Today’s guest post is by Mark Sareff, Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy Australia.
Here are two blunt truths about marketing research (in all its forms):
People in research don’t say what they mean and don’t mean what they say.
Much of what passes for marketing research is simply pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.
Which, in turn, means you need to hire the absolute best researcher your money will buy. Unless the outcome’s not that important. In which case, bank the money and go with your gut – better than a charlatan doing something half-baked in the name of research.
It’s not that respondents are deliberately dishonest in research. Well, some actually are. But a good deal of the time, we – that’s you and me, and people just like you and me – have no real idea why we did what we did. Why we thought the way we thought. Why we felt the way we felt. Often it’s ‘just so’.
When pushed hard enough – in front of a group of strangers – who could be blamed for blurting out a complete untruth? Better that than look a fool. And have you noticed how rational our thinking becomes when among strangers (actually, even when we’re completely alone)? We hate admitting to being driven by forces we don’t quite understand. That most of our decisions are ‘feels right’ or ‘feels wrong’.
The very fact of talking about System 1 – where the bulk of our decision-making takes place – as our ‘primitive/reptilian brain’ makes it harder for us superior animals to admit that we avoid thinking wherever possible. That we rely on short cuts. That we’re anything but rational.
So it needs a darn good researcher. The best your money can buy. The good ones are highly talented folk. They’re open and able to discuss their way of working; their belief in what makes humans tick and respond the way they do. Truth is they’re in short supply. They aren’t everywhere. They’re pretty special.
They’re not companies. And not all companies have them. And they’re not ‘black box processes’ – no matter the amount of validation.
So please, pick the most talented person you can afford. And much as you might enjoy participating, observing, taking copious notes, drawing conclusions and making inferences please remember this (and I say this with utmost humility):
You’re likely paying a very different brain to yours to do something you probably can’t do well – work out what people really mean when they don’t mean what they say. When they, themselves, are not entirely sure what they mean.
