From e-newsletter articles discussing everything from the international voices of the customer to tips for discussing research with stakeholders, and magazine articles offering topics ranging from advice from a veteran researcher to the importance of effective communication in MR, we’ve received so many quality submissions that we were proud to publish in 2017. Before we hit the ground running with new articles in 2018, we have selected a variety of articles we enjoyed from the last year:
Quirk’s Marketing Research Review
(listed in no particular order)
Research is research, right? Why you should cast a wider net when staffing your insights department
It is no secret that in consumer insights or marketing research there tends to be a preference if not a demand for industry experience when posting jobs at various levels. From my experience, the opposite can also be beneficial. Having different or new perspectives should be viewed as a positive, not a negative. This is part of what we call diversity of thought. Read more.
40 years, 40 lessons learned; Advice from a veteran researcher
Having conducted marketing research for 40+ years, many “truths” have become apparent to me. These lessons have wide applicability, having been learned across many different industries, many countries and cultures and across business-to-business and business-to-consumer settings. I’d like to share these insights in the hope they will save less-experienced practitioners from having to learn them the hard way. Read more.
Think like a respondent; How to follow consumer research’s golden rule
We’ve probably all seen examples of awful questionnaires or discussion guides. If you want more, there are plenty online – check out @MRXshame on Twitter for some hilarious ones. The crux of the issue is that we, as marketing researchers – client or vendor side – have all been guilty of designing surveys that we would never want to complete ourselves. We conveniently forget or ignore how tedious those grid questions are, how annoying it is to answer the same question worded slightly differently multiple times, how impossible it is to remember something you bought six months ago and how your attention span starts to wane after 10 or 15 minutes. Read more.
Finding focus; Why clarity and effective communication are so important to MR
In a 1999 experiment, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris asked subjects to watch a video of a group of people passing a basketball back and forth and count how many passes occurred among members of the group wearing white. In the middle of the video, a person in a gorilla suit walks among the group, stands there for a moment and then walks off. When questioned later about what the video showed, most people do not remember seeing the gorilla.
How can they not see the gorilla that is directly in front of them? Well, it has to do with what you focus on. Read more.
Quirk’s e-newsletter
(listed in no particular order)
Researchers, you can respect tradition while embracing the new
Marketing research is going through a significant transformation, one being driven by the increasing use of DIY research solutions in corporations and the growing ability to easily leverage social listening to provide faster and cheaper insights. Read more.
How research helped Columbus McKinnon redesign its ratchet lever
How many times have you overexerted yourself when shoveling snow or lifting heavy objects only to wake up the next day with a sore back, knees and shoulders? Usually this is from stretching, straining and lifting in a way that your body isn’t used to. What if you did this every day of the week?
Many of the jobs that make up the heart of manufacturing and keep our country running require this type of daily effort. Read more.
Lost in translation: A guide to discussing research with stakeholders
Imagine walking into a boutique furniture store where the shop owner immediately greets you at the door by showing you his hand planer. He’s been using the hand planer since before you were born, is the best hand planer for 500 miles and is up-to-date on the latest hand-planing techniques. This pitch goes on for a while and it finally occurs to you that he’s blocking a room full of beautiful craftsman chairs and tables … but he hasn’t said a word about them.
Sounds crazy, right? Yet, as researchers we often make the same mistake when pitching our trade to stakeholders. Read more.
Don’t laugh: Why your MR future belongs in the cannabis industry
Election 2016 was one for the history books – and not just because of the presidential race. On that Tuesday, the booming cannabis industry scored a landslide victory, with four states legalizing recreational marijuana and another three states approving medical use. Nearly 80 years after prohibition, cannabis is emerging from the black market and speeding into the mainstream. Nearly 60 percent of the U.S. population now lives in states that have legalized some form of marijuana use and sales. Read more.