Love and Hate - from MRWho, December 2003

The real reasons we love being Aussie researchers are that we have the opportunity to work with a diverse population – who generally will give you a go and will listen briefly. If you are fair dinkum, they’ll participate in your survey and if they think you’re a person of dubious practice, they will instruct you succinctly with your next steps.

Standards of professionalism are very high in Australia, which is great. The money is good and the hours reasonable. Also, the fact that the industry is small enough to have a real sense of community, despite intense competition.

Australians differ ethnically, in education and increasingly in income as the rich really become richer and, of course, in class. There are also some religious or ethical differences, but crossover between groups is such that it is unwise to assume and the smart marketers research their customers and their opportunities thoroughly. Giving work to the research suppliers and ensuring more successful products, launches and companies – some of which then take on the world ...

2 in 3 Aussies can access the Internet and so can be researched over the vast distances with speed, succinctness and economy.

There is also a benefit when working with UK or European companies – an Aussie can finish the day with a help request and have an answering email waiting for him the next morning – with some new research programs, that is a major advantage!

Some more of the key benefits and excitements are:

• clients generally respond and engage in the research process. They use the findings to develop their marketing responses, so you have a greater involvement in strategy development than you would in the UK.
• it’s a much more laid back culture. People are more direct with each other. They say what’s on their mind and there is less political game playing.
• consumers are still pretty keen to tell their stories to researchers – people like doing groups as the novelty hasn’t worn off (like you may find in the UK). There is not so much cynicism over here about marketing and research.
• we get to go to sunny places to do groups. Not Manchester!

On the downside, while we speak more or less the same language the cultures are really different and the risk is to believe what works in Wolverhampton will work in Wollongong. New approaches need to be tested and adapted to Australian culture, Australian behaviour and personal presentation – as we noted above, if you are the genuine 2 bob, you’ll get a hearing and if not, you’ll be told where to put it.

Ah the carefree life of an Australian MR professional. Starting when dawn is just breaking over the hilly horizon, serenaded by the chirping of the crickets as you leave several hours after dusk. If you angle your blinds just so, an Aussie researcher can stare at the screen all day and night and never be distracted by the sun!

But there’s also surf – I know because I can see the waves crash on Bondi Beach from the window of the plane as it circles Sydney airport again – a white line on the horizon. Then I get to see it again, as the plane circles again, and again, and I start to worry about the 10am client meeting, cursing the decision to fly in on the 7am Virgin flight rather than the cautious 6am with its requisite 4am rising! While Sydney is only an hour from civilisation, the delicate ears of the airport neighbourhood’s residents keep it in curfew from dark till dawn, while the wise burghers of Melbourne let aircraft land day and night.

As well as ‘planes, I spend a lot of time in cabs. More’s the pity. Every Aussie taxi driver knows exactly the community mood, their community attitudes and why you are so out of touch with community sentiment (and you think you’re a researcher!) when you think you can get away offering an insignificant coin as a tip at the end of the trip!

Cabbies aside, the level of people you work with in client companies can be very varied. Some have a limited knowledge of marketing which can make the job a challenge. There are fewer fieldwork options than the UK which means a limited methodological choice. And there are so many Brits here – you can end up working with nothing else – particularly bad at the moment. Many of them qual refugees from London who think that they are entering a provincial backwater populated by people without so much as a fraction of their expertise.

Then, the Aussie researchers love the balmy breezes that blow just as you step into the client’s building to remind you that with just a little more work at school, you too could have been a doctor and been walking off the golf course to sit in the bar basking in 70 degrees F mild sun ...

And the last thing I hate about being an Aussie researcher? Jonny Wilkinson.

[Ed’s note: that’s not exactly a ‘thing about being an Aussie researcher’ is it? But we’ll let it go, as it must be very galling for you].