The following alternatives could be considered by the Research agencies after assessing the possible outcomes of the research:
- Discontinue the use of branded research products.
- Reduce the level of branded research products they try to sell.
- Increase the level of flexibility or customisation associated with branded research products. So that, they could retain the main framework of the product, but also customise it to a certain extent to suit the client’s individual needs.
Both of these alternatives will be examined in more detail during the course of the essay. Additionally, a conclusion will be drawn as to how viable both of these alternatives are to the clients and the agencies.
Advantages
Advantages to the Client
From the clients point of view there are a few major benefits.
Through Branded Research Products a standardized global approach is available, which can be applied internationally to facilitate comparisons between markets for the Research issues. A company can do research in a number of countries using the same approach and compare the results. Furthermore, this makes the research products cost effective for both the clients.
The availability of database of past studies and the norms established, make the results of greater practical value in decision making
The added value from top level research thinking is integral to the approach, rather than being entirely dependent on the individual researcher carrying out a project. The growth of integrated management information systems in client companies creates a natural hunger for standardized techniques.
Advantages to the research company
The research companies also get a few benefits from selling the Branded Research Products. The standardization of the research also makes it beneficial in context of cost, as doing research across countries as a similar approach used by the company will lead to lesser costs involved in Development of the Marketing Research
For the agency, its most highly skilled executive time can be deployed in the creation and development of the research system. Once established, the research system can be promoted and to some extent applied by the executives of less outstanding technical talent. In effect the investment of the most highly skilled executive time can be spread over a number of projects, rather than having to be occupied by just one.
At a time when cost pressures will militate against added value in individual ad hoc project, BRP provides an opportunity to amortize the cost of skilled research resource over many projects. In a competitive environment branded research services could act to guarantee rather than impair quality in research.
Disadvantages
A large number of marketing research customers are dissatisfied with branded research products because they pay a premium price for a standardised product. Such customers feel that if they are paying a high price for a product they should be getting levels of customisation that branded products simply don’t offer. There are also issues in terms of branded research being like a ‘black box’ and problems with growing levels of standardisation when researching internationally.
In terms of cost, branded research products are often as expensive as individual tailor-made solutions. However, many companies that conduct large amounts of research don’t believe that a standardised type of research should cost as much as customised research that is created specifically for your company’s problem. This raises the question with many companies of why should a mass-produced, standardised product cost as much as a customised, tailor-made product. If this is compared with a different sector then you wouldn’t pay the same price for a mass produced Ford as you would for a custom built Rolls Royce. (Reference). Many research agencies ask is a product with no flexibility worth the premium price merely because it is branded.
Often branded research products are useful when dealing with routine research problems. However, when analysing situation specific problems their use is limited because they are not moulded to fit exact research questions. Dick Whittington, of American express, says bluntly that they never buy branded products:
“When we look for ad hoc solutions to problems it is very rare that we can find a ‘canned’ or branded product that provides what we need.”
Clients conducting market research want to believe that that their situation is unique and therefore standardized or ‘canned’ branded research is not very appealing. This issue is often exacerbated by Research Company’s lack of understanding of a customer’s research problem. The researcher often does not take time to understand the client’s problem but instead offers the company a branded research solution that does not fit the research problem trying to be solved. This can lead to the creation of negative knowledge that gives clients wrong information that leads to wrong decisions.
It’s true that the world economy is undergoing a globalisation. But still there are so many cultural differences between different parts of the world that it is quite difficult to come to a true global marketing research approach. The use of branded research products does not advance the creation and dissemination of knowledge in the market research field. This is because a common denominator among some of these products is that the firms won’t disclose exactly how they work. That’s why they are pejoratively known as black boxes. What’s more, it places emphasis on the researcher’s tool kit rather than the researcher. In its extreme form, it results in the researchers letting the research product do their thinking for them. “Implicit is the fact that the attitude of many researchers is; the anxiety that the fight for profit will reduce the quality of the research which we produce.” (Tim Bowles)
In terms of international marketing research branded products have brought some advantages in terms of comparability across national boundaries. Nevertheless, the freedom of the researcher is less because there are still all sorts of standardised products. Additionally, it has required researchers to do things the same way that researchers in other countries do them, so perhaps it has limited them to a certain extent. There are very few global brands where you can do the same thing in every market.
Many researchers are used to getting their creative satisfaction from designing individual, ad-hoc solutions for each client brief. For them to move towards a branded research may suggest a form of standardization in which every research problem is reduced to the lowest common denominator.
Clients choose people not agencies.
Because of the ambiguity that surrounds technical excellence and the difficulty clients have in appraising it, personal relationships with clients take on a great significance in every profession. (Maister, 1989)
Clients will make a choice of research agencies which is often based upon the personal skills of the individual researchers and their relationship with them. Their company environment will, however, encourage them to take competitive bids for any ad hoc survey and they will need good justification for deciding to accept a significantly higher bid from their favoured supplier.
Future
There will continue to be a need for top quality ad hoc research, in which the research design is tailor-made to meet individual and special information needs. Such projects will always need the skills of an all-round, professional researcher.
Design and analysis time for research projects will become increasingly restricted due to the fact that everything has started to move and change faster than 20 years ago, for example. Logistics and information flow become faster as communications improve. When the logistics become more rapid there is an assumption that everything becomes faster including design and analysis. But who says people can think faster or better than they did 20 years ago? (We’ve got five years)
As the time pressures grow on clients and agencies the branded research product will have one method of shortening the design and interpretation stage without overly degrading the quality. Effectively, client and researcher are forgoing the luxury of learning and thinking on each project and substituting it by learning and thinking across projects.
The focus will be on how projectable the results are, rather than how pure was the methodology. Clients will measure the quality of the outputs instead of measuring the quality of the inputs.
A danger for the future of the market research industry is that the conditions for organic growth may be difficult to create within larger marketing services and information groups. Consequently, some ingenuity must be applied to devise incentive schemes that reward the management teams that contribute to the long-term growth of their companies. To compete in the present business environment, market research needs to invest. In the future, there will be a continued need for top quality ad hoc research, in which research is tailor-made to meet individual and special information needs. – Bowles Tim
Limitations
Even though this essay covers most of the positive and negative aspects of branded research products, there are some limitations due to the lack of sources for conducting secondary data research. The subject of branded research products being fairly new to the industry, not much research has been published in this area previously. Furthermore, no primary research has been conducted attributable to the lack of time, money and contacts.
Conclusion
Branded research products have both advantages and disadvantages. The relevance and the benefits of using these products is determined by each problem or situation individually. The market researcher’s best bet is to use these products only when the problem is somewhat routine and/or standardization is required across many different units or countries.
At the beginning of the essay we discussed three main decision alternatives that could be used by market research firms to deal with the dilemma of customer dissatisfaction regarding branded research tools. These were:
- Discontinue the use of branded research products
- Reduce the level of branded research products they try to sell.
- Increase the level of flexibility or customisation associated with branded research products. So that, they could retain the main framework of the product, but also customise it to a certain extent to suit the client’s individual needs.
After assesing the pros and cons of these products we can confidently conclude that to discontinue or reduce the level of branded research products that the firms employ would be foolhardy. This is due to the increasing trend in the industry to employ such methods. Any company not branding their research methods would face huge problems in terms of product recognition and association. With ever increasing levels of globalization and standardised brands, a consistent approach to market research is increasingly important, especially when conducting large scale, international marketing research. Branded research offers clients a higher degree of continuity when carrying out research across different markets and countries.
However, sometimes the rigidity in structure and the high cost of these market research tools are not appropriate for certain research problems and research clients. Some clients may be dissatisfied with the ‘mass-produced’ solution that these research tools churn out, because they may not prodvide a fitting answer to their research question.
Therefore we conclude that branded research tools are more useful when they are associated with a degree of flexibity to suit the clients individual needs. Additionally, branded research products provide a great level of comparability, if used correctly, when researching across cultures and countries. If research firms could provide a certain degree of flexibility to their products then branded research products could go a long way in improving the efficiency of the research industry.
References
Books
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Bowles, T (1991) Issues Facing the UK research industry, Market Research Society, Journal of Market Research Society, Vol. 33, Issue 2: pg 71, 11 pgs, London: NTC publication Ltd.
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Wilson, A (2003) Marketing Research, An integrated Approach; Essex: Pearson Education Limited
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Zikmund, W (1997) Exploring Marketing Research, Sixth Edition; Orlando: The Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace College publishers
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Shao A (1999) Marketing Research: An Aid to decision Making, Cincinnati : South-Western College Publishing
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O’Cass, A; Grace, D (2004) Exploring consumer experiences with a service brand, The Journal of product and brand Management; West Yorkshire: MCB UP Limited
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Malhotra, N K; Peterson, M (2001) , Marketing Intelligence & Planning; Bradford : Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Web Articles
- Q & A: Research in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands
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http://www.quirks.com/articles/article.asp?arg_ArticleId=731 (last visited on 13th December, 2004)
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Black Boxes by Terry Grapentine http://www.grapentine.com/articles/grapentine.pdf (last visited on 12th December, 2004)
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http://www.synovate.com/en/index.php (last visited on 13th December, 2004)
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http://www.martinhamblin-gfk.co.uk/tools_tech/brand_services.html (last visited on 13th December, 2004)
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http://www.powerdecisions.com/branding-research.cfm (last visited on 13th December, 2004)
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http://www.bmra.org.uk/mrbusiness/content.asp?ezine=57&article=142#education (last visited on 13th December, 2004)
