Reflecting on the marketing research industry
Editor’s note: Bob Kaden is president of The Kaden Company.
I owned two research companies and practiced for over 45 years. I didn’t choose to retire. It evolved until there were no more projects to complete and the phone stopped ringing. I know I got tired of clients who ignored research results because they didn’t jive with their preconceived notions. Or worse, did nothing with the results that emerged.
In retrospect, what happened is clear, if not obvious. Clients retired and their younger replacements chose to deal with younger suppliers. I got sick of traveling to one city after another for meetings or to moderate another series of focus groups. A few clients became aggravated with me because I became aggravated with them for the silly reason of just being clients, which is a great way to lose business. What I also came to realize was that I was running on creative empty. That the joy and fun of doing business had faded away and I simply wanted to stop.
Don’t take this the wrong way. I loved being a supplier. I loved and respected the vast majority of clients. I felt the work we turned out was insightful, creative, professional and delivered when promised. I took pride in being a mentor to all who chose to work for me, and I was challenged until that day I wasn’t.
Could I have continued hunting for business? Sure. Would getting new business have made me happier. Making money aside, clearly not. It would have resulted in writing yet more proposals, laboring through more studies, writing more reports, giving more presentations along with more travel and so on. Just more of the same old, same old.
It’s been 10 years since I last thought seriously about my business life. In those final couple of years, I did write, edit and publish a couple of books. First, regurgitating what I learned in my career and how others, with a bit of effort, could do what I did. Second, editing a book on the future of market research. Both worthy efforts to be sure and now left to posterity.
It’s strange to me that I find myself wondering whether the profession has greatly changed. Data collection methods have changed dramatically and pose a more difficult challenge to getting unbiased, projectable results. Just look at how polling has taken it on the chin. Markets are more fractured than ever making it incumbent on researchers to carefully slice and dice data to understand the motivations of smaller and smaller targets.
The splintered nature of our politics and social structures certainly effects how consumers see, hear and react to advertising messages. And with overwhelming media options, social networks and messaging from wherever, knowing what really works seems to often be a hodgepodge of guesswork. If that’s not enough, given the speed of change that we now live with, everything has to be done quicker, faster and before the market takes another turn.
Perhaps most challenging is the question of how market research will adapt and prosper in an AI world. It’s simplistic to think there aren’t many more changes to the profession than these few. But it’s not my mission here to opine on them. I’ll happily leave that to those more steeped in the day to day. Yet, whatever methodologies are being used, understanding consumer motivation is still at the heart of our profession. Researchers still must communicate the value of their findings in as convincing manner as they can. And, of course, do it as economically as possible.
I sometimes wonder if I would enjoy doing business given the complexity of today’s world. Would I enjoy the challenges heaped on today’s researchers? Well, maybe. Probably. But looking back it appears as though I worked in the best of times. I completed thousands of quantitative studies and moderated close to 2,500 focus groups and brainstorming sessions. I wined and dined many clients and some even reciprocated. I took satisfaction in their smiles and thanks after a presentation, and in their repeat business. I loved billing clients when a study was completed and more so when the check arrived. And for the many professionals who over the years would leave my company to do their own thing, I felt pride in knowing they came from the right place to succeed on their own.
It wasn’t always easy. It never is. But the last many years have done little to blunt the joy in the professional life I was privileged to lead. In leaving when it was time to leave, without regret, without sadness and without feeling there was a stone that was yet to be turned. I thank my profession for a life well lived and am pleased that I was able to play a small part in the success of my clients and growth of the many who chose to work alongside me.