Dear Lily

Sometimes it’s hard to find the words to say

I’ll go ahead and say them anyway

Just thought I would borrow some lyrics to frame the response to this article we saw.

You’re right to question whether people who take part in market research are representative of the marketplace and horrible to think that you haven’t seen any examples of market research where it’s good [after reading the blog, get in contact with us as we’ll do you a freebie here in Australia].

But to your point, one of the greatest challenge market research agencies have is getting the right people to answer the right questions and then to deliver the right insight. The bad agencies don’t get this right, the good agencies do but the perception in the market is your opinion – that it’s the boy in the back row saying how he found the mise-en-scène in the film powerful because he thinks the bored-looking girl in Row 3 will be impressed.

So our first challenge is to get the right people whether they are in the focus group listening to your tracks or if they are completing an online survey about you.

Next is to ask the right questions – getting the answer that you saw in the report would have been the result of a poorly worded / framed conversation and doesn’t add to the objectives of what we imagine the research to be. When research goes astray is when there aren’t clear objectives and when the agency isn’t looking for insights. Numbers and quotes about you aren’t going to make a difference to how you position or market the album – an insight will do that – and that’s what bad agencies can’t seem to get right.

And finally there’s the reporting – we’re not going to disrespect the company that produced the report you saw but we can guarantee that reading a BrandHook report will not be classified as anywhere close to being one of the most horrible moments of your life. To borrow some lyrics again:

At worst, you probably felt bad for a awhile

But hopefully this apology on behalf of the industry will make you smile

Cheers

BrandHook

PS: Tweet us – you know, on the social network that isn’t representative of the population either but we’re on it!