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Exploitation to engagement: the role of market research in getting close to niche targets.

Article Excerpt
This paper uses a case study of an advertising campaign for a basketball brand to argue that applying a holistic involvement model to all participants in the marketing process produces the best results when targeting niche markets. This paper was winner of the Best Presentation award at the 2003 Market Research Society conference.

Introduction

I regret to inform you that this is not going to be the typical advertising paper about market research. I looked to Rupert Howell and Mark Earls' MRS papers from 2001 to gauge the common admen-talking-to-market-researchers tone and was surprised at how boldly both of them challenged the market research industry without turning that same challenge upon themselves. We in the advertising industry are just as responsible for creative market research as you; however, the years of criticism have obviously taken their toll on the psyche of the market research community as shown by Janet Kiddle and Mick Williamson's (2002) summary in their MRS paper:

Pulling together the threads of the debate, it seems to us that outsiders' perceptions of market research, particularly those occupying a creative space, do not position market researchers or the techniques used by us as creative or an aid to creativity.

My goal is not to write about how far behind you are in meeting the needs of the forward-thinking advertising industry. My goal is to suggest a new model for all of us working on brands that lead the cutting edge. A model in which the market researcher, the account planner, the creative, the client, and the consumer have a mutually beneficial interaction that leads to more powerful creative and business results. As such, research becomes an act of marketing, rather than an act behind marketing.

Many brands, in an attempt to get the inside track on a niche, cuttingedge core target, employ innovative research techniques that allow them to slip below the radar, to capture the elusive insight that they believe will allow them to be considered the 'it' brand in the inner circles. With the recent proliferation of innovative studies, two questions emerge:

1. Can we ever keep up with a cutting-edge target by exposing what they are doing and thinking today? Will it not change by the time we can act on that insight?

2. And how does a brand avoid exploiting their core target and instead engage them in a dialogue that genuinely embeds them in the development and future of the brand?

There is an opportunity not just to use the target for insight, but instead to engage them in a new model of research altogether - one that is rooted in reciprocity and the desire to create a brand that is actually built with the core target. This paper explores the need for a new model and offers a case study that exemplifies the benefit of inviting the target to be a co-creator of the brand.

Respect the consumer: a revolutionary moment in advertising

Over the last few decades, we have witnessed an evolution of the advertising model from stimulus-response to dialogue-based. The 1980s marked a shift in the marketing industry's understanding of the consumer. No longer merely considered a vessel into which advertisers could insert marketing messaging, suddenly there was recognition of the sophisticated 'advertising consumer' (Meadows 1983). The 'advertising consumer' could see through the messaging to the intention behind the commercial, criticising the style and effect of the message itself: they had become connoisseurs of advertising. This new consumer demanded respect. We could no longer just talk at consumers, but had to involve them in the dialogue if we wanted them to respect our brands. It was a difficult lesson, but one that opened up an enormous opportunity for the marketing industry. When a brand got it right, awarding respect where respect was due, brands became further embedded in the hearts of consumers than ever before.

Much of the brand draw, and the ability to create and cultivate a relationship with the customer ... is an emotional, not rational, decision ... As technology allows for the production of products, or even duplication of services, that are incredibly similar, the emotional connection will become the biggest part of a customer's decision-making process.

(Webster 2002)

With the rise of the internet, dialogue became an even more basic expectation of the savvy consumer. The internet allowed consumers to create a dialogue with anyone, with anything--raising their expectations of brands yet again. Amazon is a perfect example. Inherent in its business model is a data-capture process that allows it to personalise its communications, which has, arguably, led to its success as a purely online retailer. Every time a customer makes a purchase, that purchase is logged and subsequent offers can be tailored to Mr Jones who likes deep sea diving and gardening. Amazon is a brand that has a truly personal dialogue with its customers.

Consumer education and power have transformed the old absolutes. There are now groups of consumers who have got used to setting prices for products (priceline.com, letsbuyir.com), 'playing' the market to obtain the trade-off between perishability and price (lastminute.com)--even becoming involved in assembling their own products (Levi's US in-store website or Adidas' Customisation Experience)...The harnessing of new technologies accentuates the shifting power base.

(Kelly & Reed 2001)

Respect for the consumer is the foundation of brand dialogue, borne Out of a genuine belief in the valuable role the consumer plays in the success of a brand. Looking at the body of advertising created over the last ten years, there is strong evidence that much of it has been built upon a growing respect and understanding of the sophisticated, savvy, advertising consumer. Brands communicating via a deconstruction of category paradigms work to convince the consumer that they too share a belief that classic marketing techniques are absurd.

The move toward authenticity, honesty, and self-referential irony is evidence of this shift. Examples of this phenomenon require one to look no further than the high street--French Connection's 'FCUK Fashion' and Virgin's anti-establishment stance poke holes in their competitors' marketing efforts by aligning themselves with existing consumer cynicism. These messages, along with increasing the channels through which consumers can contribute to, comment on, and become part of the brand, all contribute to much deeper relationships between brands and the people who engage with them. In communications, we are moving quite rapidly towards a respect-based dialogue model. Market research techniques and approaches...