In 1967, Jack Kent Cooke opened the Fabulous Forum where his expansion hockey team, The Kings, would play. The Forum opened to rave reviews, with Cooke calling it the “most beautiful arena in the world.” Unfortunately, the Kings were a flop on the ice and, more importantly to Cooke, at the box office. Years later, Cooke was asked about why he had thought a hockey team would be successful in Los Angeles. He pointed to market research that showed that more than 300,000 former Canadians lived within driving distance of the Forum. He then famously said, “Now I know why they left Canada. They hate hockey!”
The Kings eventually became a success in Los Angeles, which had a lot more to do with Wayne Gretzky coming to town then it did with ex-Canadians. However, the initial failure is a terrific case with regards to market research. The only thing worse than doing none at all is doing it poorly. And the easiest way to screw up market research is to ask the wrong questions, or to not ask the right ones. In this case, it seems pretty obvious that the glaring unasked question was, “Would you attend a hockey game in Inglewood?”
There is another story, perhaps apocryphal, about early market research done on frozen dinners. Swanson introduced the “TV” dinner in the 1950s. Housewives were asked if the food tasted good, was it fairly priced, was it easier and quicker to prepare, and would their families enjoy it. The answer to all questions was a resounding yes. Yet early sales flopped. The researchers never asked the critical question: would they buy it for their family? It turns out that quite a few housewives felt their value to the family would be diminished if they did not prepare home cooked meals daily. Swanson soon found a market with bachelors, who had no such qualms about popping a $0.98 dinner in the oven, and eventually TV dinners caught on with the rest of us; but it was an expensive mistake as a result of not asking one obvious question.
I point this out because after nearly 30 years in the marketing business, I continue to be amazed by the number of companies who base an entire campaign on the “gut instincts” of the management team, marketing team and/or the marketing agency.
The first step in successful market research is to commit to doing it. The second—and equally important—step is to do it well. And the key step in doing good market research is to ask the right questions. This means that you have to strip away all assumptions—like that 1950s housewives would absolutely purchase your product. It is easy to see how one might assume that Canadians love hockey; it is, after all, their national sport. But it does not follow that all Canadians love hockey.
In addition to not making assumptions, don’t ask leading questions. I’ve seen far too much market research that was designed (consciously or not) to support a decision already made. It’s waste of time and money and no better than not doing it all—unless one is simply trying to protect one’s backside. Go into all research with an open mind, a willingness to hear the results—whether or not they correspond or support any preconceived notions or hoped-for results—and, most importantly, the ability to learn from and act on the results.
-Scott Harris