Friday morning’s session began with a lively debate; “This house believes that the industry should provide no more research than allows the seller to sell and the buyer to buy.” A show of hands before the debate showed very few were in favour of the motion.
Mark Cramer, MD of Motive spoke for the motion. Research is under pressure; with the ever changing new media opportunities increasing pressure all the time. He pointed out the debate focusses on INDUSTRY-backed research; you have to be realistic. The role of industry research is to provide an acceptable currency; it would be unrealistic to expect it to provide all media planning data as well, at an industry level. It is up to individual practitioners to do further research.
Phil Georgiadis, CEO of Initiative Media spoke against the motion. He pointed out the dangers of small sample-sized qualitative research. Qualitative research is a separate issue; he suggested that to cut the existing quantitative research in favour of qualitative would make the system of negotiation more chaotic, not less. There is no advantage in replacing knowledge with guesswork; “You can never have too much information”, was the main theme of his argument.
He said that if the proposal is suggesting that current industry research is in more depth than necessary, then it is patently wrong; if it is suggesting that current quantitative should be replaced with qualitative then it is irresponsible. “Current research should if anything be expanded”.
A lively debate followed. It was suggested by Frank Harrison (Zenith), that media owners currently fund most of the research; perhaps agencies, (via the IPA) could provide more funding. Further problems with bespoke were pointed out; two agencies have just separately carried out section research, surely a joint effort would have been better.
It was also pointed out by Neil Shepherd-Smith that the seller never wants more data than he needs to be able to sell; buyers however should always find out as much as possible.
Phil Horton of Renault UK put forward the advertiser’s view; he agreed with the motion, having been shown bespoke, spurious, often unbelievable research too many times. This view seemed to strike a chord with the delegates; by the end of the debate there was a large movement in favour of the motion, leaving the result around 50/50, a swing from before the debate started.
