Market Research

Traditionally, market research has been understood as the process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data about a particular market—and the products, brands, or services within that market—to help organizations make better business decisions. Finding out what the customer (current, past, or potential) wants lies at the heart of market research. Often organizations think, or assume, that they know what their customers need and want and how their products and services are perceived. Market research can deepen this understanding and can also raise questions about the assumptions that organizations make about their customers. It provides a dispassionate and structured perspective that enables organizations to better understand their customers and, as a result, to develop products and services that more closely match their needs. Data obtained from market research is fed into a broad pool of information, such as sales and economic data, trends, and predictions, which are gathered from a variety of sources. This information pool is used by marketers or strategists within the organization to help develop corporate strategy and consumer communications.

However, over recent decades, the role of market research has broadened, and it has moved away from a purely data-gathering function. Currently, market research is often used to help identify potential opportunities for the future. Instead of data, market researchers are increasingly expected to help develop ideas and concepts that are an extension of the data and that help clients to develop their markets. Many market researchers and clients view research as a creative process, which is useful when developing new products, services, brands, or advertising. It can also be used to help define organizational strategy. Although the core qualitative skills of moderating, analysis, conceptual thinking, and presentation are just as relevant from this creative perspective, they are applied to different methodologies, such as brainstorming, creative thinking sessions, idea generation, and evaluation. Sometimes this approach is called marketing research to differentiate it from market research.

Adopting this broader definition, marketing research is seen as a process of helping clients (whether commercial or noncommercial organizations) to better understand their target audiences; to help create, develop, and fine-tune their products or services; and to more precisely tailor their communications for this target audience. Consumers are involved as active participants in this process rather than as sources of information. They work with the researcher to develop ideas or help shape the ideas developed by the client. At the same time, research has broadened its scope—for example, it may involve [Page 497]input to organizational restructuring, employee communications, and external communications as well as specific products, brands, and services. There is a strong consultancy component that is implicit in this way of understanding market research.

However, there are researchers who would regard these areas as outside the remit of market research. These researchers feel that the role of market research should predominantly remain within the area of data gathering to preserve its authority by providing objective and scientifically based input. This is a time of change for the market research industry, and it is therefore difficult to clearly define the borders of market research.

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