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March 20, 2018. Today on RBDR:
The first half of the semi-annual CMO Study from the Duke Fuqua School of Business, co-sponsored by McKinsey & Co. and the American Marketing Association, shows what appears to be a clear downward trend in the percentage of companies where Marketing Research reports to Marketing.
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For me Bob, the question becomes; is the diminishing practice of MR reporting to The Marketing Department a factor of non-interest from Marketing or a decision at the C-Suite that MR should support a broader range of cross functional interests (e.g.Product Development, Customer Experience, Chief Innovation Officer), etc.).
Who’s making that decision?
William Mitchell, Market Research Answers:
Hi Bob.
Always love your videos, but this one on the percentage of marketing departments that have MR under their wing is a tough one for me, mainly because of the noise I sensed in Professor Moorman’s data (not her fault!). So I graphed the data back to Feb 2011 and you will see the results below.
The average across the 7+ years is 68% (green line), and as you see from the black trend line, it’s certainly been trending downward. However, there is a lot of “bounce” in the data. For example, while the % did fall to 60% in Feb 2017, it’s been that low before, back in Feb 2015. Then in Aug 2015 it bounced all the way up to 71%, a 12% point increase (i.e., huge jump), and it stayed there for another 6 months. In addition, the 2011 through 2013 percentages are unusually high.
So – this made me think, what if I took out ’11 – ’13? The result is interesting – a flat line or even trending upward slightly for 2014 to now. The average also falls to 66%. While the bounce is still there, trend lines are pretty flat. See the 2nd graph below.
What I conclude from this is that the period 2011 – Feb 2013 is systematically different than the period Aug 2013 to Feb 2018. It might be what we would call a “stair step function” (see 3rd graph below) where the average goes from 74% to 66%, a very large (8% point) drop…perhaps a new normal.
Attached graphs:
1) https://rflcomm.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/graph1.png
2) https://rflcomm.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/graph2.png
3) https://rflcomm.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/graph3.png
Bob, marketing departments have always had a cautious relationship with marketing research. They need the data from the research to let their executives know how their products and services are doing with customers, suppliers and other key constituency groups. However, they are always fearful of negative results which might indicate they are not doing their jobs, or the products and services are simply declining in market share and perceived as less favorable with customers and others. In the last several years, because of marketing budget cut backs and high employee turnover, there is even less patience and more fear of negative data results. They would rather not hear the “bad news” and have to defend their marketing and advertising: Therefore, fewer surveys are being conducted.