Why market research gives wrong results - blogging. Customer insight, client surveys and satisfaction ratings. Customer retention and business management issues. Conference keynote lecture.

http://www.globalchange.com/market.htm Market research cannot predict the future accurately. Example is the rapid growth of blogging or web diaries which was not indicated by market research surveys a year or two before. Lecture by Dr Patrick Dixon for MTN global leadership team.

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[pjvdixon]

Market research?  Yes vital to listen to all the data, customer feedback, evaluations - and take every word really seriously. Am just making the point that it is often unreliable in bigger picture. Example: asking investors if they would like to put money on deposit into Icelandic banks before or the day after those banks crashed, gives totally different answers, and the earlier ones were not a good predictor of the future!

[isaacpv2]

this is still better than groping blindly in the dark, or depending solely on your own biased views.

[pjvdixon]

Of course. I am not saying Market Research has no value, but questioning how accurate it is in predicting longer term trends.

[toddjbied]

I own a market research company and we take many precautions to weed out the professional respondent who would say anything to get into a focus group. While it is not 100% we have managed to achieve at least 95% authenticity from our checks and balances.

[pjvdixon]

I think that professional respondents to market research is not the main issue - since as you say most companies weed them out. The real issue is that market research can only see as far ahead as the people who are interviewed and that is often not far enough, especially since people often change their minds when their world changes.

[flightsuit]

Good point! Also, over the years, numerous market-research firms have paid me an awful lot of money for my opinions; Half the time I'd lied to qualify for the study and my opinions were spurious. I believe this is the case with far more survey participants than the market researchers would like to admit.

[pjvdixon]

Thanks for your honesty and openness about market research accuracy - it is amazing what people will say in focus groups and market research interviews and how easily responses can be influenced by the researcher themselves and situation. When people are being paid this too can distort results. You will find a whole load more about better ways to do market research on my main website globalchange com - link is on top left of this page. Patrick Dixon

[kylecook128]

thank you for the informative post and keep up the good work!

[divabikinis]

FHTM named as a company under investigation as part of the Nationwide Joint Investigation between FTC and Attorneys General known as "Operation Empty Promises"

[gsaharan1990]

you need to think again on this topic and understand the real reason behind market research....take an example where you are the ceo of an estbd. co. and want to launch a product that is totally different from your existing product line.... in that case, wont it be beneficial for you to do some prior reserch of the target customers....

[FreeJosefFritzl]

I have the subject Marketing Environment at school and I have to agree with Patrick Dixon that it is such nonsense and useless. All this analysing has no base, no foundation. A marketeer would be better of stuyding psychology than marketing in my opinion. It's also always good to be a market follower so you can focus on recreating what others do instead of taking risks in the front line.

[suza1103]

One reason why market research gives wrong results is because the companies they use make half of them up

(I still work for a market research company we make up for then 1/2 of our surveys we are given)

[clintonskakun]

that's true, but who could have predicted the internet?

[digthatholenow]

I don't know what they really expected. I think they just wanted a cost/headcount reduction and, by coincidence, the consultants came up with that as the strategy. I would suggest that what your customers do, is more important that what they say. Yes, we could have sold them a better and cheaper product, and we wouldn't have made as much money. (volume was restricted for all sorts of reasons peculiar the that business)

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