Abstract:

The ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market and Social Research has always included a requirement for members to maintain the distinction between market research and commercial activities such as advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and direct selling. The essence of the distinction being that researchers have no interest in the personal identity of the respondents they question – they do not pass information about identified people to their research clients. Recent research developments in the area of customer satisfaction research or customer relationship management have thrown up some uncomfortable implications for researchers maintain-ing the distinction. It is increasingly common for these projects to have two purposes, the collection of representative sample survey data and provision to the client of details about individual respondents to allow follow-up, or product offers. When part of the intention in conducting a survey is to pass on identified data to the client to be used for marketing purposes, it must not be introduced to respondents as market research and it must follow the legal framework established for commercial activities such as direct marketing. Failure to do so puts these projects in the same position as those who sell products or seek money under the guise of doing market research. The inevitable result will be the erosion of market research’s distinction and the dilution of our defence against unwarranted restrictions on our access to representative samples of respondents.