Tom H. C. Anderson - Next Gen Market Research

A Candid Review of Marketing and Market Research Associations:
Which Marketing and Market Research Associations & Professional Organizations are a good value for the money?

I’ve joined several over the years, but will list just a few of the ones that are more common for our industry. Here’s my list rank ordered from favorite to least favorite:

1. MENG (Marketing Executive Group)
2. ESOMAR (World Research Organization)
3. SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals)
4. AMA (American Marketing Association)
5. MRA (Marketing Research Association)
6. AMA (American Management Association)

MENG  $350 first year $150 subsequent years.

MENG is comprised of VPs, SVPs, CMOs, COOs and Presidents. Prospective members must meet the following requirements:

1. Minimum BASE salary (excluding bonuses, options, etc.) of $160,000
2. Held title of Vice President, or equivalent, and above
3. Strong desire to network for information on a regular basis with other senior level marketing executives.
4. Expertise in a key marketing area.
5. You must also be referred by a current member.

There are many entrepreneurs/consultants in MENG who have lots of ideas and love to network. Members are also provided with free access to services including OneSource a business database. The spirit is very much one of helping others. You will be able to ask their 1700 members for advice on any topic at any time, and will likely receive at least 10-20 responses within an hour! There are several interesting Webinars and local chapter events to attend.

ESOMAR  360 EUR first year 300 EUR ($474 USD!) subsequent years.

ESOMAR was formerly called the European Market research organization, but their focus changed to a more global organization welcoming Asian, South American and East European members, etc. I think this was a key move which has made them more valuable to me than the American Marketing Association (the two don’t seem to get along). There are still relatively few American members. And unfortunately, IMHO I think while the organization calls themselves global there is still a very proud European focus (they are HQ’s in Netherlands), so little seems to be done to welcome and market to American members.

There are several things I like about ESOMAR. I love the international makeup. It’s great to meet and network with peers from allover the world. I think they know how to put on really well organized conferences. In regard to the conferences on the one hand because speakers generally can not pay to speak (as is common in some conference venues in the US), I think quality of topics/speakers is generally high. I’ve spoken at a few events I also enjoy their magazine and they send a few other items to members such as the global prices study which can be interesting.

On the other hand, because they want a globally diverse group, there are sometimes speakers selected whose English is hard to understand. Another thing I don’t care for so much anymore is that they require all speakers to write a paper prior to speaking which they later sell. Good and bad I guess as it makes the speakers/topics more serious and gives them a lot of info to publish, on the other hand, once you’ve written a few of these it feels like you’re back in school.
ESOMAR is the most expensive market research organization I’m a part of (I also belong to a few hospitality/property development organizations which are more expensive). Still due to the above I have feel they continue to earn my dues.

To become an ESOMAR member you need to agree to their ICC/ESOMAR guidelines for market research and be sponsored by a current member.

SCIP (Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals)  $295 annually

Though not really marketing research specifically, CI is interesting. Their magazine contains several interesting thoughts. An article I wrote on Text Analytics was recently featured. I have attended both their national conference in NY as well as several local chapter events. CI seems to have a broader approach than traditional MR which is refreshing and I always find their events interesting.

AMA  (American Marketing Association)  $215 first year $185 subsequent years.

Some of their Journals and magazines I first found interesting, but now I’m less interested. I doubt even academics find the journals interesting, and their magazines seem to have a heavy market research focus with lots of advertising from market research suppliers (I admit Anderson Analytics has been guilty of this as well). I think the problem with AMA is that they say they are geared to marketing in general unlike ESOMAR which focuses only on Market Research. Still I think Market Researchers are AMA’s core member base.

AMA also puts together conferences, though I have to admit never attending one even though I’ve been a member since college I think. Anderson Analytics will have a poster speaking session at the AMA’s upcoming ART (Advanced Research Techniques Forum) event in NC this June. Will let you know what we think of this event afterwards.

Their website has a few useful items. I must admit I have not tried to use the local chapter for networking so I can’t give the most accurate opinion on the usefulness of the organization overall.

MRA (Marketing Research Association) Dues $275+ (depending on level)

I joined MRA just a couple years ago and have spoken at the Minnesota chapter but haven’t networked in my local chapter yet.
MRA advances, protects and promotes knowledge, standards, excellence, ethics, professional development and innovation, for the global market and opinion research profession and has 3,000 members. Their website has access to best practices and MR guidelines which may be useful. They also publish a magazine which highlights some industry news. They have been trying hard to advocate their professional certification for the industry. A noble effort but I honestly have not found any need for such certification on a personal or business level.

OTHERS…

There are of course several other market research specific organizations which I am not a member of currently. Some of the more notable are:

ARF (Advertising Research Federation)  $3,000-$35,000 (company wide membership)

“The ARF is the premiere advertising industry association for creating, aggregating, synthesizing and sharing the knowledge required by decision makers in the field.”

ARF is most notable in our industry for the annual fair in NYC where several research organizations have booths. They also offer members access to their library where you can call up and ask for help finding info on topics (this might be useful in some cases). Interestingly the webinars they offer are not free. I’ve paid to attend one but didn’t find it particularly useful and why pay when there are so many webinars offered for free these days?

You can attend the ARF event and visit the various booths for free. To attend the speeches there is an additional fee. ARF usually charges their speakers for the opportunity to speak at the event and to host one of their webinars. I personally have not found their model useful. The event seems to have relatively few client side attendees. Instead it’s a place where paranoid researchers go from booth to booth trying to gather competitive intelligence on each other. I haven’t heard many stories about good leads coming out of this event for any of the companies I know who participate.

CMOR $580 - $26,250 (depending on co. size)

CMOR is a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization which works on behalf of the survey research industry:

• to improve respondent cooperation in research
• to promote positive legislation and prevent restrictive legislation which could impact the survey research industry

I have not found it necessary to join this group though it’s good that they are “Shielding the Profession”

AMA (American Management Association)  $225 annually (individual membership)

They are not marketing research or even marketing specific, but obviously seem like they may be interesting for a broad business audience. DO NOT JOIN. The whole organization seems to be a front to try to sell you training workshops which are for junior managers in large companies. Have never found their material very interesting and cancelled my membership a few years ago.

NEWS LETTERS

I subscribe to 4 marketing research related news letters, the 2-3 main ones covered below:

Inside Research $625 1 year

Considered by some to be the “Bible” of Market Research Suppliers, this is a monthly newsletter published by Jack Honomichl and Laurence Gold. Covers: Top News, Merger Mania, Job market, MR Stock market, Legal tidbits, Media Watch, People News etc. One of the most interesting features as far as I’m concerned is the “Conference Report” which gives candid reviews on various industry conferences. Interestingly it also gives you the proportion of supply side VS client side attendees which might be useful in determining the ROI of participating in various events. Honomichl’s annual list of top 50 market research firms is also well known in the industry, but this is usually available later in other magazines such as American Marketing Associations Marketing News magazine.

My only beef with this newsletter is that it’s almost entirely focused on the larger MR firms.

RFL Communications

RFL offers 4 newsletters two of which I’ve been subscribing to. Editor is Robert Lederer and Executive Editor is Marc Dresner.

Research Business Report (RBR) $299 (Introductory Price)

Focuses on technological, methodological, economic and business changes in market research. Unlike Inside Research they will also often cover smaller market research vendors with interesting ideas.

Research Department Report (RDR) $299 (Introductory Price)

Reports on the successes of market research departments. RDR makes heroes of market research department heads! Also an interesting perspective and sometimes a good source of leads.

I think perhaps between RBR and RDR you get a lot of what is covered in Inside Research, plus a bit more detail on the smaller companies.

ONLINE GROUPS

Due to time constraints more and more of us are looking to online groups which tend to be free and provide access to network with like minded professionals in ways that are convenient to us. Linkedin and Facebook have several groups for us marketing researchers. The ones which I am involved in are available free on LinkedIn if you qualify for membership based on your profile. They are:

Data & Text Analytics Professionals
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22313/3A5CAF691C78

GenX2Z - Youth Marketing Professionals Group
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/27427/1C8006631B0F

Next Gen Marketing & Market Research
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/31804/173B4562A729

Leisure & Travel Insights Professionals
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43967/28212432E6F4

A few of the other organizations I mentioned above also have official or unofficial groups on LinkedIn some of which I am a member of (check bottom of my LinkedIn profile to see some of the groups I belong to currently).
SUMMARY

I believe in a way you get out of a group what you put into it. To be honest I didn’t realize how much I was spending on memberships and subscriptions (I also subscribe to Quirks Marketing Research Review magazine not mentioned above, about $80/year). Adding up the above I see that my annual subscriptions run >= $2714 for marketing memberships alone + $1,500 for my specific industry related organizations not covered above. I’ll definitely be revisiting which ones I re-up for next year.

I hope that my review/opinions on some of the above may be helpful to you if you are considering membership in some of these. I also highly advocate networking on Linkedin and even Facebook.

Look forward to hearing which groups if any not listed above you find useful? And/or if you agree/disagree with my assessment of the above?

- Tom H. C. Anderson

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