One trend I have observed in Market Research Departments over the past decade is to brand internal reports with a basic report template.
Rather than producing disparate reports of sometimes unknown origin (to corporate managers), market research departments are presenting themselves with consistency.
Internal clients gain familiarity with the reports; they can easily find what is important to them. Findings are summarized; the important take-aways or a-ha’s are clearly labeled.
Still, reports often appear laden with minor findings, as if there is an imperative for findings from every question in the questionnaire needs to be explicated. In a world of snapshot information, 300-word blogs (as this one) and written sound bites, market research reports can take on the characteristics of door stops or leather-bound volumes: to be displayed on shelves, sometimes if not often unopened, unread, unassimilated and worst, unused.
If questionnaires have been driven by objectives, presumably every question has a purpose and a manager or group in the business have a need for the information it yields. However, reports laden with a readout of all findings gleamed from the study are often forbidding—how many managers have time to read such missives?
One solution that researchers have used to obviate this problem is to include Executive Summaries, Overviews of Findings and the like.
Nevertheless, this information is sometimes devoid of a larger context, making the findings difficult to interpret in terms of their impact and meaning to the business.
Perhaps it is time to revisit and evolve the writing and presentation of market research reports.
More to follow.
Comments welcome.
Dr. Bob
