One of the challenges that vexes the market research industry is a perceived lack of respect among the buyers of its product.

Advertising Age pondered this issue on September 24, 2007, and it is worth a read. The author, Jack Neff, does an exceptional job of spelling out the isues at hand.

Key quote:

“It’s a weird dissonance some believe is at the heart of marketing’s malaise. Marketers need good research more than ever but either can’t get it, can’t understand it or cant accept it. Market research, in other words, has never been so important. Yet market researchers are as unimportant as ever — at least within their own organizations.”

There are many reasons, but here are a few:

1. Delivering a metric ton of data without (a) the elevator speech on what it means and (b) simple charts that can be easily forwarded, places the industry in a non-strategic, data collection role.
2. The academic training of many market researchers leads to tedious deliverables unsuited to the rapid pace of the business world.
3. With compressed schedules and numerous multi-tasking devices, many organizations simply don’t devote the kind of time that they should to deep thinnking about their business and customers. It is difficult to have a deep, wide ranging discussion of the consumer mindset when the audience is too time stretched to engage.
4. Commoditization. Because the industry has allowed itself to be seen as a provider of data instead of data-based strategy, buyers (and especially procurement departments) have taken to viewing market insights as an undifferentiated commodity.
5. It is far easier (and involves much less organizational politics) for research professionals to act as the impartial measuring stick than to engage strategically based on the data. But, the path of least resistance has put the industry in a cul-de-sac of sorts.