Why is Market Research important but not enough?
Very often, a large part of our brief is about establishing foundational understanding for a category in a country or countries. It could be Detergents in Philippines or Sanitary napkins in China or Milk powder in India and such like. In the process we look at historical market research data that exists with the “owners” of the consumer knowledge in order to come up with some pattern or algorithm on consumer choices with respect to the category or the country or both. However, we cannot stop at that.
Market research data, by itself, is an inadequate predictor of what the consumer wants from the product or the category. It’s merely indicative. That is because it is mostly claimed data as marked out on long-winded questionnaires that run into pages and pages! The insights gathered from pure MR analysis do indicate what people want at that point of time, which price points they prefer, what are their brand consideration sets at that point of time. But this method of gathering consumer preference information cannot take into account-hidden motivators, which a consumer finds difficult to articulate even to herself.
Contextual factors such as state of economy, level of incomes, level of infrastructures, role of women, education, community or kin-ship and political stability are required to be studied in detail and enmeshed with the research data to be able to have some predictability. In our experience, we have witnessed startling results when we have looked at some hitherto unnoticed trend such as “religious affiliations” to way product categories are consumed in different countries and communities.
In our experience the bane of market research data is its significant over-use on one hand and the neglect in “contextualizing it” on the other. A good way to whet claimed preferences is to look at real-time retail data. Especially in this day and age of the “informed consumer” who is moving to “modern retail” – which establishes the primacy of choice. In fact, most times – purchase is not related to the price of the product, as long is its within the value framework of the consumer. It is the unarticulated reasons that are extremely decisive. Consider the purchase of lets say a product certified “halal” or “kosher”. In their respective cultures, products certified thus will have a very high pull regardless of “promotions”.
Or consider the preference of “red” packaging in China. Its got to do with the natural preference for red (considered highly auspicious) in the China market. In fact, SKII, P&G’s premium skin care range has the highest sale in China & Hong Kong.
Or the fact that one of the largest markets for milk powders in the world is in China, as culturally there is a belief that women’s role in being “providers” for the family and “contributors” to the society is equal to that of men which is why China has one of the largest female labour participation rates in the world, a trend further re-inforced due to the one-child policy. This cultural indoctrination took place during Chairman Mao’s regime in the late 1940s and through the 50s. There are several academic papers on status of women in Communist China and how the philosophy changed women’s role definition in the Chinese society. Hence, women are not expected to be out of work, breastfeeding or nurturing the young beyond the initial weeks.
Research data analysis only gives a “point in time” picture which are cumulated responses indicating claimed preferences of the respondents who are supposed to represent the universe. In the absence of any other data, this the best we can do to understand preferences. However, we need to contextualize it.
The other missing part, which plays a huge role in building foundational understanding, is the play of competitors. It is probably the most important thing to do in the “contextualizing” of the findings. Understand the most important competitor because that’s the closest benchmark that your consumer has in her mind for your brand.
After all, as per the much-quoted War tactician, Sun Tzu – “To be successful in marketing, we must learn how to leverage the opportunities that others give us.”
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Why is Market Research important but not enough?
Very often, a large part of our brief is about establishing foundational understanding for a category in a country or countries. It could be Detergents in Philippines or Sanitary napkins in China or Milk powder in India and such like. In the process we look at historical market research data that exists with the “owners” of the consumer knowledge in order to come up with some pattern or algorithm on consumer choices with respect to the category or the country or both. However, we cannot stop at that....
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