Marketing research - benefit or bane?

While legitimate researchers operate under the strict Southern African Marketing Research Association (SAMRA) code of ethics, unscrupulous marketers with ulterior motives, trying to get the foot in consumers' door and abusing personal information to market unwanted products and services to them, unjustly damage to the industry's image and destroy consumer confidence.

Effective communication is vital

Effective communication between the suppliers and the consumers of goods and services of all kinds is vital to any modern society. A crucial component of any successful business, market research is not only important for business decision makers; at the end of the day, consumers also benefit from taking part in research insofar as they are supplied with the products and services they need and prefer, at an acceptable price.

Whereas advertising informs consumers about new and exciting products, market research is the link between consumers' needs and wants and the products and services that eventually see the light of day and make life easier for them.

Market research not only provides invaluable information and insights about the products and services preferred by consumers, but also about how it could be improved and what is perceived as good value for money.

Alas, unethical operators increasingly tend to piggyback on market research methodologies to get access to consumers for the ulterior motives of direct and telemarketing products and services. As a result, consumers are becoming increasingly suspicious of even legitimate and ethical research efforts.

Won't have their voice

If consumers no longer want to participate in research studies, we simply won't have their voice to assist suppliers and decision-makers in producing and rendering the desired products and services, at the right price.

To assist consumers in protecting themselves from exploitation by those who operate under the guise of marketing research, the following "rights of respondents" should be kept in mind:

1. Respondents' cooperation in a marketing research project is entirely voluntary at all stages. They must not be misled when being asked for their cooperation.

2. Determine the validity of the researcher, the research company and the precise reason for the research - ethical researchers and field workers will willingly identify themselves and the companies they work for. Avoid any person reluctant to provide this information.

3. Feel free to contact the marketing research company to confirm the bona fides of the person making contact with you.

4. If, at any stage you become suspicious that it is not reputable research, you can immediately terminate the interview and bring it to the attention of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) or SAMRA.

5. You need not furnish your personal details if you do not wish to. No marketing researcher may divulge respondents' personal details to third parties without their explicit consent. If the respondent, at the request of the researcher, has given permission for data to be passed on in a form that allows the respondent to be personally identified:

6. The respondent must first have been told to whom the information would be supplied and the purposes for which it will be used, and

7. The researcher must ensure that the information will not be used for any non-research purposes and that the recipient of the information has agreed to conform to the requirements of the SAMRA Code.
   

Confidential survey research differs in several fundamental ways from "direct marketing" in both objectives and methods. It is essential that the two different types of activity are clearly differentiated from one another.

A guiding principle throughout must be that of "transparency". It must be made clear to everyone approached for their cooperation exactly what the nature and purpose of the activity involved are and what may be done with any information they provide, so that any help they give is both willing and based on their informed consent.

Key differences

So what are the key differences between marketing research and direct marketing?

Important distinguishing characteristics of marketing research are that:

1. Its primary objective is to collect information that will help in describing and understanding markets (whether commercial or other); and in planning strategies and predicting and monitoring the outcome of actions based on these, in both commercial and social contexts.

2. In most cases it achieves this by studying relatively small (usually representative) samples of the relevant populations, employing accepted scientific principles for this purpose.

3. It is normally concerned with analysing and reporting on aggregated groupings of these samples, not on individual respondents.

4. Most crucially, it safeguards the anonymity and confidentiality of respondents, and the information collected may be used only for the purposes of research. The information must not be used to initiate or monitor other types of action directed at the individual respondents.
   

While direct marketing of all kinds is also an important and growing activity in today's society, and uses many of the same data collection methods, its characteristics are in many ways almost the opposite of those of research:

1. The primary objective of direct marketing is to initiate and monitor promotional and selling actions directed at specific individuals and individual organisations.

2. It usually involves the collection of information (often on a large scale) either from the general population or from specific market segments, but is less concerned with the representativeness of the data collected.

3. The information collected is stored and used primarily on an individually identified, disaggregated basis.

4. By definition, the information is permanently linked to the individual suppliers of that information and used primarily in that form: most direct marketing activities cannot effectively use anonymised information.