10 Attempts to Rebrand Market Research

the search terms ‘insight’ is gaining momentum

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=market+research,+insights&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

What about Insight Facilitator?

People still unaware of many technical terms used in the industry. I believe it will be very hard to brand these terms instead of Market Researcher. However, we can’t stop this kind of branding over the time period.

Now, I remember one of the old incident happened to my colleague. He was a charting designer at that time and when one of his relative asked about what job you do? He replied, “I am a charting designer and works in Powerpoint”. Then the relative asked “are you Electrician?” Afterwards, he never used the term Powerpoint in his conversation with others.

Also, one of my other friend use “Data Mastero”.

Lucy – good points. In your mind, what would a true rebranding campaign for market research look like?

I’d start with the benefit to the audience of MR. Which means defining the audience first – is it the general public, is it the business world, or panellists, or government or marketing or what? If we want to change the perceptions of MR we need to understand our audience. Depending on the answer to that we’d build a good set of positive contributions MR has made to the audience; it saves money, it speeds up decisions, it entertains illuminates and informs, it creates jobs and businesses, there are a host more. Then we’d work out what was the most motivating (by doing research?). Then we’d have to trap every market researcher in the world in a room and tell them what it’s all about, and how they should deliver it. That would go down well. Maybe at Esomar? Then we’d create a communications campaign – name, visual identity, advertising, media relations, direct marketing – to support it. Should only take a few years and cost a few gazillions! Alternatively, we could do it business by business. Which is what I’ve been doing for 10 years. Feels like longer somehow….

The other day I was followed on Twitter by a “New Media Alchemist And Data Forager”!

This discussion comes up every few years, it seems to me, and probably says more about researchers’ collective lack of self-confidence than any real market need. The main issue I tend to have with the name is that the ‘laity’ confuse market researchers with marketers.

One interesting branding trend – which has been going on for quite a while now – is smaller MR agencies giving themselves names which put them more in line with marketing or advertising shops: Truth, Sparkler, Join The Dots and so on. I suspect the bunch I work for fall into this category too. This is a Good Thing, I think – snappy names which give a fun, emotional picture of what we do, I’ll admit to a pang of envy when Virtual Surveys rebranded as Join The Dots.

I think it’s important to take into account how real people talk. In Newcastle there is a metro system, which is called ‘the Metro’. Or at least, it’s called that by everybody except the people who run it, who insist on calling it ‘Metro’. So while a human being would say, ‘I’m taking the Metro to work’, the posters say ‘Take Metro to work!’

Nobody talks like that. It is daft, and puts distance between THE Metro and the people it serves.

Similarly, SPSS was rebranded for a while as ‘SPSS an IBM company’, to the point that their people literally rang you up and said ‘I’m calling from SPSSanIBMcompany’, which is just stoopid. Nobody talks like that.

When you ring up a call centre and get through to a bored, indifferent, undertrained ‘customer service specialist’, do you feel reassured by their title? Or does it just sound silly?

People might not have much idea what a market researcher is, but they have at least some idea. It’s a word that real people say.

On the other hand, consumer oracle? Insight scientist? Consumer knowledge officer? The public won’t ever call you by these names. But if you’re not careful they’ll come up with crueller names to call you.