Back in the analogue days of the Seventies we had to sell the idea of market research to suspicious clients from leaky offices across SE Asia that had non-existent phone systems, intermittent powers supplies and all the other watch-them-glaze-over-old-Asia-hand diatribes… the golden era when the research business wasn’t really a business. But you’ll be pleased to see that I’ve managed to distill this sanctimonious rave into Ten Shortish Rules…
Rule 1: Maintain your incredulity. Don’t believe anything that’s recorded in a questionnaire, said in a focus group or reported in a survey unless you have personally validated it. Several times.
Rule 2: Ask sensible questions. Respondents aren’t idiots. And you’ll always get responses to a poorly constructed question; their answers just won’t mean anything.
Rule 3: Data aren’t the end result… reliable data are important but even “good” information isn’t important per se. Information is the manure – the fertiliser for ideas… step in it, walk around it but use it to understand what’s happening and what the client should do.
Rule 4: Make definite recommendations. Go beyond the data. Remember, knowledge is adjudicated information and you have the authority to adjudicate. Some clients may not want your opinions but give them judiciously. All of us have numerous examples of studies where clients have ignored our advice and lost lots of money.
Even an Old Economy researcher can tell when a New Economy idea bombs in research. We once watched a dotcom client drop $10 million in three months because they disagreed with the fairly obvious prognosis that Singapore didn’t need their version of an online department store.
The late Dr Peter Kenny (the brilliant and wonderfully eccentric Aussie researcher whose letterhead featured a naked picture of himself – as one does – on the basis that it had impact and opened doors) once told me to “push clients to do what you suggest…they need the confidence to act in a definite way. Get them to do anything, anything at all and they’ll get a result!”
Rule 5: Be brave with your knowledge. Don’t be afraid to deliver bad news. Only the ancient Romans cut out the tongues of the bearers’ of bad news. If in doubt, avoid Italian clients.
Predictions are difficult. Certainly don’t expect consumers to predict the future for you – they can’t.
Rule 6: Write properly. Research reports don’t have to be poorly written just because most of them are. Stop hiding behind the bullet points of PowerPoint and MBAspeak. A coherent story and cogent ideas do not require the camouflage of paradigm shifts in asynchronous end-to end consumer interfaced concepualisations going forward. If in doubt give your report to a non-marketing person to read. If they can understand it then it will probably make sense when someone who wasn’t at the presentation picks it up later.
The finest research reports I’ve read were from Peter Kenny. Invariably hand written and no more than four A4 pages they were discursive and deceptively simple (impressive as they sprang from a mind so brilliant that only two people on the planet were qualified to grade his doctoral thesis). They usually contained hand drawn pictures and still make colossal sense twenty years later.
Rule 7: Culture matters. Examine the past as well as the present. To understand where societies are headed, look at where they are from. Read Geertz and Mulder’s books on Java and Hla Pe’s “Burma”. Historical, popular and material cultural perspectives are generally more instructive than non-parametric statistics when understanding Asia.
Rule 8: Get out of the office. Research isn’t a white collar occupation although most research companies resemble accountancy firms where researchers imperiously compile data from questionnaires and focus groups that are brought in from the chaotic and non-airconditioned world.
Online communities are great but have not replaced the need for Wandering About. Speak to people on the train, on the street, in their homes, in the bars and coffee shops. Observe. This is a crucial part of the quest for enlightenment, not an optional product clients can buy under the guise of “ethnography”. Keep in mind that you have been commissioned to solve a problem not run “x” number of focus groups or conduct “y” interviews.
Rule 9: Make up your own rules. Read the textbooks but then explore new solutions. For example, the ESOMAR handbook tells us that focus group respondents shouldn’t know each other but, in our experience, it’s preferable to have a groups of teenagers who are friends in order to have them comfortable with their peers. They are also more likely to tell the truth amongst people who know them.
Get out of the traditional group “fishbowl”. Recruit consumers in situ so you know they really do drink XO cognac or go clubbing or whatever your consumers are meant to do. Reconvene groups. Sensitise respondents. Call them up after a group session and clarify their responses in private. Use more than one moderator. Listen unobtrusively. The best researchers are like the best photographers, chameleons whose presence doesn’t influence the experiment.
Rule 10: Enjoy yourself! Research is now cool – it wasn’t always the case. But it was always interesting. The journeymen/women of Asian Strategies have run focus groups in locales as diverse as Melanesian caves (ahh, Plato) and seafood restaurants in Kowloon with triad members who insisted on standing up throughout the two hour session (at least three moderators are required for this as two are inevitably yam singed under the table).
We’ve been poked with spears by irate Papuan respondents, dodged landmines in Khmer Rouge areas of Cambodia, been stoned by drunken fishermen in Banda Aceh and helped extinguish a fire in our hotel on Gizo (Solomon Islands) to save two thousand questionnaires from a radio survey. All in the name of consumer behaviour.
So get into some comfortable clothes, slap on the sunscreen and get out there kids. You probably won’t become a millionaire but you will become a better researcher and be more valued by your clients. Oh, and don’t forget to bill fifty percent of the fee up front.
And a round of applause Ray Poynter and Sue York of The Future Place who do this for virtually nothing except the warm glow of helping the research community.
