Why a better approach is needed

Answers to such direct questions as "Are you happy with this product?", "Would you recommend it?", "Would you buy it again?" and "On a scale of 1 to 5, how 'friendly' is it?" formed the foundation of Twentieth-Century marketing insights.

The time has come to abandon this antique approach for three key reasons.

People Lie

People aren't always truthful when answering direct questions. Ask a 55-year-old man why he bought a Porsche and he's not likely to utter the words "midlife crisis."

Market Research objectives have changed

The objectives of market research have dramatically changed. Forty or 50 years ago, customer and economic values moved and morphed at a considerably slower pace than they do today. Research was a static measure in a relatively stable world. The old measures may have been adequate back then, but they don't come close to capturing today's fast-moving values.

We need future predictors not rear view mirrors

Most important, while studies conducted with last century's techniques provide a fine rear-view-mirror portrait of what people have already done, they don't even pretend to tell you what's down the road tomorrow. In other words, they have virtually no predictive value or actionable content. They certainly do not correlate to sales or form the basis for calculating return on investment.

Conventional studies, therefore, are of little practical use to the companies that c ommission them. The value of standard satisfaction tracking studies, for example, is trivial except as a jumping-off point for advertising copy ("Highest satisfaction ratings in the industry!") for companies that have no other differentiating insight or brand equity with which to tempt customers.

But they don't help those companies figure out, for example, how to turn satisfied customers into loyal customers. And they are all but worthless to the companies that are ranked number two (or worse) in satisfaction, who can neither tout their rank in ad copy nor study the results to learn precisely why their customers aren't satisfied.

What is the danger of doing yesterday's research in today's environment? What happens when your research fails to identify the real consumer values in your category?

Just ask IBM, which mistook satisfaction for loyalty and lost a fortune, and a sizable chunk of market share, when satisfied owners of IBM personal computers and laptops drifted to other suppliers when it came time to repurchase.

Or McDonalds, who projected that double-digit increases would flow from their Arch Deluxe, only to learn that people didn't really mean it when they said they'd gladly eat "adult" burgers chez Ronald. Or the failed and failing dot-coms who thought that burning millions on "awareness" advertising was the magic key to fame and fortune.

But if traditional research is of so little value, why is it still so prevalent? Simply because no market research firm in the world has a true alternative methodology to offer.

With one exception: Brand Keys.

Since the early 1980s, Brand Keys' founder, Dr. Robert Passikoff, has been developing and refining a proprietary customer-listening system that goes far beyond any traditional methodology, providing clients with measures that show:

• Exactly where their brand equity lies.
• What their customers will be thinking about - and buying - 18 to 24 months down the line.
• Precisely what needs to be fixed when brand equity begins to slip, and which buttons need to be pushed in order to improve brand profitability.