Not Panels, It's Engagement!

This is a thought that I have had for some time. I don't know the answer (or even if there is one), but I do know that we need to have an open-mind.

I talk of the distinction between marketing and market research. During the interruption era of research, using CATI and to a lesser extent Postal and F2F, market research had to differentitate itself from marketing. Why? If we did not we would experience negative public perceptions and ever decreasing response rates.

To some extent this happened anyway. However the rationale was clear and the need was great.

The trouble I see is that we still apply this same discourse, yet the world has moved on. For many organisations nowadays key pieces of market research are undertaken precisely because they do strengthen the relationship with the brand. Customer satisfaction studies are a classic example.

Yet, as researchers we still try to separate the two. The interruption era is being replaced by permission in on-line panels of research so we no longer need to protect our response rates as we did during the interruption era (well not in the same way). In fact we have to accept that the interruption era is coming to a point of real change.

I am not saying that market research is the same as marketing (far from it), but what I am saying is that in this new era of permission (and engagement) of on-line panels, is the distinction as relevant as it once was in consumer eyes? Are we getting too caught up in the old discourse to see that there are bigger issues that now need to be addressed? Participants are free to opt-in or opt-out of marketing and on-line permission panels as they see fit.

In fact the whole notion of a separation of the two is slightly misleading. An on-line panel where people do not receive direct marketing does not exist. In fact many panels are recruited from such direct marketing traffic sites and sources, so the people recruited are far from operating in isolation to begin with. Surely this is a good thing - a person that does not receive marketing is of little use to those of us who wish to understand the effect of communications on our brand relationships.

I feel better now I said that...I am off for my Chinese Tea! Maybe we still do need to be concerned and separate, but let's have a debate, not wash it away for the old reasons. The world of marketing has changed. Have we?