Why is it so popular? Primarily because it does pass the gut test: market research projects that are fast and good are unlikely to be cheap. Ones that are cheap and fast are unlikely to be good, and so on…
In this article, Jon Puleston tells us about some surprising statistics he overheard while attending the ESOMAR 3D conference:
Do you prefer American Marketing Association (AMA) events or Marketing Research Association (MRA) events? This is a questions I get frequently from Research Rockstar students and other people I run
How many points in a scaled question is “enough”? That’s a pretty common question in survey design. If you’ve spent some time with online market research surveys, you’ve probably noticed that they often have five points. “Please rate your satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 5, with one representing ‘not at all satisfied’ and five representing ‘extremely satisfied’.” Sometimes, though, you may see a 7-point scale instead of 5. Is 7 points an improvement? How about 11? Is higher resolution better? The answer is, “that depends”.
Is Market Research a high-stress job?
It certainly can be.
But I can also tell you, after 25 years of doing market research, that there are known strategies for managing project-related stress. My favorite is one Research Rockstar students hear me talk about frequently: the preemptive strike.
In the Sunday New York Times (January 20th, 2013 edition), Matthew E. May wrote about, “The Art of Adding Through Taking Away.” The article points to the strength of this wisdom through ancient proverb and more recently by quoting Jim Collins, who apparently observed that, “A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally important, what is not. It is the discipline to discard what does not fit…