ETE Conference

23^rd- 24^th November 2005
University of Manchester, Manchester,
England, UK.

Intermediating Consumption and Production: Depth Case Histories on the Relationship between Market Researchers and their Client.

Sally Randles

CRIC,
University of Manchester

Abstract

Forming part of a bigger project at CRIC on the history and significance of market research as 'intermediating' between production and consumption, this paper provides a preliminary account of how the relationship between market researchers and their clients is initiated, sustained and developed.

Understanding the relationship between market research provider (the agency or individual executive researcher) and market research buyer (the client), is crucial to a deep appreciation of the processes through which producers come to understand their actual and potential customers and users; and how they come to be appraised of contexts of consumption. Our analysis describes, through the use of historic case descriptions, the road from concept to commercialisation of two novel products looked at from the specific viewpoint of the market research process, procedures and relationships. It describes typically long, strong, and persistent ties between agency and client with scope for considerable researcher-client loyalty, though we also describe the conditions under which these ties might break down. We use an extended case study of the launch of two products by ICI Dulux Paints to illustrate the integration of market research into the product development and launch process. We offer an insight into the practical workings, processes of exchange, and decision making criteria which comprise (though we cant say how far they typify) the specific institutions and relations of 'markets for market research'.

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