Tom H. C. Anderson - More Than Market Research

In this month’s issue of ESOMAR Research World magazine there is a summary I put together on a recent survey Anderson Analytics conducted among executive level marketers together with MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group). While the study results have been covered by AdAge and eMarketer etc., the ESOMAR article is unique in that we broke out market researchers separately and compared them to other marketers. You can read the article here: Marketing Trends for 2008.

One principal difference is, which might be expected, was that Market Researchers are significantly more interested in analytic topics such as “data mining”, “leading through analytics”, and “text analytics”. For some reason they were also more interested in “health awareness”, perhaps an indication of a new trend or area that more and more clients are testing using survey research?More troubling though is that market researchers were less interested in topics such as “Customer Satisfaction”, “Customer Retention”, and “Quality”. I wonder what the link may be between this lack of interest and the fact that market researchers are also more likely than fellow marketers to view “off-shoring any part of the marketing function” as a viable cost cutting solution?Of most interest to me though are the books and thought leaders marketers are paying most attention to. Overall market researchers tend to read the same books and follow the same thought leaders as their peers in other areas of marketing. Several Gurus were mentioned including Seth Godin, Jack Trout, David Aaker etc. The Gurus all represent different areas of marketing. For instance Seth Godin was originally an online Direct Marketer, Jack Trout was originally and Advertising man, others were Economists etc. Sadly, as far as I know, none of our Gurus originated in the field of market research.Hopefully, as the importance of analytics continues to increase and more books (such as Competing on Analytics) are published on the topic, CMO’s will continue to encourage advances in the field and some day we market researchers may well have our own, widely followed, Gurus/Authors to look up to.In any case, I do think it is very important for us market researchers to talk to and gain an understanding of what our peers and leaders in other areas of marketing feel is important. During the past few years of networking I’ve met several interesting marketing leaders and I plan to talk to some of them during the coming months, sharing some of their viewpoints on issues which impact us market researchers. I will be posting some of these discussions during the coming months here on this site.In the meantime, if there is anyone specific you feel I should talk to feel free to make a suggestion.

Tom