Research Doesn't = Intelligence

The difference between market research and market intelligence is this: marketing research is a data collection activity; market intelligence is a differentiating connection with buyers that exists in the hearts and minds of company leaders. Market intelligence drives companies to innovate and orchestrate a compelling customer experience. 

Some marketing research imbues company leaders with market intelligence. Some doesn't.  My colleagues in the U.S. and U.K. agree that a signficant portion of marketing research studies never create intelligence or lead to profitable innovation.

When we begin working with new clients, we compare their existing marketing research data with what they do and the business results they get.  Here are two examples of where marketing research failed to produce market intelligence and presented significant lost opportunity costs:

• A mortgage division was investing $200,000 per year on customer satisfaction research.  Reports consisted mainly of several thousand verbatim comments. No one other than the customer service director read these reports.  This company should have acquired far richer intelligence and put it in the heads of far more people running the company.

• A health insurance company was disappointed with the demand its direct response TV ads generated.  They had used dial testing in the course of developing the ads.  This particular dial testing study showed where the audience perceived high and low points during the ad, not where it perceived superior or inferior benefits relative to competitors. This is what this company really needed to know at the time to produce highly effective ads. 

Marketing research can elevate the state of market intelligence in your organization.   But, simply "doing more research", (which seems to be the modus-operandi at many companies), and having non-experts design research studies significantly increases the risks of wasteful research investments and lost strategic opportunities.  Only the right kinds of marketing research for your situation at that moment will lead you to the promised land.

     --Jason Sherman, Whyze Group

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