I’ve been thinking a lot about change lately. Not the kind left in your pocket at the end of the day; I’m talking about the change that makes things different from how they were before. It’s been on my mind because we’re working on the 2017 installment of our annual Corporate Researcher Report (CRR) and each year since 2014, when we began publishing the reports based on the findings from our annual survey of marketing researcher salaries and work lives, I’ve been amazed at how little some of the numbers have changed, especially the salary- and job satisfaction-related ones.
I guess I’m not sure what I’ve been expecting as far as change goes – a massive drop in salary levels, perhaps, or a decline in job satisfaction? But typically the most interesting parts of analyses of survey results are the outliers, the numbers that surprise – whether good or a bad (assuming they’re not due to some kind of error). Absent those kinds of standout findings, I’ve always worried that the CRR articles on the results of our survey are too similar from year to year. That’s one reason we’ve made a point of asking several open-ends on various timely topics, as a way to add some spice to the numbers while also giving a voice to the honest thoughts of our researcher readers. It’s also why we plan to continue devoting a lot of space in the CRR to some of the topics and issues that seem likely to contribute to noticeable changes in the industry.
One of this year’s areas of focus, for example, is quality. We have asked our content partners to write on topics related to quality based on data from the survey (including methodologies that deliver quality results; sample quality; and how automating aspects of the MR process can enhance quality) because in the end, quality – of information, of strategies and insights offered based on that information and of the methods used for data-gathering – is one deliverable that can set an organization’s marketing research function apart from other internal departments battling for budget and recognition from the C-suite.
Where were the insights departments?
I wondered about a lack of recognition for MR as I read a recent Wall Street Journal article (“So long Hamburger Helper: America’s venerable food brands are struggling”) on how some of the big packaged foods companies have been caught flatfooted by the rise of consumer interest in so-called clean-label food products, those with ingredient lists that don’t require a degree in food chemistry to decipher them. A natural first question is: Where were the insights departments at these companies during all of this? Were they aware of and tracking these societal shifts?
The article makes no mention of internal marketing research, either listened-to or ignored. My guess would be that trends were identified and brought to the attention of various executives over the years but then inertia and, in the case of Hamburger Helper, according to the article, robust profit margins probably got in the way of the companies making any meaningful, substantial changes in response to shifting consumer preferences.
Factors like inertia and safeguarding the bottom line are often out of your control but something that is in your control is quality. Hopefully the CRR will give you some useful strategies for keeping one step ahead of the changes. You’ll find it included with our annual Researcher SourceBook, our directory of providers of marketing research products and services, which should land with a thump on your desks in September. (Of course, you can always access the online version of the Researcher SourceBook at Quirks.com.) The CRR will also be available in PDF form and we will distribute it at the 2018 Quirk’s Events in Irvine, Calif., and Brooklyn, N.Y., and at other industry conferences throughout 2018. Please let us know what you think of it and how we can make it better serve your needs and interests.