I’m back stateside from the ESOMAR Annual Congress and it’s taken some time to process everything that was packed into those three days. This was my first European marketing research conference and I was thankful for the opportunity to hear from so many different presenters from across the globe to get a snapshot of what research is like worldwide.
What blew me away this year was how much the industry seems to be craving an answer to the question of what makes consumers tick. Several tenuous metaphors were used (e.g., peacocks, frogs in boiling water, appendectomies, etc.) and it seemed like everyone was looking for The Answer – whatever that means. Researchers seemed to be wondering: How can we conduct this much research and still have this many questions? Shouldn’t consumers be easier to understand than this?
Researcher interest in the consumer has stretched far beyond surveys and focus groups and seems to be pushing borders of traditional anthropology, history and even psychology. Presenters, of course, shared survey findings, algorithms and nuts-and-bolts-type tricks of the trade but the who-what-where-when-how of research findings paled in comparison to an onslaught of the same single question: Why?
Researchers – and perhaps those on the receiving end of the deliverables – are no longer satisfied knowing only what consumers like, how to design it, how to deliver it or what it should cost. The answers to those questions are largely situation-specific. Instead, by asking why consumers like what they like, want what they want and buy what they buy, researchers seek to understand human nature, which, one might suspect, doesn’t vary quite so much.
Whether we’re talking about neuroscience, ethnography or evolutionary psychology, marketing research overall is becoming less concerned with what can be observed and what consumers can report and more focused on understanding the consumer, irrespective of circumstance, cultural influence or what consumers might think they know about themselves and what motivates them.
The consumer condition, if you don’t mind my calling it that, is pretty consistent across the globe. Humans all want the same things for the same reasons, it just doesn’t look the same in every culture.
So what is the global consumer condition? Nature dictates that we are social beings (almost every parent in every country wishes for more family time), competitive (women seek to impress women and men seek to impress men), emotionally-driven (worthwhile causes tug on our heartstrings and purse strings alike); imaginative creatures (fantasies compel us always to desire more) who consume to satisfy basic needs and to display our values outwardly (reputation matters).
As researchers continue to ask why and understand the constants in consumer behavior, they’re left with the task of figuring out what meeting those needs will look like with their offering, among their audience. This is where usage, design, advertising and satisfaction research can offer guidance and keep companies on the right track. But once the endgame is understood, the rest is details . . . right?