Market Research or Marketing Research?

Market research OR Marketing research?

Preface

There is a genuine disagreement over the use of these two terms among the people working in this industry, and when you ask one of them about the difference, or about whether using one of the two terms is more correct than using the other, you may not find a complete and convincing answer. The question that poses itself is: is there a difference between them? Is using one of them more correct than using the other? Why do book titles carry both terms?

I took a quick tour of Amazon and Google and narrowed the search once to market research and once to marketing research (in English, of course), and the result was:

Amazon: Market research: 15,324 book titles | Marketing research: 8,205 book titles

Google: Market research: 59,400,000 results | Marketing research: 13,600,000 results

This result made the question mark loom even larger for me and pushed me to do more verification, because the result ran contrary to my expectations. I used to be biased toward using the term marketing research, and you will find that reflected throughout all my previous articles and writings. Perhaps my leaning toward using marketing research was because this unit or department, in several cases, sits within the company’s hierarchy under the marketing division and primarily serves the people working in that division. But in this research of mine I will be neutral and stripped of my prior convictions. In this article I will lay out what I arrived at, and perhaps some who have worked in this industry for years will be surprised by information they had never heard before.

The research methodology for answering this question

To reach a satisfying answer, I relied on four main sources for the information I wanted to gather: the opinions of experts, the academic definition of each term, an examination of the websites of the specialized associations, and finally conducting a small desk-research study among articles that discuss the same topic.

The opinions of experts

I posed this question to many seasoned people working in this industry, and the answer of most of them, without elaboration, was that they lean more toward using the term market research because it is more comprehensive. It is worth noting that some of them, the minority, were on the complete opposite side. So I wonder whether this question of mine is something like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg.

One of the longest-serving people in this field in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the expert Mustafa Naqvi, kindly answered my question to him about this dilemma with the following — I have lightly adjusted the answer for reasons related to translation:

Marketing is one of the branches of business knowledge whose mission is to attract consumers and ensure their needs are met. Although the role of marketing differs from one company to another, in general many companies rely on marketing to communicate with all departments and to ensure that product initiatives are launched and managed successfully. Therefore, from a broader perspective, marketing is also responsible for identifying new opportunities and tracking the success of initiatives. When a research department supports what was mentioned above, we can then call it the marketing research department. As for market research, this term is, in terms of its description, more comprehensive and broader, but both achieve the same equation. So if, for example, the finance department or the product-development department wants to make a successful investment, it relies on market research — starting from research reports related to the investment environment, through to providing inputs for the economic feasibility study of business plans, as well as sector/industry analysis research… End of quote.

The result of the small desk-research study + the academic definition of each term

On the famous Wikipedia, there are indeed two different pages, one for market research and another for marketing research. Without troubling you with the details, I will state the general understanding I drew from the definition of each term.

As for marketing research, the definitions focused on the matter of serving the marketer, or the people working in the marketing division, with the information that will help them make decisions related to solving marketing problems or seizing a marketing opportunity, as well as monitoring the impact of certain marketing decisions through the use of this research. It is also drawn upon in order to monitor the elements of the marketing mix and the effect of each of them on consumer behavior. So when we use the term marketing research, we are focusing mainly on that research which primarily serves the operations of the marketing department. As for market research, it focuses on researching a particular market in itself. And since marketing research primarily serves the marketing department, market research serves the strategy department, and the role of market research comes before the role of marketing research, because strategy is set before the elements of the marketing mix are devised and planned. That is why one of the writers mentioned in her article that the data coming from marketing research is worth nothing in value if it is not accompanied by the data coming from market research, and that conducting market research is more important when there is insufficient budget, since understanding the overall picture is more important than understanding the fine details. In general, market research is widely available, considered less costly, and you may even find its results for free, whereas marketing research will often require you to hire specialized agencies or an in-house team to conduct it. Note that, by definition, both market research and marketing research use the same tools and the same research methodologies. But should we understand from this paragraph that each of them means something entirely different? In reality the answer is yes, there is a difference, and at the same time there is an overlap between them, but one is more comprehensive than the other, which is a part of it.

Marketing research, according to some articles, includes under it: advertising-effectiveness measurement research, pricing research, taste-test research, product testing, concept testing, loyalty and satisfaction research, and usage and attitude research.

As for market research, it includes under it the following types of research: human sciences research, culture-related research, trends research, market-size research, market-segmentation research, ethnographic research, economic trends, technological trends, economic feasibility studies, and population surveys.

Based on the above, does each of them mean something different? … Not really, because both of them include, in terms of classification, certain types of research such as research that studies competitors, demand forecasting, pricing research, as well as social-network listening and its analysis. And within these different categories we will also find a disagreement over the matter of classification itself. Political research related to elections is classified under market research, but some have recently included politics among the elements of the marketing mix — so does that make it fall under marketing research as well? With all the differences in viewpoints, it seems that if the research concerns the changes happening outside the company, or the things that affect potential customers, then it is preferable to use market research. But if the research is about the company’s services/products or customers, then it is better and more accurate to use marketing research. This somewhat explains the reason for the difference even in book titles, as you will usually notice that books carrying the title market research are more expansive and detailed than those carrying the title marketing research. The best example of this is the Market Research Handbook published by the ESOMAR association, in its fourth edition, which exceeded a thousand pages.

In light of what was mentioned above, and the understanding I arrived at, I can give an example that will help those working in this field, or those seeking research services, to distinguish the main difference — based on the definition of each term and on the articles I read, and not based on the companies’ own declarations. An example of companies that provide market research:

IDC, Euromonitor, Gartner, Informa

As for the example of companies that provide marketing research services, they include:

Ipsos, Nielsen, GFK, TNS

Nevertheless, I clarify to readers that the companies mentioned first can do what the companies mentioned second do, and vice versa, because we said that they use the same methodologies and tools in order to gather the information that serves the research objectives.

The websites of the specialized associations

By visiting the websites of the specialized associations, I noticed the prevalence of the term market research once again, and that was the case across each of the following associations:

ESOMAR, MRS, CASRO, Aimri

Its appearance in this wording may mean that it has been adopted as the official term for the industry, and this certainly did not come about by chance — especially coming from an association like ESOMAR, the most widespread and recognized in the world.

Et tu, LinkedIn?

While I was one day searching for my contacts on LinkedIn, I wanted to use the advanced search in order to sort my contacts by the field they work in, and the surprise was that there was no classification carrying the name marketing research within the list of fields/industries, whereas I did find a classification for market research, as shown in the image below.

And who cares?

Perhaps one of you said, who cares whether it is market research or marketing research, why the trouble? This curiosity began to surface because of how we introduce ourselves to others: do I say I am a market research specialist or a marketing research specialist? And from this very question came the decision to write this article.

Conclusion

As a result of the research I conducted, the term market research is more comprehensive in terms of definition and more prevalent in terms of usage, compared with marketing research, which seemed to me to be something that can be considered a part of market research. It cannot be settled that using one of them is more correct than the other when speaking about a particular type of research, because of the overlap between them and because of the disagreement over classifying the type of research. While the majority assume they are twins, what appeared to me is that they are false twins: both came out of the same womb, but market research was the older brother of marketing research. I ask my brothers and colleagues working in this industry to offer their professional opinions, citing some sources if possible, to refute or confirm what I arrived at above. Your comments and critiques are most welcome.