Market Research in 2022 - So How Was It?
A look back at some of the high and low lights of the past 12 months.
Tempting at this time of year to make predictions for the year ahead - but given the turbulence of the last few - many - years, it seems unwise.
But no reason not to pause and think back about 2022 from a research perspective, and ask onesself - what stood out?
Here’s my list:
Gfk and Nielsen “merged” in July, according to trade press. Majority shareholder of the combined company is Advent International. Heard of them? Probably not - they’re a Private Equity company.
Is this good or bad for whatever the new entity will be called? Depends on your viewpoint - PE, employee, customer or supplier. We will see. Let’s hope the people side of the business isn’t submerged in a narrow pursuit of profit - more on that below.
ESOMAR lost two Director Generals in the space of a year. And it decided to re-run its 2022 Council elections due to serious misconduct. You can read more here - MrWeb Daily Research News Online.
Wow - not a good look for the world’s leading market research association. Trust matters.
BE superhero Dan Ariely’s reputation took at hit when it transpired that outcomes from one of his influential studies on honesty was based on fraudulent data. You can read more here - Forbes/ Influential Study was Dishonest
I didn’t hear about this 2021 story until 2022 - which is kind of weird. It didn’t make the kind of waves you might expect in MR, where data quality and integrity are critical factors.
Mental health issues in market research are - finally - being flagged and taken more seriously.
It was good to see Quirks giving prominence to an article by UK based coach Stephanie Rowley dedicated to the topic “Profit before People” in its January/February 2022 issue. The good Quirks folk also highlighted it as one of their Editorial Favourites in a year-end round-up.
You can read the article here - Profit Before People/ Stephanie Rowley. I also talked about the same topic in a short talk at the Dec. 2022 QRCA’s Virtual Global Summit focusing on Keeping up with Consumers amid Uncertainty. I can drop you the deck if you’re interested.
In-person made a come-back. Lots of conferences and events ditched digital or hybrid for the stand-alone in-person experience, and thank heavens for that.
Will the same be true of fieldwork - in areas say like co-creation where the physicality of in-person, hands-on, arguably enhances creativity? Or the office environment? Time will tell.
There’s a lot more, but given our apparent ever-shortening attention spans, I’ll stop.
But I will summarise.
2022 was - at least from a European perspective - a bewildering year. MR businesss as usual, in some senses - but really, when there is a war in Ukraine, not too far from many folk in central and eastern Europe? Where inflation hits levels not seen for decades - suddenly? Where shopping loses its appeal for mainstream audiences hit by a cost-of-living crisis?
Not business as usual - despite appearances. We all go about our daily routines - “which of these three pack designs do you like the best on the following attributes?” - but below the surface the number of stories each of us has to tell, good and bad, alarming and heart-warming, is likely at an all-time high. Likely 99% of them don’t get captured - despite their vast contextual and emotional value.
Which should mean (without wishing to sound cold-hearted) it’s a great time to be in market and social research - finding out about motivations, as legacy models on behaviour don’t seem so robust.
But research needs to evolve in the right way to remain a great industry to work in.
We need to press the accelerator on the innovation button. I have no data on R&D expenditure, but I’d say that ensuring focus and resource spent there is key to future business health.
And above all we need to keep research an industry that’s all about humans - curiosity, variety, exploration of the complex. A different sort of industry. Not a purpose-driven one like nursing, but more meaningful and varied hopefully than say accountancy. It is - or should be - an interesting career path.
On that note - let’s hope in particular that in keeping it attractive, in finding the balance between people and profit, we land on the people side.
So let’s raise our year-end glasses to 2023 as a potentially positive year of hope and optimism.
Curious, as ever, as to others’ views.
(Photo - Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash)