The nature of people who go into information specialist roles is really quite distinct in that they tend to be curious and naturally investigative:
on the whole they are not combative. Many people in the operations part of the company (which tends to be the majority of the company these days) have a clear task to do – to make something happen – and as has been mentioned before, companies are ‘doing’ entities.
Furthermore, success comes from doing things, often in the form of a bonus, and failure may mean the sack. Assertiveness, and the propen- sity to engage in battles, are therefore positive personality aspects for people in this role.
Given the concept developed in Chapter 1 of the research stake- holder, there are generally a number of different people interested in the outcome of a piece of research. For example, an advertising age- ncy may be proposing a particular creative vehicle for a forthcoming campaign, and unknown to anyone in the client company, this idea is particularly cherished by the proprietor of the agency. The account exec- utive therefore knows that it is in his or her best interests to persuade
the client company of the merits of this particular approach. He or she will therefore get very twitchy if the client proposes some research into it (and why might the client want this anyway unless the client is not feeling comfortable with the approach?). The account executive will see the storm clouds ahead, and will want very much to be involved with whoever is going to do the research. He or she will want someone he/she knows, someone who is ‘sensitive to advertis- ing’, someone who will not come down on an ‘executional’ detail but be able to see the ‘strategy’ behind the advert and therefore help to develop it. He or she will want to sit in on focus groups, and to know the outcome of the research before it is debriefed. If the account exec- utive feels the research is ‘going the wrong way’, he or she will arrive late for the debrief, and ask aggressive questions throughout it: focus- ing on the structure of the sample, for example, and questioning the ability of the respondents to be aware of the meaning of the advertis- ing anyway. The account executive will colour his or her comments in terms of what he or she personally saw happening in the groups (or at least his or her opinion about what was happening). He or she is likely to question the significance of the stimulus material used, and the experience of the researcher (who the account executive may privately express ‘doubts’ about, even though he or she was involved in select- ing the researcher). Of course he or she will be very inventive about the particular model of advertising with which to question the findings, and so on.
There is no intention of singling out advertising research in this example, as this scenario can be present with any research. In fact one of the most important aspects to find out when settling the research brief is the possibility that there may be such undercurrents.
Experience shows that these can develop apparently out of the blue, just when they are most damaging.
The research department can react in one of two ways to this situa- tion: it can cave in and agree to all this nonsense (although sometimes it is true – and that’s a difficulty), or try to fight it. But in a war one always needs allies, and these are developed before the event, not dur- ing it. The strongest ally of all is a reputation for integrity, and that the research department’s opinion matters very much precisely because it has no axe to grind on the findings other than that they should be true.
This characteristic of a research department is not ordained, it has to be won, and achieving it is a gradual process involving winning people
over as they join the company and having their support as they get pro- moted through it.
One aspect of changes in company organizations is to adopt an internal customer service approach: that is, that everyone is a customer of someone else. This is a device to remove the bureaucracy from orga- nizational hierarchies, and has a lot of merit to it. However, what also comes with this is a series of ‘bosses’ who have no responsibility – they can be very demanding customers and stamp their feet accordingly.
Living in a world where one is balancing the interest of different research stakeholders with the truth (when all the stakeholders think of themselves as customers) is not easy.
CONCLUSION
Market research departments have been found to be useful when a company is buying large amounts of market research, because they ensure that the money is well spent and that the use of the informa- tion already bought is maximized. In addition they can help to give confidence in the research at the point of decision. There are changes taking place in the organization of research, and typically this is now taking the form of an insight group. In other circumstances, the peo- ple involved have been distributed directly into the brand teams.
Although these changes mean that information is more likely to be pro- duced that is stripped of the caveats of the research world (which the end-user can find very tedious), and is therefore easier to appreciate and conceptualize, the experience of the introduction planners in advertising agencies (who seem to be the equivalent of insight man- agers), has shown that, over the longer term, the technical compe- tence of appreciating the significance of the findings can be lost. The industry is therefore at a turning point in the organization of research within companies.
The buyers of research can be buying for themselves or for another internal end-user. In this latter case they will often be located in a market research department, and this can be a helpful or unhelpful intermediary.
The research department mediates between the end-users and the industry, as it made up by the set of potential suppliers. It should know what is available in this market (really the various types of ‘products’
on the one hand, and the people on the other) and ensure that the selection of the agency or researcher is the most appropriate for the job.
It should then make the life of the agency as easy as it can, so that it can put its mind to doing the work.
KEY POINTS
■ Buying may be done directly by the end-user or by an entity in the organization on behalf of the end-user. The latter is more common in large organizations, both public and private.
■ In the former case, where the end-user is also the commissioner of the research, the relationship between the buyer and the supplier may well be quite intimate, with the supplier acting as a confidant and a consultant. It is often the case that such a relationship exists between a supplier who is essentially a qualitative researcher, but who will handle such quantitative research as is needed as well.