Economic Turmoil Drives Need for Market Understanding

Recent and ongoing disruption of markets and economies is driving growth in demand for market understanding research - faster even than that in new product development, brand and comms - according to a new survey of MR and marketing professionals by consumer insights provider Toluna.

Toluna surveyed 395 people from 25 different industries and fourteen global markets. Fully 58% said they thought budgets for Market Understanding work will increase in the next 1-2 years (65% in APAC); while the corresponding percentages for NPD, Brand and Comms work were 50%, 43% and 38% respectively.

Discussing their reliance on research tech platforms, half of respondents said they use two or three tech platforms to support their MR needs, and more than half said they expect to increase the number they use over the next one to two years. Just over a third say they plan to start using AI (artificial intelligence) in their research, while four in ten say they will increase their use of online qual.

Looking to the future, 64% of respondents said they expect their use of DIY research to increase in the next one to two years, with 'assisted service' also expected to experience an increase in usage, while 'full service' will see a downturn. Almost two thirds (63%) said that integration of different data sources will be important to their roles in the coming years; and when asked what areas suppliers should focus on, quality of insights and design was mentioned by more than half, as was the provision of easy-to-use outputs.

Asked about the main challenges they face in their day-to-day roles, respondents said that limited budgets (61%) and limited internal resources (47%) were the top two issues, followed by actionability of insights, quality of research versus speed, and data quality. Susan Vidler (pictured), Global Chief Research Officer, comments on the overall findings: 'In order to address the challenges that insights and marketing professionals face, technology platforms need to be easy to use and must provide scalable, high-quality research solutions and outputs'.

The full report, 'Agile Research Landscape', can be downloaded here .