Tough questions for the MR industry

A panel of senior market researchers faced some tough questions at Research 2010 this afternoon from Stephen Sackur, the no-nonsense host of the BBC’s Hardtalk.

Sackur was there to provide a view from outside the research industry, and pose the questions that insiders might not think of (or might be too polite to ask). The result was a discussion that was at times refreshing, and at times rather rambling. It was like watching researchers defend their jobs to a surly, sceptical friend of a friend down the pub.

Much of the discussion involved Sackur coming out with pithy descriptions of the panellists’ work, then letting them defend themselves. To FreshMinds’ James Turner: Are you at the very superficial end of market research? (Turner’s reply: no.) To IJMR editor Peter Mouncey: I may be wrong but I’m going to characterise you as a sort of wise owl of the industry. (No argument on that from Mouncey.) To Michelle Harrison of TNS-BMRB: Is there a trust issue for market researchers? (Less of a trust issue than there is for journalists, says Harrison).

It didn’t take long before we were in a familiar discussion about the death of the survey – a technique that Sackur accurately described as “a bit clunky”. Just as FreshMinds’ head of online communities James Turner was making a measured defence of survey research in the right circumstances, Ray Poynter of the Future Place interrupted from the audience to shout “Rubbish!” and declare that the survey would be dead in twenty years. Social media is the future, he argued – we can’t just keep asking people the same stupid questions over and over again.

Peter Mouncey agreed that surveys are too long, too boring, and don’t give people a chance to say what they really want to say. But as Michelle Harrison pointed out, we can only do without surveys if we can do without asking people questions.