Market Researchers: The Sleuths of the Marketing and Advertising World

by Jessica Santina
jessica.santina@careertrainingdirectory.com
Career Training Directory Columnist

There once was a time that if marketing professionals wanted to learn about their consumers, they held focus groups and distributed surveys. But that’s old school.

Today, marketing is ultra competitive, and those working in marketing and advertising know they have to try a lot harder if they really want to know what consumers want and need. And they’ve gotten pretty creative with their methods.

Creative Marketing Techniques

Marketing pros know that moms generally control their families’ purse strings. So companies like Marriott and Capitol One have turned to “mommy cams.” By giving moms cameras to wear as they go about their day, marketing companies can see what moms really want and need, and target their marketing programs toward those wants and needs.

Twelve to nineteen-year-olds also wield a tremendous amount of purchasing power - approximately $192 billion. They visit stores in greater numbers than any other age group. And love to blog. That’s why the marketing and advertising folks at Toyota started placing its small, boxy Scion on an online interactive community called Whyville, which is populated almost entirely by 8- to 15-year-olds. Within ten days, the word “Scion” had been used 78,000 times.

Some market researchers even blog just to see what teens are talking about. Hear a word often enough, and chances are, you’ve just spotted the next big trend, which could be a boon when marketing and advertising a product.

A Marketing Research Career

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that a marketing researcher generally must have at least a bachelor’s degree, and in many cases, a graduate degree - especially for highly technical positions. These marketing careers require strict attention to detail and precise analysis of data. Jobs in this field are projected to grow faster than average through 2014, and the even better news is that in 2004, this career earned a comfortable median annual salary of $56,140. So get started now, and you could be the next person to discover what’s hot, and what’s not.

Sources

ABC News - “Cameras Monitor Burgeoning Trends” by Nancy Weiner
Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Market and Survey Researchers”
Forbes.com - “Brand Me” by Tom Van Riper
New York Times Online - “Hey, Kid, You Want to Buy a Toyota Scion?” by Julie Bosman

About the Author

Jessica Santina is a freelance writer with a background in media and promotions. She also teaches first-year writing courses at the University of Nevada, Reno.