“Hire for passion, train for skill” is advice often given to businesses about potential hires. And that is truer for marketing research analysts than for any other category of hire. Clearly it goes beyond number crunching, to being able to relate those number back to the marketing challenge or business problem at hand. Critical thinking […]
As one year draws to a close, and another begins, the marketing research industry turns introspective and tries to make sense of the chaos by identifying major trends that we have seen in the year past, or that we will see more of in the coming year. These major trends are supposed to help us […]
Every year in December and then the following January (and even into February), the blogosphere is full of posts about the “most important trends”, the “most disruptive trends” or “some other general warning trends”of the year. But how valuable are those blogs? Are they actually telling us something new and different? Or just reiterating what […]
Holiday shopping is as American as eating turkey and cranberry sauce on the fourth Thursday in November. Black Friday is named for being the day that retailers typically turned a profit for the year (from being “in the red” to “black”), and it is still the biggest shopping day of the year. But things are […]
Research has changed drastically over the past few years from when I first started, so it’s no surprise why marketing research companies have evolved in how they do research and how they brand themselves. But whether we call ourselves data scientists, insights experts, or research specialists, what does this all mean? According to the GRIT […]
Last year around this time we presented some frightening, creepy, scary stories about research projects gone wrong. In keeping with the spirit of the season, here are four more for your enjoyment and, hopefully, edification. Never say, “What could go wrong?” Typically, focus groups are held during evening hours. Sometimes, for special groups, during working […]
Fall is the Marketing Research Conference season, bringing many opportunities to learn new ideas, meet new people, and expand your knowledge of our profession. Over the years, I’ve attended quite of few conferences and I have noticed that at almost every conference, there is a presentation that touches on the topic of “partnering with research […]
While it may seem somewhat perverse to be talking about psycho bosses on this happiest of all holidays, the sad truth is that not all bosses are as wonderful as yours. And even bosses that are not wonderful may be just, well, wacky and not truly psychotic. But there is significant research that the corporate […]
No, we’re not talking about the electric power grid. We’re talking about grid questions, one of the most commonly used question formats in survey research. The grid question format is simple to use. The response options (such as a level of agreement scale, from strongly agree to disagree strongly) are listed across the top of […]
