How much market research is too much research?It could be argued that too much of anything may not be a good thing, but from my knowledge, no marketing executive in the drinks sector ever got fired for undertaking market research to provide appropriate solutions to meet their corporate objectives. Of course, it is the quality rather than the quantity of research that is important.

More often than not research projects, particularly qualitative projects, are based on specific short-term objectives - of the brand, the product or category managers. They squeeze every ounce of information and insight from the data, and then the reports are filed away to gather dust.  One reason for this rather short-term approach is the belief that the insights that are relevant for today will be irrelevant for tomorrow. While there may be an element of truth to this, the drinks sector certainly can benefit from identifying the drivers of change. What is it that drives consumers to change from one brand to another, one type of wine to another or from one sub-category to another? How can marketing teams capitalise on these ‘influencers’ of change?

Combine short-term thinking with all the research reports gathering dust and one might be forgiven for thinking that market research has a relatively short shelf life. Quite the contrary!  Sir Winston Churchill aptly put it when he was quoted as saying; “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” This quote has relevance in virtually every business today.

Why look back? Because it gives us an opportunity to look at changes that have taken place over time and what drove those changes. The beverages people were consuming (and how and where and why) 20 years ago may well be different from today. Some have certainly stood the test of time, but their drivers of consumption may have changed.  At the very least, the moment of choice based on the current competitive set has changed.

It’s an often-heard comment that if we knew then (referring to some point in the past) what we know now, how differently things would be. For marketing teams, this wisdom of hindsight is about obtaining insights or intelligence after the event but before it has actually happened.

But how do you go about obtaining this hindsight-foresight thinking? In corporate terms, one place to start is to look at where you have come and where you are today.  Couple this with all the intelligence that you have gathered over the intervening years. In market research terms, gathering insights from past research is a process we call ‘research reviews – but is, in effect, ‘qualitative data mining’.  We use cognitive processes to create three principal values from this intelligence: Hindsight, Insight and Foresight.

The research review process involves the analysis of large quantities of data to extract previously undetected intelligence or interesting patterns of behaviour. The drivers of change over the preceding ten years, for example, may well shed light on the shape of events that will occur over the next ten years.  By overlaying current technologies and behaviours, we can extrapolate strong hypotheses for the future.

Re-analysing past market research data is not simply a matter of recycling old information. The objective is to leverage existing learnings in a wider, more holistic context. Neither is it merely a case of going back over individual research projects one by one, but literally superimposing all the insights from these projects and seeing where common threads start to appear. Taken on their own, the reported insights might have little or no impact, but when seen in a cross-brand/cross-category context, they can start repeating and compounding, showing that something more fundamental is occurring.

With the research review projects we undertake for clients, we don’t use data analysis software, preferring instead to do the analyses manually.  This is because there are often subtle differences in meaning and expression that can only be detected with human involvement. Unlike quantitative data, qualitative data sets have many more assumptions regarding drivers of attitudes and values. What we are looking for are patterns that are quite different from those discovered when analysing data from individual research projects.

I liken the process of research reviews to analytical cubism, where the artist dissects the subject material then reconstructs it in a way that depicts its essence rather than its physical appearance. We will generally group ideas and concepts into ‘themes’ so that the data can be thoroughly explored and cross-referenced to ensure nothing is missed. Since we are usually reviewing a much larger data set than we would with a specific product or category research project, there is always a wide range of different connections that occur.

Something we find truly beneficial is identifying what “disruptions” are needed to alter the rules of the categories we are researching. When you couple the gleaned hindsight with the creation of a multi-dimensional strategic framework, you can begin to separate the black and white spaces - the areas of practical application - from the theoretical “grey space” areas. This multi-dimensional framework helps establish some suppositions as to the best ways of tackling these areas, focusing on those which may have the greatest prospects. From the resulting strategic overview, a series of potential directions can be drafted for future exploration and may be the subject of further research in their own right.

Whilst soft drinks and fruit juices can be influenced from a previous generation, alcoholic beverages tend not to carry the same influence.  Accurately defining the drivers of change is very important for marketing teams and this is where research reviews can be such a powerful process. Change just doesn’t happen by chance. There are a number of factors that contribute to bringing it about. By overlaying data from several market research projects and superimposing all the insights these drivers start to take shape.

Performing research reviews where past market research projects are re-considered can be very cost-effective - and they can provide marketing teams with an opportunity to uncover unique and relevant trends that can be further exploited. If the review process is performed correctly, the methodology should provide the internal confidence needed to explore the emergent themes; something that will ultimately lead to new brand extensions and positioning strategies. Research reviews, however, should not take precedence over conducting other qualitative projects, but rather should be seen as an adjunct to conventional research and a way to get more from it. However, when budgets are tight, well-conducted research reviews may well achieve the intelligence necessary to keep the organisation moving forward.

As we often say, hindsight which leads to insight to produce foresight can be a truly valuable (and perhaps untapped) asset.