Day 1 was...
...thought provoking
...mind numbing
...unsettling
And here are 3 things I will tell my family, friends and colleagues back in San Fran when they ask me how Day 1 of the AMA MRC 2009 Conference was...
- I learn that I'm a newbie-ish market researcher right at the cusp of the industry's evolution. I want to be part of that future - helping shape it via deviant leadership, searching for stories, striving for research brilliance and uniqueness and embracing change or enforcing change.
- Media consumption is changing at breakneck speeds. Traditional media especially TV still takes a good chunk of time but social media is quickly becoming the prime real estate in marketing. This calls researchers to rethink how to ask the right questions.
- As the medium we serve is changing, our roles in serving this medium is also changing. Marketers are fast becoming agents of change, social constructors more than just being "thought leaders" wallowing in data. It is no longer simply vendor-supplier relationships but becoming more and more of a partnership between key individuals in the process.
Side note, throughout today I heard this said a few times - Consumers don't act as they say. This fact makes me think whether survey research is dead or is gravely ill. How, then, can survey research spring back to life?
See y'all tomorrow!
Dear Newbie,
ReplyDelete"Consuner's don't act as they say." Alas, this has always been true, and us old-timers (myself, 20+ years in the biz), have been dealing with it forever. This won't kill makret research. Indeed, it's part of what makes market research necessary.
If anyone could just up and ask customers, "What do you want?" and "how to you want it?" and get reliable, meangful answers--there wouldn't be much of a need for robust qual or quant methods.
It's the job of the researcher to be a detective, a scientist, a synthesizer, a reporter--all rolled into one.
Welcometo the party!
Kathryn Korostoff
Reesarch Rockstar founder