Growing Importance Of Marketing Research:
Marketing research has received attention and importance along with the growth of highly competitive consumer-oriented marketing philosophy. Research activities in different aspects of marketing are necessary and useful in such competitive and flexible marketing environment. Large companies marketing consumer items noted the growing need of MR activities in the marketing decision-making process. They naturally took initiative in conducting research activities within the organization itself. This was followed by the formation of specialized marketing research agencies and advertising agencies for this purpose. This is how professional orientation was given to MR. Many marketing research departments and agencies were established after World War II.
MR activity (as we understand today) is comparatively new in the field of marketing. This activity probably began around 1950s (Modern era of marketing research) and attracted the attention of companies interested in marketing their products in the national and global markets. However, the concept of MR got firm roots in the marketing activity after 1910. First time the marketing research techniques were used by newspapers to predict the election results. However, during the second decade of 20th century, marketing research emerged as a valuable management tool to solve marketing problems. In the developed countries, marketing research activity is conducted on scientific lines. Even in India, large manufacturing companies treat marketing research as an essential supplement of planning and decision-making in the marketing field.It is treated as an indispensable tool for profitable and consumer-oriented marketing. The popularity of MR increased after 1960 due to the introduction of computers in data collection and analysis. In the early period, marketing research activities were confined to market studies only but in 1950s research relating to marketing activities was broadened to include all managerial aspects-price, produce place and promotion. In late 1950’s motivational and psychological techniques were introduced to generate more information on consumers.
Several factors have contributed to the growing importance of marketing research. For example, due to large-scale production, producers could not have direct contact with the consumers. This created many problems before producers. For solving all such problems developed due to the gap between producers and consumer and marketing research activities prove to be useful.
Secondly, the shifting from sellers’ market to buyers’ market made it necessary to have better understanding about consumer net-expectations. For this, marketing research proved to be useful.
Thirdly, the introduction of computers has contributed to the growth of marketing research activity.
Fourthly, rapid changes in the business environment, shift to consumer-oriented philosophy in business are also responsible for growing importance of marketing research.
Finally, the scope of marketing has widened due to population growth and development of rural markets. MR proved to be useful for dealing with the problems created by national and global markets. In brief, growing importance of marketing research in the present marketing system is the net result of various factors and forces available in the present marketing system. At present, MR activities are undertaken by marketing companies on their own. In addition, marketing research consultants and agencies provide expert advice to companies on general and specific marketing problems of their clients.
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