Market Research Practitioners Research Articles

Seeing the Bigger Picture: Why Market Research History Matters?

Market researchers and the market research industry more generally have paid little attention to the history of market research. This inattention to the past has not only resulted in a significant gap in our knowledge of market research and history more generally, it has also obscured the benefits that can be derived from an understanding of history. Using letters, reports and survey contained in the Ashby Research Service archive at the State Library of New South Wales in Australia, this article seeks to illustrate the benefits to be derived from undertaking historical research on market research and those involved in the market research business. By examining some of the cultural factors informing market research business practices and the ways that the marketing and the media industries have interacted with market researchers, this article not only takes step in addressing the gap in our knowledge of market research history, it also demonstrates the relevance and importance of market research history for business and marketing historians and, indeed, market research scholars and practitioners.

The changing role of the marketing researcher in the age of digital technology: Practitioner perspectives on the digitization of marketing research

After years of hype, marketing researchers are now facing the challenge of integrating new digital technologies into their work. Based on an analysis of 44 key informant interviews with marketing research practitioners, the study develops a framework to describe the main benefits and challenges of digital technologies in marketing research, as perceived by marketing researchers themselves. It highlights successful strategies that have been employed to exploit digital technologies and suggests that the role of the market researcher is changing in the age of digital data. The marketing researcher of the future must fulfill the roles of being a social scientist and a storyteller. In both cases, although researchers may need to develop technical skills, it is also essential that they develop the ability to engage their clients, add value, and interpret data. Implications for industry and academia are discussed.

Utilizing relative weight analysis in customer satisfaction research

For customer satisfaction researchers, key driver analysis is a common practice to understand what product and service attributes are most important in driving the overall customer experience, typically measured by overall satisfaction or the Net Promoter question. To implement key driver analysis, market research practitioners often use statistical techniques such as bivariate correlation analysis or multiple regression, yet these statistical techniques have severe limitations for conducting key driver analysis. As a viable alternative, this article puts forth relative weight analysis (RWA) as an appropriate statistical technique for conducting key driver analysis. To empirically demonstrate this technique, key driver analysis was conducted using data from a B2B software provider. The analysis implemented RWA, correlation analysis, and multiple regression, and the results are compared and contrasted. RWA limitations and best practices are discussed as well as future research. Overall, this research advocates for more use of RWA in marketing research.

Investigating Market Research Ethics

In academic and practitioner literature, codes of ethics are generally understood to act as a mechanism guiding and ensuring ethical behaviour. However, this premise has not yet been thoroughly explored. Using a qualitative research approach this study examines the tools used in ethical decision-making by New Zealand marketing research practitioners, with a focus on client relationships. Participants reported on their awareness, familiarity, and use of professional and organisational codes of ethics. In particular, information was sought on how ethical issues were dealt with when they arose in their relationships with clients. This empirical research focused on the effects of different variables and emerging constructs, and the interplay between them, on ethical decision-making in client relationships. The paper concludes with a discussion of research contributions, implications for the practice of marketing research, and future research opportunities.

How Do Neurological Measures Work in Advertising?

![Figure][1] Among marketing-research practitioners and academics, there is little doubt that science is adding new dimensions to the art of understanding consumer behavior. In these pages—as well in the ongoing initiatives of the Advertising Research Foundation, our publisher—you will

When ‘Significant’ is not Significant

Big data is here for some and coming for many. It promises access to new knowledge along with some challenges, but let's not forget the important lessons of the past to ensure that we are advancing knowledge and making the right decisions from the data we have. In this paper, we submit that marketing's emphasis on statistical significance is misplaced, especially in the new world of big data. We include case examples to demonstrate how statistical significance is easy to find, but not necessarily important. We will also discuss the alternative route for generating robust knowledge. Specifically, we espouse the tradition pioneered by Andrew Ehrenberg of Many Sets of Data (MSoD) and descriptive models as the way to advance marketing science, and as a solid foundation for data interpretation in market research studies. We offer insights for market research practitioners and marketers alike, to ensure they are getting the best from their data for robust marketing decision-making.

Improving relevance in B2B research: analysis and recommendations

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to identify and discuss critical aspects of the academic/practitioner gap and suggest how to make marketing research more relevant. Design/Methodology/Approach – The study uses data from an earlier study of eight qualitative interviews conducted with business-to-business (B2B) marketing practitioners and from an earlier quantitative study among 128 academics and 510 marketing research practitioners. The data are re-analyzed for this article. Findings – Results show that academics and practitioners agree that academic research should be of more practical value. However, their priorities differ. For academics, publishing in refereed journals is the first priority and influencing practice is of much lower priority, while practitioners are not interested in the methodological and theoretical advances of marketing research; their priority is to satisfy day-to-day practical needs. Hence, practitioners have no interest in academic journals. The academic reward system tends to reinforce this divide because academic career progression depends substantially on the production of refereed journal articles. Research limitations/implications – Much prior consideration has been given to how academic journals can be made more relevant to practitioners, which is a desirable goal. However, a more fruitful approach for B2B academics would be to embrace new technologies such as blogging and social media to reach practitioners through their preferred channels. If greater relevance is to be achieved, then consideration needs to be given to the views of doctoral students, and to doctoral training processes in B2B marketing. Practical implications – The study provides academics with guidance concerning how marketing research can have a greater effect on the practice of marketing. Social implications – Originality/value – The study contributes to the research base by identifying and discussing critical aspects of the academic/practitioner gap. The study also offers insights into how managerial relevance in marketing research can, practically, be improved.

Assembling market representations

Markets have been argued to be of central concern in marketing theory; nevertheless, the representations that depict what a market is, and how it works, remain understudied. To remedy the gap, this paper takes a qualitative in-depth approach to observe the representational objects that market research practitioners privilege when describing a market to their clients. The organizing of representational objects into market representations is studied through Latourian translations and assemblages. Four distinct dimensions of market representations are identified: frame, content, purpose, and approach. Tensions arise within those dimensions when managers privilege representational objects regarding: the frame of the market (exchange or nonexchange), what to include in the content of the representation (actors or practices), what purpose will be accomplished (ostensive or performative), and how to approach what is assembled (internal or external perspectives). This paper disentangles assemblages so that market representations can be qualified.

From the Field and Into the Classroom

Although it is difficult these days to find a company that does not have a website, you do not have to look very far for to find a website with significant design and architecture flaws. Getting a visitor to your website is one thing, making the experience effortless and allowing them to find exactly what they need is another story. That being said, understanding how the consumer comprehends and navigates webpage content is an important part of the interactive marketing process that demands extra attention. Although this field is well established among marketing research practitioners, information architecture assessment and website usability tests are user-centric methods of website analysis that receive little attention from marketing academics. This article discusses the importance of user-centric methods of website analysis for the field of direct and interactive marketing and outlines strategies for implementing qualitative research techniques in an educational context. Classroom exercises and take-home assignments for an undergraduate curriculum are provided and discussed.

Five processes of response distortion: a model of response filters

PurposeHonesty and spontaneity are regularly discussed in articles on qualitative market research. The focus is mostly on specific types of response tendencies, and the tendencies are mostly emotional in nature (e.g. self presentation). The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive framework that describes and explains the different types of response processes, based both on an emotional‐cognitive dimension and an internal‐external dimension. These tendencies are coined as “response filters”.Design/methodology/approachThis model of response filters is drawn up as a hypothetical model, inspired by the theory of Daniel Katz on the four functions of attitudes: instrumental, ego‐defensive, value expression and knowledge organisation. It is likely that these functions not only determine why we have certain attitudes, but also how we present them to others. The author, a social psychologist with 20 years of experience as a qualitative market researcher, proposes a framework of response tendencies in qualitative research, using the theory of attitude functions as a basis.FindingsUsing the analytical framework of Katz, the author first describes five main processes that play a role in the answering process. A model of response filters is consequently developed, based on the emotional‐cognitive dimension and the internal‐external orientation dimension, and finally the author describes strategies and techniques for interviewers, to deal with the described response tendencies.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the model seems to be comprehensive and will probably match the experiences of most qualitative market research practitioners, it is speculative in nature. Its main purpose is to offer an insightful framework, that helps students and practitioners to get a better understanding of the dynamics of interviewing; the factors that are involved and how to deal with them to reach a deeper understanding of people's attitudes.Originality/valueIn the area of quantitative studies, a large amount of research and documentation is available on so‐called response tendencies in closed questions and ranking tasks. In qualitative market research, however, one has not yet come across a comparable overview of the various psychological mechanisms that are relevant to open questions.

Rethinking Data Analysis - Part One: The Limitations of Frequentist Approaches

The analysis of data from market research has, until fairly recently, been reliant upon statistical techniques that were developed during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for uses entirely other than the analysis of survey and other types of observational, non-experimental data. Such techniques rely on reviewing and relating the frequency distributions of variables that have been concocted and measured by researchers. This paper argues that key features of such ‘frequentist’ statistics are also limitations that need to be recognised by academics, market research practitioners and the managers to whom they report findings. By focusing on variable distributions across cases, they overlook patterns of within-case configuration; they seek out only symmetrical, linear patterns by reviewing the ‘net effects’ of individual variables; they rely on a very circumscribed view of statistical inference from samples to populations; they are not good at demonstrating causal connections between variables or at handling system complexity. A follow-up paper, ‘Rethinking data analysis – part two: some alternatives to frequentist approaches’, examines ways of approaching data sets that can be seen as viable alternatives.

The advantages of preference-based segmentation: An investigation of online grocery retailing

Most companies aim to identify different groups of attractive customers in order to offer them appropriate products and/or services. To do this, companies need market segmentation. There is, however, a problem with the standard methods employed in market segmentation. The static inductive approach to market segmentation commonly employed by companies does little to identify buying intentions across demographic variables. A more dynamic and deductive approach to developing market segmentation is through analysis of consumer preference structures — an approach which is glaringly absent from most marketing texts, not least because of the difficulty of developing practical approaches which can generate effective marketing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to highlight and demonstrate a preference-based approach to market segmentation, using shoppers' experience of online grocery retail brands in the UK. The paper first demonstrates how using choice-based conjoint analysis could help achieve this objective more effectively than other more traditional conjoint methods. While conjoint analysis is not new, the ability to segment based on markedly different preference structures is a recent development and comprises a powerful, but underutilised segmentation approach. A web-based methodology is then applied to build up a picture of consumers' conscious and unconscious prioritisation of a large number of choice criteria. The paper calculates consumer utility values for both offline and online shoppers in the UK and develops a preference-based segmentation approach, which is compared with a traditional demographic segmentation approach using the same data. From this analysis, the advantages of a preference-based approach to segmentation are extracted. The paper closes with recommendations for market research practitioners.

If It Glitters, Is It Gold? Scale Evaluation in Marketing Research

For the past half-century there has been a growing use of and interest in quantitative market research and the concomitant use of advanced statistical techniques within it. A review of scaling methods in market research and their analyses, validity and reliability is therefore, arguably, overdue. Marketing scholars and marketing research practitioners every time are in doubt about the validity of results in their research conduct, even over presentation and colorful reports, which can sometimes obfuscate the actual validity of a market research survey. Developing a valid and reliable scale in marketing research is very important for data collection and thereby deriving appropriate conclusions from the collected data. A reliable and valid scale is genuinely the foundation of any survey based research approach. This note explores fundamental theories and concepts behind these two issues of scale evaluation and the various approaches of evaluating the reliability and validity of a scale. An illustrative example has also been considered to discuss important issues regarding reliability and validity specifically how one can practically deal with reliability and validity.

Analysing qualitative data: computer software and the market research practitioner

This paper discusses the ways that software programs can support qualitative market research practitioners in data analysis and interpretation. First it looks at what these programs entail and shows how certain misconceptions have arisen around their use. Then it describes how one particular program, NUD*IST, can be used in the analysis and interpretation process and relates this to its use by market research practitioners.

Search fields for radical innovations involving market research

Strong market orientation is essential for innovation success! Although both academics and market research practitioners would generally accept this statement, alignment with the needs of the customer often results in conservative innovation strategies. Due to their focus on what is currently on offer in the marketplace, customers primarily demand so-called incremental innovations. Companies however, want to develop entry points for radical innovations. The identification of radical innovations is a difficult task whose implementation is often associated with significant risk. It is questionable if market research can alone allow innovation management to develop attractive search fields for radical innovations and if it can also contribute to the reduction of the risk that such innovations inherently possess. Closer observation shows that the market research methods used today for the discovery of radical innovations in the form of new market/technology combinations possess only limited suitability. Empirical tests verify that success-fully innovative companies often don't use such methods, rather they involve specifically qualified, innovative knowledge carriers early-on in the process such as Lead Users or external experts with relevant knowledge from analogous markets in the search for innovations. When searching for applications for radical innovations, market researchers should initially concentrate on the question of who they address as the information source. How successful the process of involving experts is and how well supported through the methodology it is, depends heavily on the specific factors and conditions related to the pro-ject planning.

Search fields for radical innovations involving market research

Strong market orientation is essential for innovation success! Although both academics and market research practitioners would generally accept this statement, alignment with the needs of the customer often results in conservative innovation strategies. Due to their focus on what is currently on offer in the marketplace, customers primarily demand so-called incremental innovations. Companies however, want to develop entry points for radical innovations. The identification of radical innovations is a difficult task whose implementation is often associated with significant risk. It is questionable if market research can alone allow innovation management to develop attractive search fields for radical innovations and if it can also contribute to the reduction of the risk that such innovations inherently possess. Closer observation shows that the market research methods used today for the discovery of radical innovations in the form of new market/technology combinations possess only limited suitability. Empirical tests verify that successfully innovative companies often don't use such methods, rather they involve specifically qualified, innovative knowledge carriers early-on in the process such as Lead Users or external experts with relevant knowledge from analogous markets in the search for innovations. When searching for applications for radical innovations, market researchers should initially concentrate on the question of whom they address as the information source. How successful the process of involving experts is and how well supported through the methodology it is, depends heavily on the specific factors and conditions related to the project planning.

"Beyond Number Crunching:" Applying Qualitative Techniques in Sport Marketing Research

Valid and reliable research is pivotal to successful sport marketing strategy. Market research may be gathered via either quantitative or qualitative means. This paper explores the theoretical background and practical applications of qualitative research techniques. It explains the appropriate context for qualitative approaches, and discusses sampling procedures with particular emphasis on the powerful but simple technique known as theoretical sampling. In addition, it clarifies and explores data analysis procedures. The purpose of this paper is to provide sport market research practitioners with a model for implementing qualitative methodologies in sport marketing campaigns.

Academics, practitioners and qualitative market research

During the 1980s, market research practitioners and academic marketing researchers witnessed a growing interest in qualitative research. A review of the practitioner and academic literature on qualitative market(ing) research reveals the commonalities and the differences in the ways each group represents, thinks about and practices qualitative research. Areas where both groups might benefit from sharing ideas and information and from closer links generally are discussed.

Marketing Researcher Ethical Sensitivity: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Exploratory Investigation

Theoretical models of marketing ethics propose that people first must perceive the presence of an ethical issue before the process of ethical decision making can begin. Through the concept of ethical sensitivity, the authors explore why some marketing researchers and not others recognize and ascribe importance to the ethical content in their decision situations. The authors examine two rival definitions of ethical sensitivity and develop a measurement procedure capable of discriminating between them. The procedure then is tested on two populations (marketing students and marketing research practitioners), and several determinants of ethical sensitivity are investigated. Results indicate that the two definitions of ethical sensitivity are empirically equivalent. Furthermore, results show that the ethical sensitivity of marketing researchers is a positive function of organizational socialization and perspective taking, but a negative function of relativism and formal training in ethics.

Rethinking Marketing Research Education: A Conceptual, Analytical, and Empirical Investigation

A conceptual model is used to clarify and augment prior research findings related to the effectiveness of current educational programs in meeting the needs of marketing research practitioners. The model identifies several areas of study that have been overlooked by researchers. The comprehensive framework presented here provides a strong theoretical model capable of identifying and explaining various relationships affecting the professional and educational training and development of marketing researchers. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate whether a difference exists between educators' perceptions of graduate students' needs in preparation for marketing research careers and the educational services typically provided by graduate programs in business. Results indicate that educators perceive a significant gap between their expectations and the services existing graduate programs in business provide.