The strength of British market research is British market researchers - A reply to Piercy

This paper takes issue with Piercy's argument that the trouble with marketing research is marketing researchers. It clarifies how this argument may be applicable to academic marketing researchers but is not applicable to UK market researchers. In order to gain kudos and enhance their promotion prospects academic marketing researchers attempt to gain publication in 'top' academic journals. These top academic journals favour research papers that are abstract, scientific in a positivist sense and methodologically reliable and defensible in the sense that the questionnaires used and statistical tests carried out are well tried and so less open to criticism than they would otherwise be. This tends to mean that papers are produced that are methodologically very robust but are of little potential use, interest or relevance to practitioners. The article then discusses how research has shown that British market researchers, as opposed to academic researchers, are reported to be marketing oriented, focused on interpretation, pragmatic, relevant, un-tied to a particular scientific paradigm to the exclusion of all others, flexible and creative in approach. This makes the British approach to market research popular around the world. The article concludes that academic marketing researchers need to remember that not all marketing problems can be solved in a scientific, quantitative manner and that there is a place for creative and qualitative approaches as well. The article suggests that academic marketing researchers and practitioner market researchers working together may combine the rigour of the former with the relevance and practicality of the latter to the benefit of both.