The Role of Market Research

The role of market research expanded in many ways during the pandemic as a reaction to support both changes in consumer behaviors and business needs. As Justin Coates, Global Consumer Insights and Research Team Leader at Eastman noted:

"Before the pandemic, the world and the markets that many of us serve were changing due to the evolution of major macrotrends such as urbanization, age and income polarization, digitization, sustainability and wellness. The economic, health, and lifestyle shocks of COVID accelerated many of these trends and resulted in them manifesting differently in consumer behavior."

Raina Rusnak, Consumer Research and Insights Lead at Peapod Digital Labs agreed:

"We’ve become more agile and have looked to explore new methodologies to understand what the customer is telling us. We’ve always been a curious group. Now, we have more layers to explore – are we seeing changes because of the pandemic or is something else driving it?"

Focusing on consumer behavior trends and deciphering what is actually a long-term behavior change versus a fleeting trend is critical for research terms right now as businesses try to balance long-and-short-term planning. As Wong pointed out:

"Research use to be more specific to product features, campaign optimization, and messaging. However, there is an even greater need to keep close to consumers to understand the large factors of how this time of uncertainty is impacting what we do, what we buy, and how we are feeling. The issues are more macro and require constant connection and leverage cultural understanding."

This need to understand the here and now as well as future state leaves researchers in high demand. James Newswanger, Ph.D, Sr Research Manager at IBM clarified:

"The nature of topics studied may have changed, but the role of market research remains. If anything, there are now more and more collaborators who realize we have vastly accelerated the move to a digitally transformed world and we need to understand those implications."

The high demand for insights is straining many teams and companies. Coates highlighted the challenge well:

"The demand for consumer and market intelligence has only intensified since the pandemic. Similar to most industries, the market research field is facing capacity constraints – too much demand and not enough supply. Many research vendors we work with globally have shared this outlook and many corporate researchers we work with have also shared the increasing demands for intelligence with limited budgets or people."

With challenges come opportunity though. Taking this opportunity to step into the spotlight within their organization, Coates highlighted three ways researchers can make the most of the current state of things:

"It is a great opportunity for researchers to determine (1) how to create efficiencies in their work, (2) how to request additional resources, and (3) what work needs to be done, what work can be stopped, and what work do you and your teams actually want to do. High demand gives research teams a lot of leverage within their organizations to make changes they have likely wanted for a long time."