Career in Marketing Research, Opinion Research: Helping Politicians to Formulate Relevant Public Policy: Manufacturers to Make Better Products: Hospitals, Airlines, Hotels, and Car Dealers to Provide Better Service

A CAREER IN

MARKETING RESEARCH

Institute Research Number 320 ISBN 1-48411-320-4 DOT Number 050.067-014, O*Net SOC Code 19-3021.00

A CAREER IN

MARKETING RESEARCH OPINION RESEARCH Helping Politicians Formulate Relevant Public Policy Manufacturers to Make Better Products Hospitals, Airlines, Hotels, and Car Dealers to Provide Better Service General Electric is the world’s most admired company. One-third of Muscovites aged 18+ believe that combating international terrorism is a key issue of US-Russia relations, while just 16% cite economic issues like Russia’s admission to the World Trade Organization. In 1985, Coca-Cola changed the formula of its 100-year-old flagship soft drink, introducing “New Coke.” Within three months, the company was forced to bring back the original formula as “Coke Classic.” Eighteen percent of Americans believe the scandalous collapse of energy behemoth Enron hurt the Republican Party. Thirty-eight percent say Vice President Dick Cheney’s refusal to name the people he met with while developing the administration’s energy policy means that he has something to hide. Americans are demonstrating a newfound admiration for the work of police officers and fire fighters. Every spring, 30% of Americans go on a diet. In the Northeast, it’s 39%. Sixty-four percent do gardening or yard work, and 29% have some maintenance done on the family car. 2

Seventy-five percent of girls say they either “love” sports or “like them a lot.” Forty-five percent of younger girls are interested in playing soccer. The AT&T brand is associated with reliability, prestige, and trustworthiness. America Online and Yahoo are the most visited websites overall. At work, men visit egghead.com more than any other site; at home, they spend time on the Sporting News site. True to caricature, 40% of American adults don’t know how to program their VCRs. Groups that tend to be more technically adept are young African American men; and separated, divorced and widowed adults. In 1999, Chrysler introduced the PT Cruiser, arguably the weirdest looking car since the original Volkswagen Beetle was unveiled. It was a phenomenal hit. How do we know all this, and why should we care? We know all this, thanks to the work of market researchers, including public opinion pollsters. Part marketing, part social science, consumer research is a $6 billion industry. And we should care, because the information these professionals acquire helps manufacturers develop products and services that consumers want and need; advises politicians when they’re formulating public policy and governments when they’re making regulations; and assists advertisers who want to get their message out to the right audience. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency retained a market research firm to assess consumer reaction to its public service announcement regarding the Energy Star brand before broadcasting it. Market researchers uncover what people want, what they think, and how they behave. They help their clients and employers use their resources most efficiently and profitably; they help decision makers make decisions. The information is only as valuable as its interpretation is thorough, however. Coke’s decision to switch to a sweeter, smoother, more Pepsi-like formula was based on a $4 million survey in which of 55% of nearly 200,000 consumers polled said they preferred the new formula. What the survey did not reveal was that the remaining 45% were fanatical about their preference, and their boisterous protests against Coca-Cola’s removal of their favorite soda was a public relations debacle. 3

EXPLORING THIS CAREER YOU’D BE WISE TO SHARPEN AND POLISH YOUR COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS. MARKET

researchers must translate complex ideas and numerical data into language any layperson can understand. Therefore, classes in English, composition, journalism, business/technical writing, communications and speech would all be useful. The information gathered, compiled, and analyzed by market researchers is almost always expressed numerically. Quantitative findings are often represented by charts and graphs that should give viewers a clear, immediate snapshot of the situation illustrated. So the greater your comfort and facility with numbers, the better. All math classes, as well as statistics and economics, can help you develop your skills in the world of facts and figures. Become an expert on using computers. Learn how to make charts and graphs, how to lay out and design a report so it looks like it was professionally printed, how to create hyperlinks within a document, even how to format and code a document so it can be uploaded onto the Internet. If your school or library provides access to popular software programs like Excel, Lotus, PowerPoint, Microsoft Access, learn how to use them. You won’t be sorry – no matter what you decide to do with your professional life. Read copies of Advertising Age at the library. Almost any article that is about a new product or new advertising campaign will mention the market research the company did to arrive at its plan of action. American Demographics is another great source. As the magazine itself once reported, “At American Demographics, we have enough market research studies crossing our desks every month to wallpaper a small mansion.” So it’s a good source for more detailed information about the kind of surveys used in this field. American Demographics profiles the finalists for the annual Advertising Research Federation (www.thearf.org/) David Ogilvy Research Awards. These honors are conferred for excellence in integrating market research into sound business strategy.

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HISTORY OF THIS CAREER “THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IS BUT THE BIOGRAPHY OF GREAT MEN,” WROTE

Thomas Carlyle in 1841. Whatever quibbles one may have with this statement on the whole, it certainly seems to pertain to the world of market research. Here are the stories of several inductees into the Market Research Council’s Hall of Fame.

Daniel Starch Daniel Starch (1883-1979), who had a PhD degree in psychology, founded one of the first professional marketing research firms to serve the business community. Daniel Starch & Staff broke new ground with the measurement of publications’ readership data and ad appeal, as well as the use of economic, sociological, and demographic information to characterize the market environment. Starch Ad Readership exists to this day, measuring responses to over 25,000 ads in over 400 magazine issues every year. In the 1970s, Starch’s original firm merged with that of Elmo Roper, a pioneering public-opinion pollster, to form Roper Starch Worldwide, one of the world’s leading consumer market research and trends consultancies.

Arthur C. Nielsen Sr. Arthur C. Nielsen, who was born in the Chicago area in 1897, was only 25 years old when he borrowed $45,000 from college pals to fund a completely new kind of business enterprise. The Nielsen Drug Index, implemented in 1933, monitored store owners’ invoices, prices, inventory and displays and used sampling techniques to assess the impact of product, packaging and price changes as well as the effectiveness of advertising techniques. The service proved so popular it was followed by the Food Index; and by the early 1960s, Nielsen’s company was auditing such product categories as confectionery, tobacco and photographic equipment. In 1936, Nielsen had a notion to measure broadcast audiences using a device called an Audimeter. Invented by two M.I.T. professors, the Audimeter was attached to radio receivers in people’s homes and transmitted such information as when the radio was on and what it was tuned to. The Nielsen Radio Index was followed in 1950 by the Nielsen Television Index, which correspondingly registered what was being watched on TV. Today, the authoritative and totally powerful Nielsen ratings are used to determine advertising costs. The television programs with the largest audiences can command the highest rates 5

for commercials aired during the shows. When you hear about a television station’s or show’s “ratings,” it’s the Nielsen Index figures being referred to. The current incarnation of the original firm, ACNielsen boasts 21,000 employees in more than 100 countries.

George H. Gallup Sr. When you hear reference to a Gallup Poll, it’s yet another market research trailblazer whose name is invoked. George Horace Gallup (1901-1984) studied journalism and psychology at Iowa State. His doctoral thesis was titled A New Technique for Objective Methods for Measuring Reader Interest in Newspapers, which introduced the use of random sampling for assessing newspaper and magazine readers’ interest in various articles and features. In 1929, Gallup became the head of the first-ever research department established in-house by an advertising agency, the esteemed Young & Rubicam. In 1935, he founded the American Institute of Public Opinion in Princeton, NJ, followed by the Audience Research Institute. Gallup became best known as a political researcher and in the mid-1930s was one of the first pollsters to create nationwide surveys based on scientific methods. With the exception of the 1948 prediction that Dewey would defeat Truman in his bid for president, the Gallup organization has been highly accurate in its political forecasting; and the Dewey/Truman error only prompted Gallup to perfect his polling techniques. Later, Hollywood came calling, with Walt Disney producing Alice in Wonderland only after Gallup-administered audience surveys gave the project the thumbs-up. Other producers sought his help in identifying tomorrow’s movie stars and winning screenplays. Gallup also invented the recall method. This strategy has interviewers calling random telephone numbers seeking people who had, for instance, seen a particular television show. These people were then asked whether they remembered a given ad, what the ad was for, what it had said, and whether it produced a “warm feeling” about the product featured. This turned out to be an extremely accurate way to measure not only the effectiveness of an ad but the prospects of a new product.

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The Gallup Organization today (www.gallup.com/) employs 2,500 professionals, including experts in management, economics, psychology, and sociology.

David Ogilvy David Ogilvy, a native of Scotland, joined Gallup’s Audience Research Institute shortly after emigrating to the United States in 1938. He gave full credit to his mentor, George Gallup – and to the man’s scrupulous investigative methods – as among the chief influences on his thinking. “Advertising people who ignore research,” Ogilvy once said, “are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.” Ogilvy was the creative mastermind behind many of the best known, best loved, most ingenious and most successful advertising campaigns of all time, both as a copywriter and as the head of the largest ad agency in the world, an enterprise that still bears his name, Ogilvy & Mather. (He died in 1999.) As an influential presence in the advertising industry, the quintessential adman, and ultimately nothing less than an icon, Ogilvy’s championing of the value and power of effective market research cannot be underestimated. In a 1991 speech to the Association of National Advertisers, he stated: “I once got a new client who told me to create a campaign which would make his friends at his country club congratulate him on his clever, amusing advertising. “I refused to do that. I just gave him a campaign which research had told me was likely to increase his sales. No manufacturer has ever complained that his advertising was selling too much.”

Marion Harper Jr. Marion Harper Jr. began working in the mail room of the ad agency McCann-Erickson in 1939, when he was 23. He set his sights on the research department. Within three years, he was manager of that department and initiated his own research into “a better understanding of what moves people to buy.” When he was just 32, Harper was tapped by H. K. McCann to succeed him as president of what at the time was the fifth-largest ad agency in the United States. McCann reportedly remarked, “I thought anyone who could make research as exciting as Marion Harper does would make a pretty exciting president of the company.”

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Harper’s star burned bright, but briefly. He was eventually demonized for his arrogant, autocratic, and short-sighted behavior as head of McCann. But whatever his shortcomings, his contributions to the field of market research are well recognized, and after his death, he was held in high esteem in the profession.

Ernest Dichter Until the end of World War II, much of what was considered market research consisted mainly of predicting how much of a particular product consumers could be expected to use. In the 1950s came an important shift, away from crunching census numbers and toward what would come to be termed motivational research. The founder of this revolutionary concept and movement, Viennese psychologist Ernest Dichter (1907-1991), defined it as “qualitative research designed to uncover the consumer’s subconscious or hidden motivations that determine purchase behavior.” Dichter recognized a fundamental flaw in consumer surveys: People don’t always tell the truth. In the 1950s, Dichter’s firm, the Institute for Motivation Research, was charged with the task of determining what type of automobile Americans wanted to buy. In the past, survey respondents – with Depression-era deprivation in mind – had described cars that were unexciting but reliable as the type of vehicle they wanted. Manufacturers dutifully produced such automobiles, which languished on dealership lots. Instead, Dichter asked interviewees to describe the type of cars their neighbors wanted. What they described was exactly the kind of sporty, extravagant car that became wildly popular around that time, a car that addressed the pent-up demand for consumer products in a newly affluent nation. When the Betty Crocker brand of instant cake mix inexplicably failed to catch on, Dichter turned to American housewives to find out why. Using the psychological techniques of depth interviewing and free association, he discovered that homemakers felt guilty about baking cakes for their families with so little effort. He advised Betty Crocker to instruct users to add an egg to the recipe on the box. This allowed the housewife to feel that she was performing a valuable service by baking for her family. The redesigned product flew off the shelves.

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Dichter also famously advised Esso to stop promoting its gasoline on the product’s virtues but instead to exploit the primal aggressiveness that makes Americans become car owners in the first place. Esso responded with the famous advertising tag line, “Put a tiger in your tank.”

Alfred Politz The other prominent market researcher of the 1950s was Alfred Politz. Politz, like Dichter, recognized the limitations of consumer polls in predicting how consumers would behave under actual purchasing conditions. “The truth is not in the answer, per se,” he told the Journal of Advertising Research, “but it should not stop us if we know what to do with the answer.” He championed quantitative surveys and vigorously opposed motivational research. “Qualitative statements are just quantitative statements made at a sloppy level of approximation,” he contended, and opined that “attitudes, motives, and underlying processes which cannot be related to antecedent factors that can be manipulated are of no interest to the advertiser or producer.” Politz was an early advocate of the use of probability sampling in market research.

Daniel Yankelovich Daniel Yankelovich (b. 1925) pioneered a number of techniques that are now standard in the field, most importantly what is now called lifestyle segmentation. Instead of categorizing markets by demographics – age, zip code, occupation – he saw the importance of segmenting markets by lifestyle, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, concerns, values. You can take their survey at this website: http://secure.yankelovich.com/solutions/shortform_p01.asp See how marketers would categorize you! According to Yankelovich, market research became an industry in the 1960s when firms finally realized that launching new products without thorough previous research was too risky and costly. In a move that was both progressive and a natural outgrowth of the times, his firm began to concentrate on the ways in which social values influenced human behavior and public policy. He also created the notion of public judgment, which he defines as “the state of highly developed public opinion that exists once people have engaged an 9

issue, considered it from all sides, understood the choices it leads to, and accepted the full consequences of the choices they make.” Yankelovich is also notable for recognizing that qualitative and quantitative methods must be integrated in marketing research and public-opinion polling. His most visible contribution, the Yankelovich Monitor, a survey that follows social changes, has been published yearly since 1971.

Jack Honomichl Jack J. Honomichl’s name is “synonymous with marketing research,” according to the American Marketing Association (AMA). He wrote a column on industry events for 18 years for Advertising Age and Marketing News, and he has published an industry analysis for the latter trade magazine every year since 1973. Along the way, he defined the industry and became celebrated for his knowledge and insights about market research, its issues and its practice. He also compiles the Honomichl Top 50 for the AMA, an annual list of the most successful market research firms in the United States. Inclusion in the Honomichl Top 50 is a sure sign of achievement in the industry. Honomichl began publishing the newsletter Inside Research in 1990, which was dubbed by Barron’s “The bible of the marketing research industry.” Honomichl on Marketing Research is a popular textbook and is widely used as supplementary reading in classrooms.

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WHERE YOU WORK Entities that sponsor the research for their own exclusive use, including manufacturers of food, drugs, electronics; providers of telecommunications, insurance, banking services; retailers; political movements; trade associations Companies that perform research in a particular specialty (Nielsen, Gallup) and sell results to the end users Consultancies, usually headed by one well-known person (Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve) with a particular specialty Consulting firms that perform research according to each individual client’s specifications Advertising agencies, whose research departments help them better serve their clients Publishers that produce lengthy studies on various products and industries and sell them on the open market (www.marketresearch.com) Geographically, your best bet is to look for work in a large city – notably, New York and Chicago, both of which have rich traditions in the advertising industry, which is closely linked to market research. There are opportunities in smaller shops in smaller cities, but you’d have to work harder to find them, and if you later wanted to move to another company, you’d probably have to relocate. There may be a growing opportunity to work overseas, if that interests you. US marketers are are testing their new global products and advertising campaigns in foreign markets. H. J. Heinz Co. tested a ketchup commercial in Canada. British consumers saw Cat Fancy ads before Americans did. Procter & Gamble Co. tested Dryel, in Ireland, Oil of Olay cosmetics in Britain, and Swiffer mops in France. It’s cheaper to test overseas, and it also allows companies to reveal new products without the prying eyes of their competitors back in the United States.

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THE WORK YOU DO A RESEARCHER’S FIRST TASK WHEN GIVEN A PROJECT IS USUALLY TO DEVISE

procedures for collecting data. This may include designing questionnaires for surveys, or creating search strategies for an online literature database. They organize and tabulate the data, often using mathematical models, and analyze and interpret what they’ve found. They may make sales projections, forecast a consumer trend, evaluate the probable success of a new product. Then they present their conclusions to the client or employer and make recommendations for the best course of action. Entry level positions are typically found at the assistant marketing research analyst level. As researchers move up in the professional world, they do similar work, but are given more complex tasks, more autonomy and more supervisory responsibilities. At the managerial and directorial levels, they may do less research and more supervising and have a great deal of contact with clients. Executives may attend meetings frequently, either with other members of the staff or with clients. They may travel regularly, to meet with clients, to speak at conferences and promote the services of the firm. They also attend professional meetings to network with colleagues and prospective business partners and to take more educational classes.

Primary Data Research Market researchers may derive information from primary and/or secondary sources. Primary data are obtained, manipulated, and interpreted directly by the researcher or team of researchers. Examples of primary research methods are interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, surveys and polls. When conducting interviews, researchers must treat respondents’ privacy with the utmost respect and must also show consideration if the person prefers not to participate. Several trade organizations have official statements regarding legitimate information-gathering practices and codes of ethics. For instance, the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the National Council on Public Polls have condemned a political campaign tactic called “push polls.” In push polls, interviewers feed potential voters false or misleading information about a candidate in order to influence their vote. The Council of American Survey Research Organizations also has an official 12

code, which can be viewed at www.casro.org/codeofstandards.cfm. The standards of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals are available at www.scip.org/ci/ethics.asp. Observation alone can be a powerful primary research technique. Paco Underhill is a mastermind of observation. Underhill, who calls himself a “retail anthropologist” and formed his own firm in 1979 (www.envirosell.com/), has made a career out of secretly videotaping shoppers to determine how they behave. Some of his observations: Retailers shouldn’t place racks of merchandise in busy areas of the store. Shoppers, especially women, don’t like to be brushed or bumped from behind by other shoppers and will go to great lengths to prevent it from happening. Women spend less time shopping for clothing when they’re with an impatient husband. Placing chairs outside dressing rooms allow husbands to wait in comfort and women to shop longer. Shoppers slow down when they pass mirrored store facades. In fast food restaurants, men like to sit in busy areas and women prefer privacy. Americans love to eat in their cars, so drive-through areas and parking lots should be bigger, cleaner and more attractive. Shoe stores with inadequate seating are losing sales; nobody tries on shoes standing up. Food and other products that target kids should be on low shelves where they can find them. Thirty feet inside the store entrance is the decompression zone, where consumers adjust to the new environment before beginning to shop. Put a greeter in this area, not merchandise. What about the ethics issue. How do you feel about video spying on 70,000 shoppers every year? Do you think you have the right to expect privacy when you’re out in public? What if the research results in more user-friendly stores and better products?

Secondary Data Research Secondary data are one step removed from the action and may involve somebody else’s number crunching or interpretation. Examples include government census data and articles from the popular and trade press. Private companies, academic institutions, think tanks, and trade associations often publish press releases, annual reports, and white papers that may provide valuable information. 13

Syndicated services also gather data with the intention of selling it. For example, Simmons Market Research Bureau interviews 20,000 adults per year about their usage of media and also collects a broad array of personal information on lifestyle factors; product/service usage; and retail shopping behavior. Primary research is considered more valuable because it’s designed to address a specific question, but it can be very expensive to acquire. Secondary research tends to be more readily available. The results of primary research are the property of you or your firm. You do have the option, however, of leasing or licensing your findings to other companies. These companies would consider your data secondary research, because they did not originate it.

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods As these terms suggest, quantitative research focuses on facts and figures. It uses statistical methods and features percentages and averages. It’s analytical, characterized by precision, and yields results that are obviously true. Qualitative methods, on the other hand, are more flexible and more exploratory. They involve interpretation and may produce a deeper understanding of an issue than is possible with quantitative methods. A qualitative analysis may explain the whys and wherefores of a quantitative finding. In short, quantitative research is objective and qualitative is subjective.

Focus Groups A focus group is a carefully planned but informal discussion among a dozen or fewer selected people, presided over by a moderator, that is designed to determine what people think about a particular issue. Focus groups are traditionally conducted in person, but can also take place online much like a structured chat session. Here’s how a friend describes participating in a focus group supervised by internationally renowned trend maven and “marketing futurist” Faith Popcorn. The event took place in her home in Manhattan, and participants were there to evaluate a new fat-free cookie product. “There was a long dining room with a table around which about a dozen people sat: food journalists, nutritionists, healthcare professionals, food company executives, ad agency people. Of course,

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this was a food product we were talking about; if it were something else, the roundtable would have been made up of different people. “Faith Popcorn comes and goes. One of her lieutenants actually ran the meeting. There were few specific questions. We conjured up images of products or flavors that were associated with childhood memories, positive and negative. We also talked at random. People in these situations like to show off, so there were not too many shrinking violets. The conversation never wavered. We tried a sample of the new product and spoke both theoretically and in real world terms of our own experience and statistics we could quote. “We were there for two to three hours. In exchange for our time, Popcorn made a donation to the charity of our choice.” Focus groups have their limitations. The groups are small and hardly representative samples; people may change what they say based on another participant’s reaction or body language; and what people say in focus groups may not necessarily translate to behavior in the real world.

Consumer Panels Not all consumers are created equal. Recently Campbell Soup Company tried out a new reduced-sodium soup on a test panel of men and women who had purchased canned soup in the past year. Disappointingly, Campbell’s product was given low marks. Then the company’s research team realized that they were talking to the wrong people: The people making up the panel had compared the reduced-sodium soup unfavorably with the Campbell’s classic version of that soup. So Campbell tweaked the product formulation and reconvened a panel, this one composed of people who were health conscious and had recently bought low-sodium soup. The second group liked the new product better than they liked the reduced-sodium soups they had been buying! Thanks to the extra insight, Campbell turned a loser into a category winner. Campbell has also created consumer profiles. The company’s most loyal, frequent, and consistent customers are also the most profitable, returning a $3.38 return on every marketing dollar Campbell spends. The profitable segment tends to pay more for the product, buys less frequently on discount, and responds well to advertising and multi-purchase incentives.

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Sampling The sample is the group of people interviewed for a poll or survey. Probability sampling methods include random sampling, systematic sampling, and stratified sampling. In random sampling, every member of the population has the same chance of being selected. Systematic sampling is similar, but selects, for instance, every ninth name from a list such as a computer file. Stratified sampling selects members of the population who share a particular trait (for example, they are ambidextrous) and includes them in the overall sample in the same proportion in which they exist in the total population (about 2%). Non-probability sampling methods include convenience sampling, judgment sampling, quota sampling, and snowball sampling. Convenience sampling uses a readily available list of individuals to be surveyed. It’s cheap and quick and gives a good initial approximation of results. The same thing is done in judgment sampling, with the researcher using judgment to select a sample that represents the entire population. Quota sampling is stratified sampling, but the remainder of the sample is filled in by convenience or judgment sampling. Snowball sampling is used when the characteristic sought is rare. Preliminary subjects who are located are asked to refer other people with the same trait. Your results will reflect reality to the degree that your sample does. In 1936, Literary Digest magazine conducted a poll asking US citizens whom they planned to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. Based on two million replies, the magazine predicted that Kansas governor Alfred M. Landon would be the victor. But the questionnaire had been sent to people whose names had been selected from telephone directories and lists of automobile owners, a disproportionately wealthy group. Because the sample was skewed, results were skewed, and Franklin Roosevelt won that election in a landslide.

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MARKET RESEARCHERS TELL YOU ABOUT THEIR WORK I’m a Project Manager for a Consulting Firm “I’m supposed to do about six hours a day of billable work – that is, work directly on a project that a client is paying for. The other two hours cover administrative activities and marketing activities. We have retainer clients who ask us to do research and we also take requests from non-retainer clients – anyone willing to pay a minimum of $600 can get our attention. Projects range into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we are full service and don’t want to turn anyone away. So I get leads – calls or e-mails from potential clients with some detail as to what they need. I typically call back, discuss the need they have, then tell them I’ll get back to them with an estimate. Based on the time needed, how complicated the request is, and who on our staff can work on it (we have different billing rates), I develop an estimate. Hours are the key – is it a 50 page report that will require hours and hours of research and writing or a series of interviews with complex, technical questions? Do I know that the information doesn’t exist or can’t be gotten to because it is so secret? Have I already covered this topic for another client and have it on file already? Is there an expert in our company on this particular subject I can consult with to find out if the information exists, and where, and how hard it is to get at it? Next, I write a detailed agreement, describing what I understand the client to be looking for; exactly what steps we will take; what we expect to deliver to the client (the deliverable); how long it will take to do the project; and what it will cost. I include, as a matter of course, a big warning that we can’t guarantee results. But a lot of clients don’t notice that until we tell them we couldn’t get the information and explain that they signed up to pay for our time not the results. There is a lot of paperwork involved in entering the agreement into our system. Then I start on the assignment or have one of my colleagues start on it. 17

We have a lot of specialists in our company, so I turn to them for advice on their topics – healthcare, advertising, sports, education, banking, computers, autos. Our contribution is in finding the data, organizing it so it is responsive to the request, and, if the client is paying for it, analyzing the information so that patterns, trends, problems can be discerned. We can also make strategic recommendations to the client. Our advice may be to stay away from a certain business, or what particular aspect of a product is the best selling point. That is the most creative and rewarding part of the business. I have one client whose company acquired another company that made products my client was not familiar with. I did a report on the global market for this product and in the course of my research found that the marketing staff in the newly acquired company were considered to be idiots by the retailers they sold the products to. I let my client know this, as tactfully as possible, and it has had an impact on how they are moving ahead in their new marketing plans. Some projects require extensive interviewing. If we are conducting interviews, we start by developing a discussion guide with the client, making sure we are asking all the questions they want answered. Sometimes the client will provide the questionnaire and we will review it to make sure it flows logically and can make sense as we go through it. Interview projects are difficult because you can’t control the pace. The person you need to speak with always just left on a month-long trip up the Amazon and didn’t take a cell phone. And the client is not about to pay to fly you to Brazil to chase him down in person. You can spend hours of the budget in phone tag. You have numbers that are no longer in service, people who refuse to talk and insult you to boot, companies that have no-interview policies, and so on. The best interviews are when you are representing a potential vendor. Everything is open and above board – the client has something to sell and you just want to know if the respondent is interested.

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The worst is when you are doing competitive intelligence. My company is a member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. That means we can’t lie about who we are or pretend that we want to buy something or that we are students preparing a paper for marketing class. We don’t have to say outright that we are calling to steal the company’s secrets for our client, but it’s not hard for the respondent to figure that out and that usually means no interview. I had one very difficult but rewarding interview project with food service directors at supermarket chains about how they prepared pizza for sale in their deli-bakery sections. The client wanted to sell ingredients but didn’t know if supermarkets made the whole pizza from scratch, or bought them pre-made and just heated them up, or bought prepared shells and made the toppings from scratch. Each interview, with the directors at the top 20 supermarket chains in the country, took about an hour each and had about 20 detailed questions. Grueling, but we got the goods. Another satisfying survey was with buyers in health food chains as to whether they carried a certain niche product. Most were cutting back on the product, phasing it out completely, or just carrying a single brand after starting out with three or four. We were able to tell our client getting into this niche was a bad idea. When you get information that impacts on your client’s decision you feel great. Stopping them from making a big mistake is especially rewarding. I also like finding something – a fact, a number, whatever – that no one thought could be found.”

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I’m the Director of Research “Like a lot of people I know, I got into this business more or less by chance. I was in the theater (you wouldn’t believe how many former actors are in market research) and got a job as an administrative assistant to help make ends meet while I took classes. After a while I began helping out on the research projects. So I got promoted and just kept moving up. I do have good management skills and I am pretty tough on sticking to budgets, which makes me valuable in this position. As I was moving up the ladder, I made sure to go back to school and take classes in marketing, writing, research. I also took every class the company offered in using different databases and general computer skills. I supervise a staff of eight. We gross about $1.5 million a year, a small but significant contribution to the company’s overall revenues. My day involves talking to clients about projects they are interested in and talking to our sales reps about how I can help them land a new client or keep an existing client from leaving the fold. I meet with clients about big projects and future possibilities. I meet with potential clients to help persuade them to use our services. I am on the phone or e-mailing almost constantly. I prepare the group budget and justify it to management. I fight for raises for my staff and for more help when we need it. I go to numerous meetings, some interesting and some deadly boring. So many people in management have nothing to say but will take forever to say it. The meetings are about developing new products for the company to offer clients or figuring out ways to make operations more efficient. I dislike dealing with the sales staff, who often are too busy trying to earn commissions to really get to know what we can and cannot do for the clients. Most rewarding is when one of the younger analysts makes a breakthrough in their development – they write something especially well or solve a tough problem on their own or work out a proposal and get the client to accept it. Now I’m so caught up in managing that I hardly ever get to actually work on any of the projects. I miss that!”

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I’m a Research Analyst With a Leading Knowledge Services Company “I had just graduated with a degree in psychology and wasn’t ready to go on to graduate school. I wanted a break from school and I wanted to earn some money. This job seemed like it would be interesting and substantial – about business and the real world – not theoretical or about personal problems, like psychology. I’m given a lot of different assignments. I search online databases, search the Internet, go through research books and magazines and files the company keeps on different subjects. Sometimes I go to the library or the bookstore to look for information sources and sometimes I actually go shopping for product samples, usually for overseas clients who want to examine a product made in the U.S. I’m usually working on three or four projects at once and for different supervisors. I like learning new things and just about every week there is something new – an online searching technique, an interview trick for getting people to talk more, a resource I never heard of. I work with some very smart, very experienced people and the really good ones love to teach, so it is great. Dealing with technical material I don’t understand is hard. For example, every week I have to send a pharmaceutical company a report on new developments in vaccines – what products are in clinical trials, what countries are testing new products, new products that two companies have announced they are developing together. I can find the articles and pick the paragraph with the key information to put in the report, all right, but I have no idea what I’m really writing about! It’s crazy! Everyone seems to have come from a different background. There are classics majors, and political science and history and art and language majors. Everyone brings some background that is valuable and then seems to learn the rest on the job. The main thing is to be curious and willing to learn.”

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PERSONAL QUALITIES YOU WILL NEED HERE IS SOME ADVICE FROM ONE PROFESSIONAL WORKING IN THIS FIELD.

“In some projects we are asked to come up with estimates of market size or forecast future growth in the market. Sometimes there are estimates available and you can quote them or, if there are several estimates from different sources, you can suggest an average. But there are times when no one has ever estimated or forecast a market and you have to come up with the numbers and then defend your decision. That is a major challenge. “When I first started doing that, I worked with an older industry analyst and we would work through the night with a calculator, a lot of pencils and a giant carafe of coffee. We were predicting the growth of the personal computer market for IBM at a time when only a handful of people owned a PC and most people had never heard of them. I recall we advised IBM that it was probably a good idea to get into this market!” Let’s say your assignment is to produce a written analysis of the market for home fragrances (potpourri, scented oils, scented candles, sachets, incense, air fresheners, etc.). By all accounts, the market is booming. Your client is thinking about bringing out a line of perfumed envelopes for vacuum bags, and seeks information on every aspect of the market. The report is to include dollar sales, why sales are growing or declining (for example, people are too busy to clean, so they cover up with fragrant sprays), who the competitors are, what kind of retail outlets carry these products, who buys what (women buy aromatherapy oils, men buy cardboard air fresheners shaped like pine trees for their cars). But you can’t even find the information that’s usually most readily available: dollar sales. That’s because your client has essentially “invented” a product category, one that’s not tracked by any of the syndicated monitoring services you usually rely on. Information Resources (IRI), for instance, documents sales of candles and air fresheners sold through mass-market channels like chain drugstores and supermarkets. But simple observation and experience tell you that a significant portion of sales are made through department stores, specialty boutiques, catalogs and the Internet, which are not tracked. Furthermore, IRI doesn’t distinguish between scented candles, unscented candles, birthday candles, and citronella candles. 22

This is the time to draw on all your smarts and inner resources and the other qualities market researchers need in spades: Analytical skills Inductive and deductive reasoning Facility with numbers and quantitative data Excellent communications and interviewing skills Creativity Persistence Attention to detail Independence A flair for thinking “outside the box” Your first steps in tracking down the elusive data may include phoning manufacturers of the products you’re evaluating, the National Candle Association, the trade group International Flavors and Fragrances, and a Wall Street analyst who covers nothing but home fragrances. Or you could try to get sales figures for each of the individual products that makes up the category. Of course, if your client has unlimited funds, you could contact retailers throughout the United States and ask them what their sales of home fragrance products were last year, and give them a cash incentive to respond, besides!

ATTRACTIVE FEATURES OF THIS CAREER AS A PROFESSIONAL MARKET RESEARCHER, YOU WILL ENJOY HELPING YOUR CLIENTS

and colleagues make critical business decisions, whether that means confirming something they already suspected was true, or answering important questions they didn’t even think to ask. Your work may prompt them into a risky but ultimately lucrative venture, or prevent them from making a costly and embarrassing blunder. It’s gratifying and fun to see the tangible products of your labor. Your investigative and interpretive skills, not to mention your talent for problem solving, may yield the next blockbuster line of men’s skin care products. That’s because you coordinated focus groups in the United States and Europe revealing that men favor an unfragranced product, botanical ingredients – and a container with the cap or lid affixed so it can’t get lost.

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Or perhaps your client or employer is a music distributor who wants to find out whether sales of CDs with single songs on them significantly take away from the sales of the albums they come from. To find out, you conduct carefully controlled test marketing in selected retail music outlets. You offer singles at costs ranging from 99 cents to over $4 to find out at which price points young people will buy both the single and the album (most desirable, from the profit-minded distributor’s point of view) and at which they’ll buy just the album or just the single (least desirable). You find that, first, when singles are on the market for under a dollar, their sales don’t at all cannibalize sales of albums. Second, at 99 cents, the singles are snatched up by teens considered trend-makers, whose choice in tunes is quickly mimicked by the fashion-forward, and the song becomes a mainstream hit in urban areas more quickly than it would by mere air play on the radio. Obviously, the music distributor decides to go with the cheaper single. Having solved this tough problem brings you personal satisfaction – and you’re secretly glad that your results will allow more kids access to more music. Research itself can be compelling. You may be privy to the most personal and ever-changing motivations and opinions of your fellow citizens. Or, you may uncover information – a fact, a figure, a behavior pattern, a new product category, an overlooked consumer market – that is interesting simply because nobody has ever tracked it down before. For example, Texas A&M University marketing professor James McNeal was arguably the first to recognize the enormous clout children as young as four years of age have on the spending decisions their families make about travel, entertainment, food, computer software, even new cars. Professor McNeal is now the leading authority on these littlest consumers, who influence an astounding $520 billion in spending every single year. So market researchers are continually learning, always entering new information into the databases in their brains, and developing their natural gifts for insight, analysis and interpretation on a daily basis – even reinventing research methodologies and creating new ones as circumstances require. With a new project always in the pipeline, this makes for an intellectually stimulating, challenging, and dynamic work environment.

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UNATTRACTIVE FEATURES YOU MAY HAVE TO WORK ON EVENINGS OR WEEKENDS TO MEET TARGETS AND

comply with a timetable that seemed reasonable when the project was in the proposal stages, but now is really pressuring you. In addition, you may be further disrupted from your schedule by meetings or by requests for data that are more urgent than whatever you’re working on now. Multi-tasking is the rule rather than the exception. This is a pressure cooker of a work environment. You’ll have to get used to the constant, pressing need for precise and reliable data, endless deadlines, and notoriously tight schedules. The project you’re working on now was desperately needed yesterday! Being thwarted by information that won’t conform to your needs is aggravating. Perhaps even more upsetting is when a market researcher does the job and comes up with a rock-solid, irrefutable conclusion – and it’s not the conclusion the client hoped for. It’s hard to tell a small company that thinks it invented the first shoelace/key chain combo that a large, diversified manufacturer with a nearly identical product just received a huge infusion of venture capital from the very investors your client hoped to solicit.

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EDUCATION AND TRAINING YOU WILL NEED A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IS THE MINIMUM YOU’LL NEED FOR A JOB IN MARKET

research. Business, math, statistics, computer science, marketing, and economics are the obvious choices for majors. And if you’re ambitious and want to fast-track your career, a graduate degree in statistics or business administration is advisable. However, market researchers have diverse educational backgrounds, which can be incredibly fruitful, creatively speaking. Think of it – a group of smart people sitting around a table, brainstorming. One has a background in literature, one knows everything about politics, another studied Asian culture and lived in China for three years, and so on. Not only do they all bring a different set of experiences and points of view to the creative process, their imaginations feed off one another. So feel free to study in college whatever excites or intrigues you. If you’re creative, resourceful, a good researcher and problem solver, you know your way around a computer, and you can write, you can end up with a job in market research no matter what your educational background is. One successful professional interviewed for this report had a background in theater and had just returned to New York from acting school in London when she took her first job in market research, as an administrative assistant. Within 10 years, she was a project director for the same company – and by the time you read this, she may be a vice president! For some hands-on education, consider conducting surveys at your high school or college and analyzing the results in a meaningful way. Here’s an example. You hate the turkey tetrazzini your school cafeteria serves and all your friends hate the turkey tetrazzini, but your school cafeteria insists on serving turkey tetrazzini every Wednesday. The administration says that much of the turkey tetrazzini prepared on Wednesday gets eaten, so it can’t be all that universally disliked. You decide to investigate, keeping in check your own personal aversion to the dish in question.

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Your school is large, so instead of thousands of teenagers descending upon the lunchroom at once, lunch periods are staggered. The first starts at noon and the last begins at 1:15. On Wednesday, you post yourself and your clipboard at the exit door and ask the kids leaving the cafeteria the following questions: “Did you have the turkey tetrazzini for lunch today? If yes, did you like it? If no, why not, and what did you eat instead? Just to confirm, which lunch period are you assigned to?” It turns out that the first lunch period students eat the least turkey tetrazzini and the sixth lunch period students eat the most. You prepare pie charts and bar graphs depicting these findings. Armed with your visual aids, you make a presentation to the administration, pointing out that since a disproportionate amount of turkey tetrazzini is consumed during sixth lunch, it’s probably getting eaten because the kids are starved and not because they like it. In fact, students who refused the turkey tetrazzini usually ate desserts instead of a meal or bought snacks from the vending machine; and the later the assigned lunch, the hungrier the turkey refusers were and the more junk food they ate. Your principal is impressed, turkey tetrazzini is abolished, and you become the champion of the undernourished (until the turkey tetrazzini is replaced with an equally unpalatable chicken cacciatore). If you decide polling is interesting enough to do on a regular basis, you might consider approaching your school newspaper about publishing your results. (Think about recruiting a journalist, a statistician and a techie to your team if you’re going to do this long-term.) Articles featuring your findings, along with their graphic representations, would be a tremendous asset to any college application, and could help you secure one of the few and coveted internships in the market research field.

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WHAT YOU WILL EARN SALARIES IN MARKET RESEARCH ARE COMPARABLE TO THOSE IN OTHER

business-to-business service professions. Employees with graduate degrees and/or experience typically command higher salaries. Starting salaries for market research analysts run around $35,000 per year – but remember, if you’re just out of college, your first job may not fall under that title. After some experience, assistant and associate research analysts may make considerably more. A research analyst’s average salary is roughly $50,000 to about $65,000 for a senior research analyst. Professionals with more responsibility and higher salaries most often are no longer referred to as research analysts. Rather, they may be managers, directors, or vice presidents. Here are some job titles and their corresponding annual salaries that were posted recently on the Advertising Research Foundation’s website: Research Director for a company that helps advertisers test and improve their advertising: $80,000 -$100,000 Director, Analytical Services for a firm that identifies marketing opportunities in supermarkets: $75,000 - $85,000 + Bonus Research Manager for a volunteer coalition that provides public service information to promote the avoidance of illegal drugs: $40,000 -$45,000 Consumer Market Research Manager for a cosmetics manufacturer: $75,000 - $80,000 + bonus Project Director/Research Analyst for a company that does custom research for individual clients: $40,000 - $50,000 Program Operations Manager for the same company: $30,000 $40,000 Planning and Research Manager for a state lottery: $52,740 $66,610 (when you see a salary range as specific as that, you know the government’s the employer) Market research firms, like comparable businesses, tend to offer generous benefits packages that include healthcare insurance, paid time off, compensation for overtime, and merit-based salary increases and bonuses.

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OUTLOOK FOR THIS CAREER THE INCREASINGLY GLOBAL ECONOMY, BY ITSELF, GUARANTEES THAT MARKET

researchers will be in demand for the foreseeable future. More participants means more competition; more competition means that commercial enterprises need more urgently to evaluate customer and client satisfaction. It also means they need to take more vigorous steps to increase sales and their share of the market. Additionally, a global market is more complex than one that is limited to North America, so many companies will be seeking guidance, and will be depending particularly on quantitative research that assesses, analyzes, and forecasts current and future business trends, sales, and consumer behavior. While keeping a tight rein on expenditures, commercial and nonprofit outfits alike will need to know how to most efficiently allocate their advertising and promotional dollars. Market research firms that contract their services to clients may offer more opportunity than do the firms and organizations that do their own research. That’s simply because most companies find it more efficient to hire someone else to do the work. A number of challenges will need to be addressed by the time you are on the job. For instance, people are less and less willing to take part in surveys, in part because their private time has been so violated by telemarketers. The industry may have to develop a new model for consumer surveys. Another issue is that, while the market is becoming a global one, consumers are staying right where they live. So there’s a growing need to address localized cultural differences in product design and advertising.

GETTING STARTED HERE’S SOME MORE ADVICE FROM PEOPLE WORKING IN THE FIELD ABOUT HOW

to chart your course: “Go to graduate school and write a lot of papers. Market research is mostly glorified graduate school. And learn to listen. Stop paying attention to yourself and open up to the nuances in other people’s conversation. Small revelations add up to big trends.”

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“Read everything and remember everything you read. Work on your memory and also your math skills. I have a colleague who is terrified if she has to figure out percentages. Not good!” “Get some real skills – learn to type, learn everything about computers and how to use them efficiently. It’s amazing how many people don’t know that they could save hours of time by taking advantage of all the shortcuts built into the computer.” “Read the business section of the newspapers and business magazines. Follow politics and government activities, as they will influence the regulatory environment businesses operate in. If you are interested in a certain field, study it. There is a need for research in every area of human activity – health, finance, transportation, entertainment, chemistry, education. They are all businesses and people need to know about them in order to make business decisions. If you are interested in everything, don’t worry. Generalists are needed too!” “Be serious about doing a good job for the client – but have fun. You can do both at once.” In college, you can combine classes in subjects you may never have another chance to study with some practical, hands-on market research-type work that will render you eminently employable. So while you’re indulging your passion for, say, The Growth and Structure of Late Roman and Early Byzantine Cities on the Lower Danube, see if you can get a part-time job or internship with a market research firm. Take whatever position you can get, including note-taker. It will jump-start your job search, and you can see if you even like the work. Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve is always accepting resumes at this website www.faithpopcorn.com/. Also the Mystery Shoppers site at www.mysteryshop.org/shoppers.php. Another good website: IMRI International Directory of Market Research Agencies at www.imriresearch.com/. Market research matters. It compels politicians to formulate relevant public policy; manufacturers to make better products; hospitals, airlines, hotels, and car dealerships to provide better service. Marketing and public opinion surveys have produced everything from more nourishing foods for nutrition-conscious consumers to environmental policy changes regarding waste disposal. Some market researchers and opinion pollsters stand outside the local supermarket with a clipboard; others advise heads of state. But research is a vital step in improving our quality of life. 30

ASSOCIATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS n Advertising Research Foundation www.thearf.org/ n American Association for Public Opinion Research www.aapor.org n American Marketing Association www.marketingpower.com n American Statistical Association www.amstat.org n Association for Consumer Research www.acrweb.org n Canadian Association of Market Research Organizations www.camro.org n Council for Marketing and Opinion Research www.cmor.org n Council of American Survey Research Organizations www.casro.org/ n International Market Research Information www.imriresearch.com/ n Market Research Society www.mrs.org.uk n Market Research Society of Australia www.mrsa.com.au n Marketing Research Association www.mra-net.org n Opinion Research Agencies www.amai.org n Mystery Shopping Providers Association www.mysteryshop.org/

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n National Council on Public Polls www.ncpp.org n Professional Marketing Research Society www.pmrs-aprm.com n Qualitative Research Consultants Association www.qrca.org n Research Industry Coalition www.researchindustry.org n World Association of Research Professionals www.esomar.nl

PERIODICALS n Alert! www.mra-net.org/docs/products_services/alert/alert.cfm n American Demographics www.demographics.com n Inside Research n Journal of Advertising Research n Journal of Consumer Research n Journal of Marketing Research n Marketing News n Quirk’s Marketing Research Review www.quirks.com n Research www.research-live.com/

COYRIGHT 2007 Institute For Career Research CHICAGO CAREERS INTERNET DATABASE www.careers-internet.org

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