This is a somewhat schizophrenic story about a market research consultant who wanted to know the deepest secrets of the consumer, with which to succeed in the world of marketing and business strategy, since he would become the God of information and all the Companies around the world would fight for their services, and with this they would gather such power that the rest would not matter at all.
To achieve this, he immersed himself in non-methodological terrain and vague investigations since his strong point was not strategic discourse either.
As he saw that he was not having much success, he turned to the “hyper ultra fashion super guru” who told him that market research was dead, that he should listen to him, that interviews, focus groups, ethnography, semiotics, multivariate analysis, Strategic segmentation, positioning engineering techniques, laddering techniques or targeting of target audiences had passed away.
Our friend was so ecstatic at such a revelation that he offered him an indecent amount of money so that the “hyper-ultra fashion super guru” could tell him the source of such magnitude.
Our guru accepted the indecent amount (these were not times to dismiss such an easy budget despite being the “hyper ultra fashion super guru” who earns millions of euros a year), and recommended our friend visit the genie in the marketing lamp. and that by rubbing it gently it would grant three wishes. This genie of the lamp was located in a cosmopolitan city a few thousand kilometers from our beloved homeland, in lands where everything was sold, where rigor and seriousness were not what was important but rather the basis was in doing “hypnotic magic.” with impossible methodology names.
Nervously, our consultant came to the place of the lamp and rubbed gently until the marketing genie came out and said, “I will grant you three marketing wishes.” Our friend, with plenty of self-esteem, commented, “I have enough with one, I want to have the power to know the deepest secrets of the consumer.”
Wish granted, the genie gave him two pieces of paper, one in Arial 120 Capital Letters and Bold type could read the word “RIGOR” and the other a matrix with four quadrants that described an interesting scenario.
Our consultant friend, indignant, rubbed the lamp again and made the genie come out again, shouting at him, saying, “Scamster, deceive consultants. This is not what I expected".
To which the genius replied, “my friend, the consumer is complex and you cannot expect miracles without taking into account history, science and commitment to your clients”, this is RIGOR.
“What I have offered you on the second page is the holy grail or the basis of strategic research and market intelligence that must define the future of the sector in an inclusive and non-exclusive way. Those who master the 4 quadrants will be the researchers who will achieve the greatest success. Friend, by offering you these simple presents, you will get to know the consumer and the brands.”
Moral:
We must be aware of the evolution of research towards non-declarative fields (whether conscious or unconscious), but we must not forget that we move in the field of RIGOR since our strategic discourses are based on information, regardless of the obtaining technique. .
Those of us who consider ourselves sensible strategic research or market intelligence consultants must be able to control the 4 quadrants to provide an effective, committed and rigorous response to our clients.
Jordi Crespo Navarro
Managing Partner at Hamilton
