This seminar was, from the beginning, planned to be ambitious in its objectives. The programme was to clarify the key issues facing management and marketing across a range of important fields. The speakers were to be eminent, especially by representation of the European Commission, and also by participation from senior personnel in leading international companies. It was intended to attract a mix of delegates from a variety of disciplines, who would also be senior within their organisations. They were to have the opportunity to participate actively. In short, the spirit of the Seminar was to be high-powered, stimulating and provocative.
The purpose of this paper is to argue that the supplier and the buyer of research should and can communicate with each other. This argument is developed with fieldwork, sampling and questionnaire particularly in mind. As background to this argument, the nature of communications is briefly discussed, and reference is made to the general influences that condition the ease and effectiveness of communications. Most problems encountered in market research are common to other fields of activity. Reference is made to the subjects on which it is appropriate for communications to occur. The summary of these subjects covers not only areas requiring contacts, but also makes suggestions of certain areas not so commonly considered. It is thus proposed that communications should be wider as well as deeper. It is recommended that the number and kind of participants involved in communications should be extended. The paper deals subsequently with obstacles of communications, since only by frankly recognising these and genuinely wishing to overcome them can real progress be achieved. In conclusion the paper, highlights the very real advantages to be gained from good communications, and makes positive recommendations on the ways in which communications can be improved.
In market research we are all aware of the growing demand for better procedures for creating and testing effective advertising. Manufacturers not unnaturally wish for evidence that their expenditure on advertising will achieve maximum results. Agencies know that they are under pressure to produce creative work that is demonstrably competent. There is also a general impression that greater sophistication in media selection has not been matched in improved skills in the uses to which the media are put. The creative man, too, is fully conscious of the challenge; and he realises that he is expected to take advantage of the tools of market research. After all, the brief for creative work nowadays more often than not stems from basic research data, or at least from some attempt at a scientific assessment of the market. It is unusual for any major campaign to be adopted on faith alone. Campaign testing is on the increase. Creative intuition and flair is now officially supplemented by more systematic criteria. The task of producing more effective advertising is one which creative and research specialists jointly face. Collaboration between them, although already standard practice, has been uneasy and not altogether fruitful. This paper suggests a number of ways in which research specialists can help to overcome existing difficulties , in order to make the alliance between themselves and the creative team more productive.