Why are market researchers so !xx?!ing bad at communicating market research findings?

This was my title for a submission paper for the New MR virtual festival http://newmr.org/ being held in December. 

Now I am sure not all market researchers are bad communicators, but I think it is often difficult to communicate market research for a number of reasons including the constraints and expectations placed on the researcher by their company and their client. However, some of the blame must sit with the researchers themselves and their lack of creativity and general desire to remain un-noticed.

I am not a communications expert, far from it.  I have had to deliver a lot of presentations and I have sat through a lot of bad ones, including bearing witness first hand to some shockers delivered by me! 

I want to try and open up the debate to see if we as an industry can stop lurking in those dark recesses of the business world occupied by the IT geeks, the bean counters and the apologetic researchers.

 Anyway here is my submission. It will appear on the Newmr website soon so if you want to hear me opine about this fascinating subject then make sure you vote for me.

My Paper Synopsis

This presentation will argue that market researchers are not particularly good at communicating market research findings, be it in a report, presentation or other method. Market research as a discipline has yet to truly adopt available technology and new thinking in information delivery and lags way behind other more “creative” marketing disciplines.

The presentation will provide evidence for this contention by covering two areas:

1: Current practices for the delivery of market research results looking at the extent to which market research has (or indeed hasn't) embraced new technologies and styles of delivery to meet client and stakeholder requirements for insight.

2: Ideas for a new dawn in creativity in the delivery of market research results - The focus will be to help the researchers of tomorrow step away from presentation mediocrity using visual and creative thinking to connect with and enlighten their audiences. New styles of presenting, technology and resources to aid the researcher will be covered outlining new and innovative styles of information delivery.

 

 

Comments

[AnnMaria]

Let me join you on the soapbox! I don't know how many times I have given lecture #1246 "The purpose of your report is to communicate information about {stick with me here} - THE RESULTS IN A FORMAT MEANINGFUL TO YOUR CLIENT - and not about your own brilliance.

Your research should inform and impress the people who paid for it. This is a requirement. Whether it impresses your doctoral advisor, fellow Ph.D. graduates, the 17 people who read "the good journals" in your field. Well, that is what I would consider nice but optional.

[Alison Starr]

I'm with you too, John. We're reviewing how we are going to present our findings in the future as well, and struggling with the usual dilemma - how to get so much information across as creatively and effectively as possible.