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New MR & Old MR: Turning Radical Methods into Sustainable Business

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For the NewMR Virtual Festival, Alastair Gordon, of Gordon & McCallum, presented “Will New MR become Old MR? The Challenge of Turning Radical Methods into Sustainable Businesses”. Alistair defines New MR as:

• Listening, not questioning
• Engagement and interaction, not passivity
• Social media focus, not just online data collection
• “Deep, realistic, emotional response,” not artificial, rational response
• Communities, not samples

Many researchers believe New MR will drive out Old MR the way the telephone drove out the telegraph, using that specific analogy. That may be, Alistair argued, but the reality of the analogy is rather more complex: while the telephone was invented in 1876, telegraph usage continued to grow; in fact, the heyday of the telegraph was long after the invention of the telephone. In fact, in the late 1920s, central bankers were still using telegrams to coordinate their response to the onset of the Great Depression. “It took multiple hits to kill the telegraph,” said Alistair: widespread household adoption of the telephone, reductions in calling costs, the invention of the fax, for instance. It will take multiple hits to kill “Old MR” and Old MR’s heyday may yet be in the future.

Alistair shared some quotes from a magazine article about “the new market research”:

• “Forget focus groups and…surveys… Anything worth knowing about your customers, traditional market research can't tell you anymore.”
• “You don't necessarily care if 20% feel one way and 80% think another…You want a range of views.”
• “We are in the midst of watching a real shift away from survey-based research.”

Quite bold statements. Made more bold when Alistair revealed that they are from a July 1998 Inc. Magazine article. Enthusiasm for New MR is understandable, but… “It’s not inevitable that new techniques will supplant the old ways. Consumer insights help, but it’s only part of the picture. Being better is good, yet a rapid change to New MR requires massive superiority.”

Alistair argued that, in pitching New MR, we often forget the emotions and client need states of market researcher customers. “MR clients are driven by need states just like consumers. They have emotional needs, which effect how we package New MR.” Essentially we need to package New MR to fit into these need states. On their own, New MR methods and theories can help research clients, but such advantages often seem merely incremental.

For New MR to become Old MR, Alistair argues that New MR and Old MR should forge a synthesis. He gave two examples:

• A methodology using online qualitative research, a customer advisory panel and SMR text analytics. “You could build a superb customer research program if you put them all together, but any of these methodologies on its own won’t be sufficient. The telephone alone didn’t defeat the telegraph.”
• A methodology using neuroscience/modeling analytics, mobile studies and a brand-tracking study. “Align these with the traditional survey, which offers a lot of breath for brand awareness, but if the survey could be triggered by mobile studies and use elements of neuroscience…!”

There are three ways that New MR can become Old MR:

• Fading into the background. “Good ideas, over-hyped, but the great excitement gradually fades into ‘business as usual’.”
• Cherry picking. “The scalable, easier to integrate aspects of New MR are adopted by the top five agencies, leaving smaller companies with ‘scraps’ and niche markets.”
• Genuine revolution. “New MR recognizes its own limits, plus the potential for integration of other methods.”

Alistair concluded with a rosy vision of the future: “New applications arise, based around precise business solutions and clients’ ‘emotional’ needs, leading to a wave of amalgamations and cooperative partnerships among New MR firms that drive a genuine MR revolution.”