Do clientside researchers need agencies any more?
I was looking last week at the Agenda for the Qual360 2023 conference in Berlin - Qual360 2023. There are almost no agency speakers on stage. Wow. This is (to me at least) a totally new development. And coming from a conference with a legacy of delivering good content, it’s worth taking note and pondering its potential significance.
It used to be the case that clients and agencies presented cases together - sharing the different perspectives, client-side and agency side highlighting different issues. Something for everybody.
That clientside voices have been courted more assiduously over the past 5 years or so is understandible - those writing the RPFs need to be heard: what they see changing, what they’re looking for, what works for them, what doesn’t.
And of course, nobody wants to hear thinly disguised Agency pitches at conferences they paid to attend.
But no agencies at all - or 95% clientside presentations? Odd, and slightly worrying given all we hear and read about MR DIY and in-sourcing.
MR Agencies - Data Deliverers or Insight Experts?
Are agencies no longer the partners they used to be - has DIY meant a huge transferral of expertise to client-side in-house teams?
Or has the pace of innovation on agency side slowed somewhat - so that clients no longer really look to their agencies for new approaches as frequently as they maybe used to?
Returning to the conference in question, with almost only clients presenting. What seems a bigger opportunity for Agencies - more clients that you can pitch to - is also potentially deflating for suppliers.
The role is essentially relegated to that of listener. Or sponsor. Or business development person. A two-tier world - something I don't think is actually where the industry is going. But if it is, if some MR segments are not just commoditising, but also shifting down into order takers, we need to worry.
Tomorrow’s Talent
Many younger researchers enter the profession via agencies - motivated by the variety, the human aspect, and often curiosity. If the "magic", or room for magic is lost, of exploring complex issues, this isn't going to captivate Next Gen folk for long.
Nor will the sense of old-fashioned hierarchies, of being treated just as a service department.
Wrapping up - Research is an eco-system - with recruiters, data-scientist folk, operators people, clients and their direct counterparts project managing researchers. Of course clients are the most important part.
But they need to be linked in to the human systems supporting them. To deliver an outside perspective that challenges a corporate bubble POV, for example. With enthusiasm for problem-solving the driving motivation.
The drive to improve margins is strong in many agencies, with principles of standardisation, specialisation and outsourcing being introduced. For a human-driven industry, we need to take care. Researchers add value by suggesting activation strategies, tapping into their considerable methodological expertise and often impressive category experience. This needs fostering on the Agency side.
We all know where extreme automation in customer service takes us - frustration - and how important human interaction is.
So here's to the agency-client partnership. On stage - off-stage.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.
(Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash)
Great article. I wonder if it's partly to do with the use of freelancers (like me) and partly to do with the age old misunderstanding of what market research is (and the plethora of other terms like UX, CS, customer insight, etc), and this meaning that people don't appreciate the impartiality and independence agencies (and freelancers) offer. I reckon it's a hard balance for organisations to get between knowing their customers themselves and trusting someone else with them in order to see and hear the things they need to know to make decisions. I've been surprised a couple of times recently when clients have told me the main reason they're employing me isn't to hear customers' feedback verbatim, but for me to find the themes that will help them strategically.
Great question Edward,
I think the 2021 ESOMAR report on the market research industry offers some sort of answer. The second fastest growth area in market research is SaaS platforms....which implies DIY. The fastest growing trend is EFM (enterprise feedback management) or CX which also has a large DIY element and more importantly it is not even owned or managed by market researchers.
From where DMR sits only the large multinationals can even dream to work wthout MR agencies because they are the only ones that have internal MR departments. The rest of the world will require some sort of support from an MR agency if they want to do more than just a simple survey using a cheap online research tool. The fact that Google Surveys has closed shop on November 1st is also very telling....don't you think?