A few years ago, a client told me, “Ah, you market research agencies, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. You’re on the verge of disappearing.” Indeed, a few years back, everyone was fixated on unlimited access to digital – practically free - data, via online panels, big data, and unprecedented direct access to consumers. Why would brands still need intermediaries to understand, analyze, and predict consumer behavior?
This reminded me of an article I read about the New York Times. Similarly, many years ago, people thought that printed press would never recover from the rise of social networks. Information was everywhere, almost freely accessible. Who would need journalists to source, decode, and tell the world what was happening?
Ten years later, PRS IN VIVO is thriving (+15% growth in 2023 and +23% in 2024). Similarly, The New York Times has seen its number of subscribers jump from 7 to almost 11 million in four years. How did that happen?
In both cases, abundance, direct access, and free content (digitisation took distribution cost to zero, AI is taking generation cost to zero!) did not equate to information quality.
- On social networks, you can find absolutely everything—the best and worst content, including fake news and deep fakes. The next step will be AI-personalized misinformation.
- And for market research, the massive influx of bots has started to distort survey data. The “Cheaper and Faster” approach misled many clients, no longer guaranteeing the market’s prerequisite quality information, leading to the much used mantra “Garbage in. Garbage out.”
At PRS IN VIVO, we understand that quality data is paramount for our clients. That’s why we’ve invested in reliable data collection methods, such as RetailLabs, where clients can observe consumer behavior in a real shopping environment. We also use techniques like eye-tracking, in-depth interviews, and field studies to gather valuable insights into consumer preferences and motivations.
We also conduct parallel testing through which we have recently discovered that AI proxies for eye-tracking can only provide part of the answer, proving misleading for brands in many cases. Additionally, synthetic data still struggles to accurately represent behavioral data, rendering it ineffective in many situations.
As for The New York Times, they reinvented themselves by focusing on high-quality journalism. They invested in deeper, investigative research, on-the-ground reporting, and thorough analysis. They also adopted a subscription-based model, which allowed them to fund their high-quality journalism and retain loyal readers.
As Zach Seward, Director of AI at The New York Times, said, "We believe that the primary value we bring to our readers is information reported, verified, written, and controlled by humans. And this value will only grow over time."
I fully share this view for PRS IN VIVO. AI - if based on reliable proprietary data - will help us move with both speed and confidence. However, the key benefits to our clients will remain our ability to produce reliable behavioral data and our mastery of the "Why?" behind the learnings.
Ultimately, whether in market research or journalism, quality information remains essential. The market research agencies that will thrive are those that are able to provide the most accurate and relevant information while investing in their unique expertise to decipher, analyze, and build actionable recommendations. This is what the founders of both PRS and IN VIVO were committed to. This legacy is even more relevant today.
If you’re also a believer in the power of excellence, give us a call.