Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Is more rubbish research one of the consequences of the recession?

Is it just me or is anyone else finding that every day there is a press release on some new banal and useless research findings about consumer behaviour in the recession?

I just put down a marketing magazine that provided on page 10 such insights as - "Cool" scored lower than "cheap" and "inexpensive" in what kind of message would make 13 to 29 year olds pay attention to an ad.

Question: Has "cool" been rated more important than "cheap" or "inexpensive" by consumers in any survey ever? No. So why report it?

The same magazine tells me on page 35 that 95% of Canadians believe that "better value for money" is important when buying products.

And then some blather on "austerity chic" on other pages.

It is bad enough that the recession slices our savings in half, puts our jobs in jeopardy without also subjecting us to this rubbish.

Message to my fellow researchers: I know it's nice to see your name in a magazine but please stop putting out this stuff. It makes people think we're...well, useless.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We were laughing yesterday at a study put out by one in-store design firm. "Shoppers spending less on discretionary items, confirms proprietary shopper study sponsored by ******" read the headline.

Thanks for the update, fellas.

Robin said...

Yes, I read one recently that told me that a significant proportion of consumers are planning to cut back on "luxury handbags". I am certain Louis Vitton were surprised and concerned about that insight.