New glossary of MRX reflects the changing nature of the research sector

Like most industry sectors, the insights business is crammed full of jargon. We have a multitude of acronyms, strangely named collection methodologies and niche analytical techniques that can take a long time to become familiar with. Do you know your IHUT from your IDI; your Gabor Granger from your Van Westendorp; your TURF analysis from your T-Test? There is a lot to learn. 

For anyone new coming into our sector, getting up to speed with everything you might need to know must be a daunting prospect. But help is at hand, in the form of the MRS Glossary of Market Research Terms.

Over the last month or so I have been working with the MRS on updating the glossary. The glossary was originally written by Alan Wilson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Strathclyde Business School, mostly including content reproduced from his book, Marketing Research: An Integrated Approach, 2011.

Alan and I have worked together on both updating a few of the original entries and adding in many new ones. Along the way we found a collection of Alan’s original entries from the book that were never added to the MRS glossary when it was put online.

Full disclosure: I am not a researcher. But I have been working with researchers and their projects for over 30 years and I have always felt it was extremely important for me to understand all the terminology that I could expect to encounter when working with research professionals.

So, every time I picked up a new term or an acronym from a project or a new method from a conference presentation, I would make a conscious effort to remember it. And in my career, I am lucky enough to have worked with companies spanning both the quant and qual worlds, working with technology covering just about every aspect of the sector: from sampling, fieldwork and collection, through to data processing and reporting. As a result, I have a good spread of industry knowledge, built up over three decades.

In the ten years since the glossary was last updated, the industry has changed in so many different ways. We have seen an explosion of standardised or templated DIY research platforms, the growth of nonconscious research methods, the adoption of machine learning on various aspects of research operations, online qual, communities, customer experience programs. The list goes on. And every one of these new areas of market research has its own terminology, which we have tried to incorporate.

As a result, the online MRS glossary has now grown from just under 100 entries in 2012 to nearly 250 entries. And we aim to keep the MRS glossary updated and relevant by continuing to add the latest methods, terms and acronyms.

The glossary is by no means exhaustive. So, if you feel there are some important research terms that we have missed out, then I would encourage you to let us know. We have provided a form that can be filled in with any suggestions that you have, to make the MRS Glossary (our industry glossary) the best that it can be.

See the glossary and send us any missing terms.

Richard Collins is chief customer officer at Askia