Perhaps it is due to a lack of confidence in their own products and services but I am seeing more and more market research firms attempting to rely on buzzwords to secure business. Whatever happened to explaining benefits and detriments of the supposed solutions that they offer?

Recently a potential client came to us and said that among other things that they wanted a heat map presentation of the findings. Given the nature of the research there was no need, much less application for heat mapping. A certain vendor though tried to convince them that they needed this, and of course, it came with a huge price tag.

Terms like heat map, mashup, marketing metrics, offline data procurement, and 3-D data analysis are sexy and sound important but rarely mean anything noteworthy.

The key to successful market research is to understand the drivers that warrant the research in the first place. At Powerfeedback methodology is our last concern as we well understand that the business need drives everything else in the process.

We remain a leader in developing and using the latest and best market research technology tools while simultaneously having the most experienced and best battle tested staff in the business. Can your market research firm say the same? After all, there is no app for that ☺