A fable: ‘The genie of the lamp does not exist, stupid’
This is a somewhat schizophrenic story about a market research consultant who wanted to know the deepest secrets of the consumer, with which to triumph in the world of marketing and business strategy, as he would become the God of information and all the companies of the world would fight for their services, and with it would agglutinate such power that the rest would not matter at all.
To achieve this, he immersed himself in non-methodological terrains and vague inquiries, since his strong point was not strategic discourse either.
As he saw that he was not very successful, he turned to the “super hyper fashion guru” who told him that market research was dead, that he paid attention to him, that interviews, focus groups, ethnography, semiotics, multivariate analysis, strategic segmentation, positioning engineering techniques, laddering techniques or targeting of target audiences had passed to a better life.
Our friend was so ecstatic about such a revelation that he offered an indecent amount of money for the “hyper-ultra fashion super guru” to tell him the source of such magnitude.
Our guru accepted the indecent amount (it was not a time to dismiss such an easy budget despite being the “super hyper fashion guru” who earns millions of euros a year), and recommended our friend visit the genius of the marketing lamp and that by gently rubbing it he would grant three wishes. This genius of the lamp was located in a cosmopolitan city a few thousand kilometers from our beloved homeland, in lands where everything was sold, where rigor and seriousness was not important but the basis was to make “hypnotic magic” with impossible methodology names.
Nervous, our consultant came to the place of the lamp and rubbed gently until the marketing genius came out and said, “I give you three marketing wishes.” Our friend, with plenty of self-esteem, commented, “with one I have enough, I want to have the power to know the deepest secrets of the consumer”.
Desire granted, the genius gave him two papers, in one and in Arial font 120 Bold and Bold could read the word “RIGOR” and another a matrix with four quadrants that described an interesting scenario.
Our consulting friend, indignantly, rubbed the lamp again and made the genie come out again, shouting at him saying “swindler, cheat consultants. This is not what I expected”.
To which the genius replied, “my friend, the consumer is complex and you can not expect miracles without taking into account the history, science and commitment to your customers”, this is the RIGOR.
“What I have offered you on the second page is the holy grail or the basis of strategic research and market intelligence that should define the future of the sector in an inclusive and non-exclusive way. Those who dominate the 4 quadrants will be the researchers that will bring together the greatest success. Friend, by offering you these simple presents, you will know the consumer and the brands “.
Moral
We must be aware of the evolution of research towards non-declarative lands (whether conscious or unconscious), but we must not forget that we are moving in the field of RIGOR since our strategic discourses are based on information, whether it is the obtaining technique that is .
Those of us who consider ourselves consultants of strategic research or intelligence of sensible markets, we must be able to control the 4 quadrants to give an effective, committed and rigorous response to our clients.
