Abstract:

The global marketplace demands understanding of factors affecting brands in their local and global context. The magnitude of the task in an ever-changing boundary-less world and the opportunities to re-establish consumer researchers as strategic partners to manufacturers and service providers seems not to have been acknowledged by large, specialized and small players competing in developing similar proprietary branded solutions that lock consumer information in silos.This paper seeks to highlight opportunities to collaborate in unleashing the power of global consumer knowledge. It discloses steps taken by some suppliers in Latin America to create common consumer research standards, adopt common knowledge management systems, and collaborate as filtering communities to assist Procter & Gamble in gaining regional consumer insights. It concludes that the Research Industry should collaborate in closing gaps that exist in understanding factors affecting brands in today's context, which requires common global language among players on research elements; adoption of open technologies that allow faster innovation and simplified access to consumer knowledge; and creation of communities to expand researchers' understanding of factors affecting brands.