Attend an MR conference and chances are good that sooner or
later a case of consulting envy will break out.
Symptoms include repeated use of phrases such as “seat at the table” and
“C-level access.” This is not a new
phenomenon; it’s been a pretty steady part of the MR inferiority complex for
the almost 20 years that I’ve been in the industry. The syndrome manifested
itself at last week’s ESOMAR Congress in a session titled, “Think BIG:
Imagine.” It started from the premise
that MR is twice as old and yet only one-tenth the size of management
consulting (poor us) and then wondered how we might create “exponential growth”
to close the gaps in revenue and prestige. The answer,
it turns out, is behavioral science.
To be clear, I agree that behavioral science is a megatrend
with the potential to transform our industry.
But will its smart application make us rich and at long last bestow upon
us that mythical seat at the table? I
doubt it.
Management consultants and market researchers work at
fundamentally different levels. The
consultant’s playing field includes corporate strategy and the full range of
company operations, the whole enchilada.
Market researchers primarily provide tactical advice on how to take
products to market. The two value propositions are fundamentally different and
they result in fundamentally different ways of interacting with clients.
I am tempted to say that we should just get over it, enjoy
the work that we do and take pride in the value we deliver. Then again, as
tiresome as it can be maybe our fundamental insecurity is a good thing. Maybe the constant fear of our lunch being
eaten by management consultants and predictive analytics keeps us on our toes,
pushes us to innovate, and makes us better if not bigger. Andrew Grove probably was right; only the
paranoid survive.
I think we check that box.
Comments
6 responses to “That old seat at the table”
Hi Reg, Behavioural Science is hardly a megatrend. It has been the bedrock of market research for many decades. Yes, Ariely and Kahnemen have raised its profile, and reminded us of what people like Couper, Krosnick, Thurstone, Festinger, Osgood, Likert etc have been showing us for year, there is a science that underpins the art of market research – if we ignore the science we can ask really dumb questions.
The current popularity of Behavioural Economics (a clever renaming of the subject, making it eligible for a Nobel Prize) will, I hope, cause market researchers to weed out the worst of the current practices, and improve some of the best, but it is not a change of direction, and barely a change in emphasis – IMHO
Concur. Our work is more like consulting work than market research; the simple answer is that we use research as a means to an end. It’s not the thing we’re actually delivering.
So, Ray, you disagree with the proposition that MR has been dominated by a model of consumer decision making that assumes rationality without significant weight to emotions?
I am not sure that I would agree that MR has been dominated by a rational model without a significant role for emotion. Economics (one of my other interests) can be criticised for this, many classic business models, but I would not say it is dominant in MR.
Qual has always focused on the qualitative and the emotional (well good qual anyway), models of advertising have for 30 and more years tried to blend opportunity to see, attention, and emotional impact.
I think that MR models have tended to be too deterministic, and the interest in BE will improve some of our procedures and help kill off some weaker forms of MR – but, no, I don’t see it as a megatrend.
Interesting, I wasn’t there. Was that really suggested, that Behavioural Science would help us close the gap to Management Consultancies? How fanciful – but equally disturbing if this was a serious proposition, as it suggests that we (whoever that is) are victim to strong cognitive biases – eg an inability to have an honest assessment of one’s own strengths and weaknesses.
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