Jack Wakshlag, Chief Research Officer of TimeWarner/Turner Broadcasting, discussed the disconnect between management and market researchers. He boiled it down to two primary problems: the elephant in the room and the sacred cow.

The Elephant in the Room

The elephant in the room for the market research industy is the problem or issue that is obvious but ignored: if you want to know how consumers use anything or why, just ask them. What happens when we ask people to think about and tell us what they do or why? They will tell us something. It's just not a very reliable something. "While people are very willing and very good at volunteering information explaining their actions, those explanations ... aren't necessarily true," wrote Malcolm Gladwell in Blink.

Consumers are not conscious, rational beings; in fact, consumers are often not aware of why they behave as they do. What consumers tell us often reflects their best guesses or what they feel is socially acceptable.

Bad research generates and perpetuates this myth of consumer self-awareness. Jack emphasized: "When good researchers fail to challenge bad research, all researchers--including the good researchers--lose credibility. When we report what people say-while behavioral data tells us what people actually do - we lose."

There is a fundamental disconnect when researchers provide advice based on what people say when management makes money on what people do.

Focus on behavioral metrics for your brand - KPIs to gauge the progress and relative strength of your brands. Management wants to win: they want something to follow that tells them how they are doing.

Sacred Cows

Your managers have certain beliefs: how do you deal with those certain beliefs when your results call them to question? "Don't be afraid to challenge sacred cows - in fact, relish the opportunity!" Of course, make sure to have solid data, be prepared to answer detailed questions and offer explanations for why the sacred cow is, in fact, a false hypothesis. Because it can be contentious, do it at the right time in the right place and the right way.

Jack encountered this in the television industry with the "Appointment Viewing" fable - the belief that, because program ratings don't change much from day to day or week to week, it seems to be the same core group of viewers. This myth has many incarnations [reincarnated sacred cows?!]:

• People generally watch the same shows week in and week out
• Appointment viewing is critical to the success of a show
• "Our show has a small but a loyal core audience."

To study this, Turner Research analyzed 44 different shows across many networks and genre types. The study included a survey where programmers and marketing staff gave their perception of how many of 10 episodes the average viewer watched.

On average, across the 44 different shows, people watched 2.5 episodes out of 10. Rather than show many charts and graphs, show them one big number. 

Appointment viewing is a myth, but beliefs in myths don't go down easily.  You have to provide good reasons to support your refutation. For this sacred cow, Jack pointed out:

• Only 50% of those who view a given program one day are even watching TV at the same time the following day.
• Everybody has a few shows they hate to miss, but it really is only a few; you can count them on one hand.
• These "can't miss" shows do not account for a majority of most people's viewing: a large proportion of time is spent with other shows.
• Our recollections are wrong: we remember those few shows we intended to watch and made sure we watched, and don't recall those other shows that we happened upon.

So, if you want management to listen to you, you must become a more effective communicator.