heart of product and brand decision making” got the survey’s highest importance score of 8.7, while in performance it got 7.2. Within the range of importance versus performance questions asked, these two indicators caused the greatest concern for research buyers.

Part of the shortfall in embracing and prioritising MR arises from the positioning of research as a subordinate, support function to more commercial or glamorous areas of the business. But it’s also clear that we researchers don’t often sell our benefits in a commercial or glamorous way: for better or worse, we’re trained to focus on process over outcome.

But we’re paid for outcomes. Buyers generally feel they get good value for money from MR (53% agreed vs 14% disagreed), but where’s the value without an actionable outcome? Buyers also feel that research suppliers often fail to communicate a clear recommendation (77% often leave a research presentation thinking “so what?”). Such presentations, particularly when we are unwise enough to expose senior colleagues to them, fuel dissatisfaction with research.

Buyers’ approach to suppliers is divided: some like to involve them closely as trusted advisors, others keep them at arm’s length for fear that they will usurp the in-house researcher’s own position. Whatever the level of involvement of a supplier, avoiding any misunderstanding about roles is essential, if the debrief audience aren’t going to simply lose two hours of their lives to PowerPoint.

“The unread story is not a story, it is little black marks on wood pulp.” That one’s by another American, Ursula LeGuin. Over half of my survey’s respondents agreed that “market research projects often end up as a useless pile of PowerPoint slides”: such projects pour money down the drain, and erode a business’s confidence in the effectiveness of MR.

The researcher’s role is as much storytelling as study design, and that we could do better is acknowledged in the survey. “In-house research teams make sure everyone in the business knows what they are finding out” scored 8.5 for performance, and 7.2 for performance. A good knowledge management system is also critical to getting the insight out: users “being able to access research quickly and easily from their computer” averaged 7.9 for importance, 6.8 for importance.

Communication is the key to realising more value from market research. Clarity on what we expect from suppliers ensures that consumers are asked the right questions, and that answers come back in the right form. But most importantly, the best market researchers understand the needs and learning preferences of people in their business, and distill a clear outcome from the complex findings of market research.

A presentation of the research with some industry experts giving their opinion can be viewed at youtube.com/cultureofinsight