Why does it matter if you work in marketing or market research.
Tim, wouldn't a person who works in marketing or market research know not to say he/she works in the industry?
Any reputable market research company will be a member of MRS (or country equivalents). To be a member of the Marketing Research Society (also known as ESOMAR ) you have to abide by a code of conduct. This covers certain rules e.g. research amongst young people and also sets out certain ways of working / quality checks.
As part of this code of conduct it is agreed that research should not be conducted amongst marketeers – for a few reasons (1) People in Marketing tend to know how questionnaires are structured and can therefore add bias to results (2) Most market research is looking at new products or campaigns and the industry is fairly small (at least in FMCG)… there is therefore a risk that a tested campaign or product idea could leak to the competition befor eit is launched (3) Most people in marketing will not look at a new idea with a consumers eyes (i.e. at face value) and therfore their answer to questions is not of use re. how the product might perform.
However, there can be a need sometimes to conduct research amongst people in marketing – specifically if you want an outsiders opinion / ideas on a concept and are not interested at that point in time on how it will perform amongst consumers. Another example would be where your target market is specifically marketeers.
