Campaign

Rory - your last paragraph nails it. With budgets threatened, ad men need as many numbers as possible to keep hold of their marketing budgets (and expenses accounts?!?). Commissioniung research to prove the value of their activities therefore becomes of increased importance

The question that is never asked about research is what opportunity cost it incurs. At what point does the time, delays and dithering produced by supplemental information outweigh any value contained in the information itself? The correct answer to this is somewhere between 'never' and 'always'. But a lot closer to 'always'.

Rory.... Read your post and instead of buying the book on behavioral economics, I stole one off my partner (she is a behavioral expert) a book on it .... I then checked all the journals lying next to the bed and the results of my desk (or bed) research is that most insights into behavioral economics is done by quantitative and qualitative research. As behavioral economics and other cognitive research has demonstrated it is possible to show consumer insights through research. So are you suggesting that research methods need updating. I would agree. There is far too much research done in the commercial world that would fail Popper's test of science. On your last comment I would say that the problem is that research needs to be made more agile. If research can be put in front of the creative fast and quick, with the right tools so that they can understand it, it would have a fast pay back. You used to be a great advocate of A vs B testing. Is that no longer the case?

A lot of reserach in Behavioural Economics is absolutely B vs A. I think most BE advance is the product of experimentation, with in many cases brilliantly conceived hypotheses ingeniously put to the test - and hence falsifiable, as Popper would demand. Most market research would not meet these criteria: worse still, it is based on the presumption that people's attitude is in some way a predictor of their behaviour, which is in many cases demonstrably untrue.

I've always thought there's an opportunity for the research industry to research itself. Excellent post Rory. I'm buying WPP shares ASAP.

Don't blame the researchers for this. The obsession with self-justification is endemic in marketing and brand management. Having just left a senior research job in a media company I can tell you that most of my life was spent telling people why they shouldn't research things - because the work wouldn't ultimately make a difference to the consumer.

There are a couple of cardinal rules for market research: ask yourself if the results will be just interesting or important, and are you prepared to act on them anyway. And if you've already made the decision, and need a bit of research to justify to other people why you have made the decision that you have then you are truly wasting everuyone's time and money. Sadly this happens too often.