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Trusting the man in the mirror

Trusting the man in the mirror

Are focus groups dead?

This month’s “Man in the Mirror” scandal featuring AWI Chairman Wal Merriman has created a trust issue with market research, leading many organisations to rethink their increasingly pervasive farmer research strategies and techniques.

As a marketer, policy maker or lobbyist, one of the key functions of your role is to understand what consumers, voters or stakeholders want and expect from you. When undertaken successfully, the benefit derived is a product that meets a current and valued need of the market.

If you get this wrong by asking the wrong person the right or wrong question, or you betray their trust by misleading them, then some very big errors can occur downstream, particularly with marketing investment, not to mention the erosion of trust in the product or service being researched.

THE INCIDENT

For those that haven’t followed the Merriman incident, it has been alleged that the AWI Chairman observed a focus group session of merino breeders from behind a one-way mirror, without their knowledge.

When the story broke, Queensland merino breeder Mark Murphy, who was one of the stud producers at the meeting, said he had been unaware of Mr. Merriman’s presence.

“It bloody near covered one wall, and was a huge mirror, so when we found out after he was watching what was supposedly a completely confidential conversation with no holds barred, it was mindboggling,” he said.

 

Wool Producers Australia CEO Jo Hall said it was unacceptable behaviour.

“This recent incident raises a number of significant questions regarding the conduct, ethics, and governance of the wool industry research and development corporation,” she said.

“We certainly don’t believe that it’s appropriate conduct for any chairman of a board to be watching a confidential focus group unannounced,” she added.

Under their code of professional behavior, the Australian Market & Social Research Society (AMSRS) requires researchers to “make clear to participants the capacity in which observers are present”. It also recommends that if indeed “client observers are to be present, the researcher must inform all observers about their legal and ethical responsibilities.”

Despite this particular incident clouding the integrity and reputations of some organisations and individuals, the broader issue I believe is whether traditional research methods such as focus groups and phone surveys actually meet the expectations or time constraints of today’s farmers.

A BETTER APPROACH

I am not sure about you, but if I get a night off, the last thing I feel like doing is meeting at the local pub with a bunch of random farmers and a market researcher to talk about the commercials of my farming business. Similarly, I am sick to death of screening calls at 9pm from market researchers wanting to undertake a 30-minute phone survey!

Seriously, even if I opted-in to the survey, after 15 minutes of explaining how agriculture works to a university student, my interest level and therefore the quality of my responses would be significantly diminished.

What’s concerning is that many organisations use the information derived from this research method to inform enormous marketing expenditure, not to mention important decisions on future policy development and even research and development investment, funded by, you guessed it…..you!

The good news is that not all agribusinesses, RDC’s, financial institutions, political parties and auto manufacturers use these dated research methods.

Using digital analytics and unobtrusive online tracking tools, progressive agribusinesses are able to rely on actual monitored behavior as a means of predicting latent behaviors and more accurate future trends and opportunities, rather than claimed behaviors via ‘old school’ Focus Groups.

AWI collects levy payments from woolgrowers and receives taxpayer funding to conduct cutting-edge research, development, and marketing on behalf of the wool industry. Putting aside the embarrassment of the Merriman incident, AWI may inspire more trust in its research capabilities by employing insight gathering methods that are a little more cutting-edge.

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