Reading Joel Rubinson’s excellent post over at his ARF blog, recalls some futuring I’ve been doing around the likely evolution of the industry.
Rubinson takes a look at the evolution of the ad agency and applies this evolutionary footpath to MR with media buying the analog to the data collection side of the business and creative [...]

The Research Industry Trends (RIT) Report is coming soon, and it promises to be quite revealing.
Tom Anderson promos the RIT a bit over at Next Gen Market Research. It’s worth a look.
The top two concerns are:
1. The non-representative nature of online samples
2. Quality of online sample is worse than most believe
Clearly these [...]

When I asked a good friend in the research industry to give me a one word prediction for 2010, he sent me a clip of Mr. T saying “pain”.
That wouldn’t be my first word choice, but to get a sense of what leaders in the industry are thinking, you can check out their one word [...]

Peter Van Brunt addresses a colleague who feels that MR just “isn’t fun anymore.”
His colleague’s frustrations:
1. Too much email communication rather than face to face.
2. Increased speed of communication and deadline expectations.
3. Non-traditional competition from “non-researchers purporting to do or know how to do MR”.
The first is a general societal frustration.
I’ll address [...]

Tom Ewing asks:
“Are the Kids Alright?”
What are they thinking about the future of market research?
Why aren’t we hearing from them?
My take:
I don’t think we’re asking their opinion and I’m not sure the industry is listening.
But, I would add another option somewhat related to “they’re too busy doing amazing stuff.”
“They’re in industries, businesses and functions that [...]

The Boston Consulting Group released an excellent report on the state of client-side (in house) market research departments. You can read it all here.
Highlights:
1. Only 35% of executives describe their in-house MR function as “best in class.” (see page 4)
2. Although corporations should strive to move their MR departments from “order takers” [...]

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 [...]

Robert Heeg’s excellent piece in the October 2009 edition of Research World (ESOMAR’s publication) highlights the difficulties being experienced within the UK market currently.
To sum up, Nick Coates, research director at Promise states that, “the mainstreaming of online is good for us (his firm), because we work with online communities. But traditional market research [...]

For a deep look into the industry today, I recommend the Research Industry Trends Report 2009.
Three key points:
1. The Need for Speed. 70% of market research professionals agree that clients are demanding shorter timelines.
2. The Threat of Commoditization. 73% agree with the idea that the industry is being commoditized with clients [...]