NEWS & HIGHLIGHTS - The Professor Speaks Out

Is market research a first-to-be-cut expenditure in these economic straits? The Professor recommends otherwise. The Professor thinks companies should plan to make modest market research expenditures to make the most of the marketing, advertising, and promotional budgets they still have at hand.

Why? Consumers will still buy necessities – such as food, shelter, utilities, gasoline, and clothing, as well as arguable non essentials like entertainment. Past recessions have shown that consumers will trade down if they can – ground beef not steak, lower thermostat settings, cars with better gas mileage, making last year’s clothes last another year. Modest research expenditures could help understand what consumers are thinking, and provide ways to help them find their way.

On the subject of groceries, a chief executive of a major supermarket conglomerate was recently quoted in the New York Times confirming that these trade-down food buying trends are happening currently. And your professor witnessed, through research, sales data, interviews with a major supermarket chain’s buying and marketing staff, and collaboration with a University of California business forecasting unit, this exact trend, following an upheaval in the past. So this trend should be no surprise. And again, a modest expenditure on consumer research could tap into ways to relieve consumers’ pain.

Regarding entertainment expenditures – consumers could decide to cut back. Modest research can track what consumers are thinking about their entertainment options and preferences. C.A. Walker has studied the filmed entertainment, home video, cable, and satellite markets extensively and can provide experienced advice.

The Professor would be happy to answer any questions you may have, and wishes you a prosperous New Year.

To contact The Professor, email Dr. Kevin Gentry, Group Vice President at C.A. Walker Research Solutions.

The Professor has a doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Southern California, and has been practicing market research for many years.

Obama will be in the White House, Democrats will hold sway in the Legislature, GM is teetering, banks are consolidating and sitting on their funds (not lending), American Express decides it wants to be a bank, home values have dropped precipitously. AIG and others are receiving huge emergency cash infusions and want more, and consumer spending, at retail in particular, has screeched to a halt. This 2008 traditional holiday spending season will likely be extraordinary in terms of consumers holding back.

What does this mean for the market research industry? What should it mean?

Market research will likely fall in priority for companies’ spending. Those companies in more recession-resistant industries will still want to know what consumers want, and will want to conduct research to continue to map the lay of the land.

In contrast, start-ups, business-to-business marketers, and smaller companies will likely move market research to the bottom of their priorities. The Professor has spoken personally to many of these in this fourth quarter of 2008, and they view market research findings as something they would like to have but cannot afford.

But perhaps this is precisely the time when a company that finds its ship heading for the rocks could benefit from a modest investment in market research to understand what their customers want, how to “ease their pain”, and how to help them through troubled times. The return on investment could be significant. Sales pitch warning - we at C.A. Walker suggest that we can bring our wealth of experience to maximize that return – we’re not just research technicians, we’re marketing consultants as well.

The Professor has been urging clients to consider the ROI on modest research expenditures as a hedge against the current economic tides.

He would be interested in your thoughts in these times (supposed Chinese curse, no one can agree on the source, “May you live in interesting times”). The Professor felt compelled to include that.

To contact The Professor, email Dr. Kevin Gentry, Group Vice President at C.A. Walker Research Solutions.

The Professor has a doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Southern California, and has been practicing market research for many years.

Recently, the professor was wondering – is “market research” dead? No, not the practice, skills, techniques and outcomes of market research, but the popular notion of market research.

Colleague Gary White of Pacific Crest Marketing points out the proliferation of firms that say they offer Consumer Insights (rather than “market research”), and the Professor notes the abundance of professionals with Consumer Insights in their job titles, and open positions that likewise are billed as having Consumer Insights and the like as their responsibilities.

In addition, there are several firms on an upward arc that don’t interview consumers at all, but rather scan the Internet to see who is saying what about a given product or service. Thousands of consumer inputs are gathered without a single survey being conducted.

Pundits such as Malcolm Gladwell have taken broadsides at market research, with what seems like a less than complete understanding of the practice of market research. Focus groups in particular are attacked, without realizing that no research provider represents the findings of focus groups as scientific or representative of the entire population, but rather as hints at the sentiments of consumers.

So is market research dead? No. But the image of our profession is threatened by those with a lack of understanding of what we do, and perhaps by our clinging to decades-old conventions in reporting and describing what we do, when in fact our stock in trade is applied thought leadership. Perhaps we need to reinvent the market research wheel and make it more exciting for the current crop of clients out there.

And that is what we’re doing at C.A. Walker. Stay tuned!

To contact The Professor, email Dr. Kevin Gentry, Group Vice President at C.A. Walker Research Solutions.

The Professor has a doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Southern California, and has been practicing market research for many years.

 

On a recent weekend The Professor sat in quiet fascination and was shaking his head when the following ad on cable concluded. The Professor won't get it absolutely correct -the copy is from memory:

"We at (large soft drink company) don't think much of surveys (animated company logo symbolically gives the boot to a clipboard), but recently saw a big important survey that showed more people drink (one of their brands) than any other (brand of that type). Gee were we wrong about surveys".

The Professor happens to know that this company, across all divisions, has one of the largest market research budgets (read: surveys) in the Fortune 500. So the ad is disingenuous. But it may illustrate an important point. There is always another pundit (e.g., Malcom Gladwell), or a business editor (with column space to fill, in the days before column space started disappearing) writing about how research doesn't work, no one cooperates, the surveys are wrong, and so on.

So you get the large advertiser above saying they really don't like surveys (they want you to scoff at surveys like they believe the general public does), but hey wait, we like this one because it makes us look good, so we should all believe in surveys again. Our belief is that they can't have it both ways- you believe in the validity of surveys or you don’t.

Here at C.A. Walker we have conducted hundreds of thousands of surveys with consumers, with the results being of profitable benefits to hundreds of companies. The survey process is respectful of participants, we adhere to the standards and practices of national survey research organizations, and the results are quality checked multiple times.

Don’t think much of surveys? Look again, we ask.

To contact The Professor, email Dr. Kevin Gentry, Group Vice President at C.A. Walker Research Solutions.

The Professor has a doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Southern California, and has been practicing market research for many years.

In 2002, C.A. Walker and Associates, established in 1972, became C.A. Walker Research Solutions, Inc. The reason for the change: after thirty years, our image lagged our continuous improvements in skills, experience, and technology. We’d like to get the word out: we do sophisticated design and analysis, internet based research, and international projects.


How did our image lag? Well, providing efficient execution, good value, and speedy service project after project seemed to give us a “meat and potatoes” image with some people - “Yeah, those C.A. Walker guys are great on basic projects, but you need to go somewhere else if you need more sophisticated design or analysis, or Internet or International capability”.


In fact, C.A. Walker Research Solutions has the highest level of skill in research design, statistical analysis, strategic interpretation, internet data collection and international research. Our capabilities are unsurpassed


Our key client service staff: PH.D’s and MBA's. Our research experience includes market segmentation, conjoint techniques, online data collection, Van Westendorp price sensitivity analysis, and much more. We conduct thousands of interviews online, and conduct projects in the following countries: Australia, Benelux, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the U.K.


So we’re C.A. Walker Research Solutions now, and solutions are what we provide.

Here at C.A. Walker we continue our ongoing efforts to refine and improve our skills and technology.

On the technology front, our ClarusVision software suite for online and CATI interviewing now supports secure video (can’t be downloaded) within our Internet surveys, increased ease of data access for clients through our web site, and more custom features for interactive crosstabulations, tables, and graphs. In addition, our programmers are proficient in creating complex quota fulfillment systems, conjoint exercises, and quality control algorithms. Since we launched ClarusVision, we have used it to conduct a total of over 450,000 interviews – approximately 360,000 on the Internet and 90,000 by telephone.

Clients who have recently entrusted us with their important projects include Ikea, Disney ABC Cable Network, Hollywood Video, MGA Entertainment, and Paramount Home Entertainment. They join our roster of continuing clients, which includes Dole, Jack in the Box, Jafra, The Los Angeles Times, Epson, Wellpoint, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers Studios, Warner Home Video, Movielink, DIRECTV, and many others.

On the skills front, a recent addition to our project staff is Tamara Altman, Ph.D. Tamara has over 11 years of experience and a B.A. in Psychology from U.C. Berkeley and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA.

Finally, watch this site in the first quarter of 2006 for news about the results of a comprehensive segmentation study of interactive game (consoles, handheld, PCs, Internet) consumers, sponsored by C.A. Walker Research Solutions. For more information about this study, contact Kevin Gentry at kgentry@cawalker.com.

updated 8:32 p.m. CT, Mon., Feb. 9, 2009

PASADENA, CA - Recent earnings reports from several major Hollywood studios indicate steep declines in home entertainment revenues despite growth in Blu-ray Disc sales. Recently, studio executives acknowledged that falling DVD sales may be a reflection of shifts in how people watch films, even if the economy were not in recession.

Until now, how much each factor has contributed to changes in consumer spending on home entertainment has not been clear. The results of a recent survey by C.A. Walker Research Solutions, Pasadena, Calif., among 13 to 64 year olds indicate that nearly two in five consumers report decreased home entertainment spending (38%). The impact of this decline is reduced by the 22% of consumers who report increased spending.

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