Another day, another article claiming that marketing is dead…*sigh*…however, this time, the finger is pointed at shoddy market research.

In his February 15 Marketing News piece, "MR Deserves Blame for Marketing's Decline," (which is only available online to subscribers) Don E. Schultz says,

Marketing generally succeeds when the marketer knows, understands or at least recognizes the importance and value of the of the consumer in the marketing chain…the truth is, most marketing organizations know little or nothing about their customers, notwithstanding the billions that have been spent on CRM and data analytics.

Schultz goes on to say the root problem is that market research doesn't result in meaningful information. Yes, it provides lots of data points, but no real insight. He concludes by saying there is hope in that some research organizations are now experimenting with new methodologies and realizing that true analysis is more important than just reporting numbers.

I agree with Schultz that market research processes are flawed, but I don't think faulty research is entirely to blame for the alleged decline of marketing. Yes, a more accurate methodology would be helpful and more analysis would be great but more importantly, companies need to make sure they are actually incorporating information from market research into their marketing initiatives.

The key to being a successful marketer isn't just knowing what customers need, but showing how those needs can be met with a particular product or service. Hence, the growing discussion among leading marketers about the importance of "relevance" in advertising, etc. Today's consumers will only pay attention to such things if they are relevant.

The same issue of Marketing News has an interesting piece that touches on this, in the form of an interview with legendary direct marketer Lester Wunderman, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Wunderman. Again, wish I could link to it.

As a side note, it was amusing to see that blogging has become so mainstream that in the intro of his article, Schultz states, "before you crank up your blog-him-out-of-the-water messages, why do I suggest research is the culprit?"

Makes me wonder how many folks WILL blog him out of the water. I'll be keeping an eye out…