Market researchers might miss a big opportunity

Hey, do your homework!

The theme this year is "Laduma! Goal-driven research for striking insights." But, while a FIFA World Cup theme is all very nice, warm and fuzzy, I reckon that it should have been: How the heck do we persuade unskilled brand managers to do their bloody homework properly?"

Right now, boards of directors, CEOs and particularly CFOs are demanding more and more that their marketing people stop telling them that things like advertising and PR can't really be measured and that life is just about big ideas and flying the brand flag. They're wanting to see return on investment numbers. They want measurement.

And they're right, because the cost of marketing has escalated to the point where CFOs can no longer just hand out marketing budgets and try not to panic when their marketing directors and brand managers are unable to come up with any sort of idea how a return on funds was employed.

About R50 billion a year is wasted in this country alone on ill-conceived marketing strategy. That's a massive number.

Brain drain maim

I believe that SAMRA needs to spend at least a little bit of time at its June 2010 conference talking about how it, as an industry, can educate brand managers and provide them with the necessary measurement tools to be able to do their jobs properly. It is common knowledge that, with few exceptions, brand management skills are not particularly high in this country, thanks to the brain drain of the past few decades.

I believe that if the challenge of measurement is going to be met, this effort is going to be led by the market research industry. I just wonder though, if it actually knows about it?

At this year's SAMRA conference, there will be a couple of papers delivered on measurement, but what needs to happen quite quickly, I believe, is for a discussion to take place on how to convince brand managers that measurement is possible and actually very important.