Definition of Consumer Research
Consumers are the people and businesses that buy things from other people or businesses. Consumer research is how both the buyers and the sellers get information that will help them make decisions and plans for future purchases. It involves collecting data, analyzing it, creating reports, and making predictions. The subject of consumer research encompasses brands, advertising, customer behavior, and product performance.
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History
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One of the earliest consumer research professionals, Arthur Kallet, was concerned with protecting people from products that might be unsafe. He was the first president of Consumers Union which began in 1933. In 1942, it was renamed Consumer Reports, a magazine and website that continues to be a trusted arbiter of product safety.
Function
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Whenever a company issues a product recall, the information that prompted it came from consumer research. In addition to collecting information on product safety and performance, consumer research also involves how customers behave. The research is often done by means of questionnaires and opinion polls. The questions often asked include what people tend to buy, how often they make their purchases, how much they spend, and when they will be in the market to get or replace an item. When the research question is about brand recognition, the questionnaire often presents the names of several similar brands asking whether and how the respondent has heard of each.
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Focus Groups
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Another popular method of conducting consumer research is focus groups. Several people join a group based on the researcher's criteria. Usually this has to do with the demographics of age, gender, race, education, and economic status. The group views and samples options for proposed advertising campaigns, new packaging, or new products. Then they answer a series of questions about their experience and opinions. Members of consumer research focus groups often receive a small stipend or free products to compensate them for their time.
Considerations
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Consumer researchers may be interested in large issues that impact many people and groups in a society such as the availability of affordable housing or health care. This is considered a macro-level research problem. They may equally be interested in more individual buying decisions such as whether fifth-grade girls still enjoy playing with Barbie dolls, for example, which is a more micro-level question. No matter how broad or important their research question may be, the design has to be based on ethical research methodology.
Expert Insight
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Consumer research takes its methodology, research questions, and analytical models from the social sciences. From psychology, it asks why people behave the way they do, and from sociology, it asks for predictions about the behavior of groups of people. The discipline of anthropology contributes insight about how cultures may respond to a product or marketing campaign to prevent faux pas such as would have occurred had Chevrolet actually attempted to sell its Novas in Latin America. "No va" means "it does not go" in Spanish. The business disciplines of marketing, communication, and economics also all contribute research models and methods of analysis, reporting, and presentation that are vital to good consumer research.
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