Gaining marketing insights is crucial for marketing success.
If marketers lack consumer insights, they often get in trouble.When
Tropicana redesigned its orange juice packaging, dropping the iconic
image of an orange skewered by a straw, it failed to adequately test
for consumer reactions, with disastrous results. Sales dropped by
20 percent, and Tropicana reinstated the old package design after
only a few months.
We define marketing research as the systematic design, collection,
analysis, and reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific marketing
situation facing the company. Spending on marketing research topped $28 billion globally in
2009, according to ESOMAR, the world association of opinion and market research professionals.
Most large companies have their own marketing research departments, which often play crucial
roles within the organization. Procter & Gamble’s Consumer & Market Knowledge (CMK) market
research function has dedicated CMK groups working for P&G businesses around the world to
improve both their brand strategies and program execution, as well as a relatively smaller, centralized
corporate CMK group that focuses on a variety of big-picture concerns that transcend any specific
line of business.
Marketing research, however, is not limited to large companies with big budgets and marketing
research departments. Often at much smaller companies, everyone carries out marketing research—
including the customers. Small companies can also hire the services of a marketing research firm or
conduct research in creative and affordable ways, such as