The Top Ten Specialized Associations in Marketing Research

Preamble

Many associations around the world serve the marketing-research industry and try to organize and improve it as much as possible. In this post, I’ll put together a list of the most important relevant associations. Readers are invited to nominate more important associations in case I’ve missed some inadvertently or out of unfamiliarity. I’ve deliberately ignored associations whose efforts and activities are concentrated within a particular country or narrow geographic area. Note that most of the associations listed below are more than 50 years old — i.e., older than most of you.

As a Researcher, How Can I Benefit From These Associations?

The question raises itself. As mentioned in a previous article, the first reason that may invite you to delve into these associations’ websites is the professional codes of conduct they prepare to organize and raise quality of work in this industry. Note that all resources on these websites are in English. Some also address quality-control standards related to the famous ISO standards.

Alongside codes of conduct, there are opportunities to apply for membership in these associations. Memberships usually come in two kinds: individual, for solo researchers, and institutional, for research agencies wishing to mark their company file with the logo of one of these associations to signal to clients that they’re committed to the professional code of conduct issued by these associations.

For individual memberships, you’ll get many benefits, the most important of which (if offered) are discounts you receive as a member for attending relevant international conferences organized by the same association; discounts on workshops and training courses organized by these associations; and finally, but not least, discounts on all the publications and printed books the association sells.

More importantly, some of these associations give their members access to specialized knowledge resources, which is useful for anyone wishing to enrich their knowledge base in this industry. Most of these associations provide some written or visual knowledge content to non-members as well.

Some of these associations also organize international competitions among researchers to win specific awards that add to a researcher’s achievements and give them better opportunities in the labor market if they win one.

It’s hard to specify which of these associations offers the best benefits upon getting a membership — every researcher or institution has their own requirements and needs. I personally lean toward the first two associations I’ll mention in the list below: ESOMAR and MRS, and I recommend applying for membership with either or both. Conducting an objective comparison between them takes a lot of time, so I’ll suffice with listing them and ask serious readers to do that themselves.

List of Associations

The European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) http://www.esomar.org/

The Market Research Society (MRS) http://www.mrs.org.uk/

Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) http://www.casro.org/

American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) http://www.aapor.org/

Alliance Of International Market Research Institutes (AIMRI) http://www.aimri.net/

Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) http://www.amsro.com.au/

Marketing Research Association (MRA) http://www.mra-net.org/

Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) http://thearf.org/research

The next two associations specialize in qualitative or descriptive research:

Association for Qualitative Research (AQR) http://www.aqr.org.uk/

Qualitative Research Consultant Association (QRCA) http://www.qrca.org/

Closing

In the end, I recommend following these associations on social networks and signing up for their mailing lists, if available, so you receive everything new and stay up to date on the latest industry trends.

I also hope that one day a specialized marketing-research association will be established in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to adopt the role of localizing global codes of conduct and tailoring them to fit local culture. Later, this association could be a force pressuring all the agencies working here to deliver better quality.

Appendix A — A Historical Glimpse of the Marketing-Research Industry

Preamble

I came across many names who contributed to the emergence of marketing research — such as Karl Pearson, Harold Lazarsfeld, Albert Cantril, and Ernest Dichter. But most of them were paving the road and laying some stones in it, until Charles Coolidge Parlin completed it. So who was this man, who was later called the father of marketing research?

The Father of the Marketing-Research Industry

Every science or branch in this world has a father credited with discovering it or laying down its basic, primary principles. The father of marketing research was Charles Coolidge Parlin, born in 1872 and died in 1942.

The first (multi-stage) marketing research he conducted was in the early 19th century for Curtis Publishing Company. The goal was to gather information about customers and the market to help the company sell more advertising in its magazine The Saturday Evening Post. Other sources mention that his first research was in the field of agricultural applications in 1911. He’s the author of the famous quote: “The customer is King.”

In 1945, an annual award bearing his name was established by the American Marketing Association and the Wharton School in cooperation with Curtis Publishing — in tribute to his great contributions. This award is considered the oldest and most distinguished among the awards given annually in marketing-research circles. Thousands of people from around the world apply for it each year. It is awarded based on criteria and priorities focused on the degree of the contribution’s impact on the field as a whole, and the extent of change or improvement that will accrue to the industry and help it grow.

On the article’s cover image, I’ve placed a picture of the father of marketing research and the award’s logo.

The First Company to Apply Marketing Research

Even if the first wasn’t successful in their attempt, the first to honor the attempt of anything stands out and is remembered just for being first. Which of the readers hasn’t heard of Abbas ibn Firnas, despite his failed attempt at flight? But because it was the first … it set him apart from later attempts.

There has been disagreement about the first company to apply market research, but the majority attribute the first initiative to British Nurse Florence Nightingale. This was mentioned in one of ESOMAR’s books which we discussed in the previous article. The title of the book for those who want to read more: Market Research Explained.

This nurse made significant contributions to statistics and pioneered combining medical data with statistics — developing statistical medical applications and developing charts to present medical data in an easy-to-read way. Her work wasn’t limited to nursing as her name suggests; she used her statistical expertise to measure and collect data from clinical operations and developed charts to present her data in a way that gained the understanding and satisfaction of clients.

Other Miscellaneous Events

The first survey was recorded in 1824 — conducted by a local newspaper agency in the United States to determine some political trends. This type of survey is called a “straw poll” — from the old saying “straws in the wind,” because people used to throw straws into the air to learn the wind’s direction (the straw would fly with the wind), and likewise these polls help us know the direction of something.

Karl Pearson (born 1857, died 1936) is considered one of the founders of modern statistics, and one of his most important discoveries in 1893 was the standard deviation.

Rensis Likert (born 1903, died 1981) invented in 1932 one of the most famous scales still in use today, named after him: the Likert Scale.

In 1941, Robert Merton and his colleague Paul Lazarsfeld invented focus groups together — one of the most important kinds of research applications in qualitative or descriptive marketing research, as I prefer to call it.

For those wanting to dig into the history of this industry, I recommend the following book:

A New Brand of Business: Charles Parlin, Curtis Publishing Company, and the Origins of Market Research by Douglas B. Ward | Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2010

Closing

I’m not here to detail every event and every invention in this field — the aim was to clarify that this field is still young among others, and that the door to development and invention is still wide open. There are annual awards from several organizations earmarked for those who develop new models that prove their merit in a world where every company wants to own competitive information to outdo its competitors.

Appendix B — Incentives in Marketing Research

Preamble

One of the biggest challenges facing marketing-research agencies around the world is the challenge of reaching the target segment to conduct interviews with them — either because of their small numbers within a particular community or because of their limited time. I recall one day we spent six months interviewing one hundred people specialized in fleet management. There weren’t many of them, and those available didn’t have time. The agency’s actual plan was to finish 400 interviews in two months. Was incentive the best solution to ensure achieving the targeted number of interviews? Today’s article is about this topic. To start, there are two schools (opposing views) on offering incentives. One supports it and barely executes any research without a dedicated incentive budget. The other school is completely against it and has found professional alternatives that replace incentives.

What Are Incentives?

Incentives in the marketing-research industry represent the reward given to the target segment in exchange for the time they give to participate in a specific marketing research.

Incentives come in several material and non-material forms:

Material: cash amounts or shopping vouchers, dinner or lunch invitations, top-up cards.
Non-material: gifts such as pens, perfumes, prayer beads.

There are other approaches such as conducting a raffle among the participating pool, or donating a fixed amount to a specific charity for each completed questionnaire, or — as you see in the article’s cover image — a free chicken sandwich.

The View of the Opposing School

These people believe the respondent participates in a study without compensation for several reasons:

The respondent believes their participation will help, in one way or another, improve service level or product quality.
The respondent sees participation in more civilized societies as a normal matter that doesn’t require compensation.
In certain cases, the respondent feels flattered to find someone seeking their opinion on a specific product or service.
In certain cases, the respondent thinks the person interviewing them is important and that they should respond to them.
The respondent is interested in the study topic and has knowledge or experience in it and therefore wants to express their opinion. The incentive isn’t everything — I personally am willing to spend more than two hours participating in marketing research if the topic interests me or if I have knowledge or experience in it.

They also believe incentives are a primary reason for distorting results, because they become a motive for participants to participate just to get the offered incentive. This specifically applies to qualitative research, which at a minimum takes an hour of the target’s time — so the incentive offered is relatively high and tempting. While their words are correct, it’s the agency’s duty to tighten recruitment mechanisms to exclude this category of respondents who only came for the incentive — typically those who rotate among all the research agencies to fill missing seats in focus groups at the last minute (mentioned in a previous article). In my personal view, leaving the seat empty is better than filling it with an “expert” respondent who has participated in dozens of prior research projects. The point of excluding them isn’t because they’re an expert or because they only want the incentive, but because the target-segment criteria don’t apply to them in the first place.

Followers of this school don’t oppose offering compensation, as long as it isn’t material to begin with — and it shouldn’t be a motivator except for those who will answer the questionnaire honestly. For example, for questionnaires concerning specific practical issues, the participant is promised that the study’s main findings will be shared with them once the study is complete. Another example I really liked: in a concept-test study for a new product not yet on the market, the research owner offered participants a discount on the product once it launched. The person seeking quick benefit who participates only for the incentive won’t be motivated by this incentive if they’re not interested in the product concept.

The View of the Supporting School

The supporting school also has some logical arguments — especially in B2B research or B2G research. Their main argument is that some target individuals can earn a fortune in one hour of their time, so why should they waste it with the field researcher? The matter here, in their description, is that the incentive given to them may not represent any material value to them, but its value is symbolic — like the shields distributed at a charity gala to a millionaire businessman: the shield is nothing to him but has symbolic value and an emotional connection with the act of charity, and won’t later be more than a memory. Followers of this school recommended setting clear standards and policies for researchers on how to handle incentives — when, where, and how an incentive can be offered; providing a verbal explanation for why this incentive is being given; emphasizing that the respondent can decline to complete the interview and still receive the incentive; and being alert to whether the respondent is participating only for the incentive in order to exclude their future participation if proven so.

At this link you’ll find an example of research titled “Ethics of Paying Children for Research Participation” (in English). Followers of this school see that you can no longer get something for nothing in this era, and therefore there must be a reward for the time the targeted respondent will give you.

Commentary on the Two Schools

The discussion above concerned data-collection methods done through face-to-face interviews, specifically quantitative ones that don’t take much of the respondent’s time. Any questionnaire that doesn’t consume more than 15 minutes of the customer’s time doesn’t require an incentive, in my personal view — because the matter can turn into a culture if all participants are indiscriminately given an incentive, especially if research industry practices spread in a country and become known to people. If research agencies accustom participants to receive material or non-material incentives in exchange for their participation, their participation without incentives in future will become harder.

As for interviews exceeding 15 minutes, the idea of an incentive must be considered, and based on the nature of the target segment the incentive is set. The situation in research done via email (and earlier via regular mail) requires a symbolic incentive, by consensus of researchers. In one study done in Britain on a database of website subscribers sent surveys periodically via email, they were asked this time about the importance participation represents to them. 43% of importance aspects related to incentives, 17% liked participating in surveys, 17% wanted their voices to be heard by decision-makers, 15% were driven by curiosity and a desire to explore, 4% found the participation topic important to them. Of course, these results don’t generalize to other countries — if the same research were done in other countries, results would differ due to cultural differences. Here lies the role of research agencies in conducting types of research similar to this one to learn trends and use their financial resources to the fullest.

Closing

At the beginning of the article, I gave an example to push the reader to think. In truth, the agency’s failure to offer an incentive in the mentioned example wasn’t the only reason for failing to reach the target sample within the timeline pre-determined. Several factors are involved, some of which may relate to poor planning, and also to the type of researchers who executed the study and their low soft-skill level — failing to give the target any reason to cooperate. But if you ask me, dear reader, whether including an incentive in this study would have raised the response rate and sped up project completion — the answer is certainly no, assuming the incentive is tempting.

The incentive is in the end required in certain cases and must be offered based on the type of research and target segment, but the marketing researcher’s skill lies in knowing when, where, and how a particular incentive can be offered, and when there’s no need for it. So was the free-sandwich idea good? It was creative, but its merit can’t be settled except by the research owners themselves. And to all readers, please share your view — kindly, not as an order.

And God knows best; to God belongs the right path.

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