The Evolution of Market Research to Today with Dr. Marcus Cunha, University of Georgia

[00:00:00] MRII Announcer: Welcome to MRII’s Insights and Innovators podcast, where we talk to top market research professionals to get their inside stories about innovative and enduring best practices. Today’s episode is sponsored by Y Pulse. Y Pulse is the leader in youth research and insights, and the leading expert on Gen Z and millennials.

[00:00:29] Jon Last: I’m John Last, president of Sports Leisure Research Group and past president of the Insights Association and Marketing Research Institute International. On today’s episode, I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Marcus Cunha Jr., the Director of the University of Georgia’s Masters of Marketing Research Program. In addition to his academic and administrative responsibilities, Dr.

[00:00:48] Jon Last: Cunha sits on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Market Research and has been lauded for his teaching excellence at the University’s Terry School of Business. Before joining the UGA faculty, [00:01:00] Marcus’s academic background included teaching at the University of Washington and And serving as a research associate at the University of Florida.

[00:01:08] Jon Last: Today, we’re going to take a look at the current state and future of market research, training, and education with a focus on practical strategies for those looking to optimize their professional development in the industry, Marcus. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.

[00:01:21] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Thanks for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:01:25] Jon Last: I know it’s easy to fall back on cliches and one cliche that we hear all the time in the market research industry has been that the industry is in a constant state of evolution and change. And I’d love to start by having you think back across your career and share some of the more significant things that you’ve seen transforming the practice of market research over the past several decades.

[00:01:47] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Sure. Yeah, of course. Um, for sure, this idea of evolution permeates our, our industry. Uh, there are many, uh, factors that, uh, have led to the industry, [00:02:00] uh, industry to evolve. Uh, a couple of things that really made, made me think about how the industry has changed. One of the first one would be, uh, I think the democratization and access to research through making technology and knowledge more available has been, uh, you know, transformative in our industry.

[00:02:25] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So we’re probably seeing a few decades ago as an industry where there’s like this mad scientist that knows all these methods. Uh, that, you know, do not interact well with other people and they, uh, have like, they can write just esoteric codes and comes up with this statistics to, uh, present to us and then we don’t understand anything they are talking about.

[00:02:51] Dr. Marcus Cunha: I think the democratization and the access to, uh, you know, technological tools, statistical tools, uh, the do [00:03:00] it yourself. of the industry, uh, access and access to knowledge has made our, uh, the potential for our careers and industry to impact, uh, impact business, right? So, uh, what only a few had access to, and we’re able to understand now it’s available.

[00:03:21] Dr. Marcus Cunha: to many, many people, whether through formal education, like the MRI, I does like a great job of disseminating that at a scale level we do, uh, at a more like an in depth level to our Master of Marketing Research Program. Um, but we also, uh, you know, this access to this, um, uh, these tools have become, Uh, democratize the insights industry and make it more available, uh, to people that might not have that.

[00:03:53] Dr. Marcus Cunha: traditional training that many of us had. However, although this could be a good thing, it’s also dangerous, [00:04:00] right? You know, you put, uh, tools, uh, research tools or survey tools in the hands of marketing managers who do not have the knowledge about the method or how to do good research, you know, that could lead to, uh, potential not so good, uh, so good research.

[00:04:19] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So I think that this idea of more access. to the technology method and knowledge is a good thing that transformed our industry and also brought more awareness about our industry. Another trend that I see is that the industry has shifted its focus, which I think it’s a good thing, from the analysis and the statistics to more identifying, uh, insights that can impact business.

[00:04:49] Dr. Marcus Cunha: More like, it’s kind of like a, like a less is more. Instead of having a, you know, decks of 300 slides, uh, with a bunch of statistics, we’re better at [00:05:00] focusing on how can we impact business and how can impact decision making. So, and that led to, uh, you know, developing the necessary skills so people can not only run and execute analysis, but they can also communicate them to the decision makers.

[00:05:17] Jon Last: Yeah, it’s interesting. We’ve talked about this a lot in my business and with others, just the need to kind of mesh that pragmatic side of what we’re really trying to accomplish and bring utility to our clients, either externally or internally, coupled with the rigor that still is at the heart of what market research is all about.

[00:05:40] Jon Last: I’m curious, at the same time that this evolution has taken place, you’ve certainly had a front row seat to watch the evolution of the talent of the students passing through the program. How do you define today’s successful researcher? What are the necessary skills and personal attributes that correlate best to professional success, both [00:06:00] academically and in the business world?

[00:06:02] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Yeah, I think this second question, to some extent, relates to the previous one, is this idea of We are, you know, creating the foundations, the methodological foundations, but we are focusing a lot more on consultative skills, right? Yeah, being able to run the analysis and figure out if things are statistical significant, yeah, they’re important, but so what?

[00:06:24] Dr. Marcus Cunha: What do we do that in terms of influencing the decision making? And the way to influence decision making, uh, in businesses and organizations, it is not by. Uh, trying to show that, you know, all these super advanced methods, but how can you walk people through understand how that piece of information, how that nugget of insight can help them to think better about, uh, their problem, right?

[00:06:54] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So how they can, uh, Influence others inside of the organization. [00:07:00] And a lot of times that’s not the statistic is by persuasively presenting an argument. So to that extent, in terms of educating our students, we have focused a lot on developing presentation skills, developing data visualization skills in order to be able to, uh, to influence, uh, decision makers.

[00:07:23] Jon Last: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m dating myself with this cultural reference, but there was a great routine that a comedian had many years ago called the five minute university and his whole bit was, I’m going to teach you just what you’d remember five years after you finish. Going to school. So like the example he gave was in economics.

[00:07:42] Jon Last: All he taught you was supply and demand because that’s the only phrase you’re going to remember. And it’s almost like we’re suggesting that this is really this ability to synthesize is something that’s really become even more acutely critical in the business world today. Does it, does it change the, has it changed the [00:08:00] types of students or the backgrounds of the students that you’ve seen come through the program, um, based to where it was maybe 20 years ago or earlier in your career?

[00:08:09] Dr. Marcus Cunha: I think we have, uh, we have more actively expanding the base of students that we’re going after instead of being students that come straight from like business programs, we have a large number of students that come from like humanities, like psychology, people who are sociology or political science, people who are interested in human behavior.

[00:08:33] Dr. Marcus Cunha: It’s very easy to, you know, persuade them to pursue a career in, uh, marketing research. And I think they bring a lot of, uh, interesting, uh, insights and knowledge into our industry because we are all about understanding, understanding behavior.

[00:08:47] Jon Last: And I guess the other thing that we’ve seen, and you touched on it a little bit with some of the skills that people need to have, you know, we’ve seen the whole process of training and education also see dramatic [00:09:00] transformation in recent years.

[00:09:02] Jon Last: You know, I’ve been on the board of MRII now for over a decade and I’ve seen us go from the textbook to abandoning that textbook and now teaching the core of our principles program and breaking that down into the more concentrated principles express programs. How does this translate to what you’ve done within the master’s program?

[00:09:21] Jon Last: And again, how do you balance the need to meet students with where they are today and with the rigor and science that have always been the foundations of what we’re learning?

[00:09:30] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Yeah, I think for some courses, some of the more traditional methods of using a textbook still apply, especially for like a methods course.

[00:09:40] Dr. Marcus Cunha: But we have changed our curriculum to focus more on like shorter, up to date readings. cases, uh, very few of our courses have final traditional, traditional exams. They will have final projects, but not like an exam that you’re going to study for 12 hours. A lot of our classes [00:10:00] are super hands on, you know, projects, or even like we do work of our research hackathons.

[00:10:07] Dr. Marcus Cunha: I’ll bring a data set that came to me from somebody who had a problem like here’s a problem, here’s the data. Let’s think about how we’re going to help this person to solve the problem based on what we studied last, um, last class. For example, my course has no exams at all and it is a mix of individual and team assignments.

[00:10:28] Dr. Marcus Cunha: And I think it’s heavy on the individual assignments as well. Because one thing that we noticed in the past is that, uh, you know, students do some sort of, uh, distribution of labor in team assignments. Where like, hey, you’re good at programming surveys. I’m good at PowerPoint. You’re good at analysis, right?

[00:10:48] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So that lets people to become specialists in what they’re already good. and not getting exposure. So the individual assignments kind of force you out of your comfort zone. You [00:11:00] do have to do all of the steps of the process so you get exposure, uh, to all of them. Uh, another thing that also has, uh, you know, uh, influenced a lot the way we teach is that we have developed partnerships with panels, In the industries with the AYTM, RAP data, and L& E research for both qualitative and quantitative research.

[00:11:23] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So students learn what’s the impact of a survey being too long on the cost of a survey. Or, hey, I want to use a conjoint. Yes, a conjoint is going to be a lot more expensive, right? Because it used to be, you know, for class projects and so on, the students would, um, uh, hey, ask their friends to, you know, respond to the surveys.

[00:11:49] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Now we use, uh, professional, professional panels that support us to, uh, to do that.

[00:11:56] Jon Last: I love the way you kind of push people out of their comfort zones. It, [00:12:00] it hearkens back to a series of programs that I used to run at, at a variety of, of, of, uh, MRA seminars back in the day where we, we kind of brought together people from different aspects of the industry, you know, field data collectors with analysts and kind of made them take on, it was called anatomy of a research project.

[00:12:16] Jon Last: And they would take on roles that they weren’t normally doing. It’s, it’s, it, there’s so many different ways obviously to, to, to kind of go about. Diffusing what we learn and what we need to know within marketing research. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s so many options as well for people that are trying to keep their skills up to date.

[00:12:35] Jon Last: And we seem to see just as society has valued shortcuts, there’s a lot of more condensed programming out there for people that, that are looking to, to advance their training in the profession. And you talked about this a little bit earlier, but I’d love for you to reflect a little bit further on. Where does the line get drawn between where professional development solutions come about, you know, the balance, if you will, between [00:13:00] professionalism and and and being concise.

[00:13:03] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Yeah. Um, so you mean in terms of the, the education.

[00:13:08] Jon Last: Yeah. In terms of what the, you know, how program, how, how information is being disseminated. Again, you’ve got everything from, you know, YouTube videos to, to Coursera’s to, to obviously a much more formal program, like, like at the Terry school.

[00:13:23] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Yeah, I would say, um, you know, like, like any researcher would.

[00:13:29] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Think about a research problem. I would say like be very careful about the source, right? It’s something is free. You know, either the quality is not good or You’re the product. I think about like, you know, Google give you everything for free. Yeah, because your data is that You know is their product. That’s how they’re making money.

[00:13:52] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So I would say still focus on resources that are reliable, such as [00:14:00] the MRI courses or the graduate programs, Coursera’s LinkedIn learning. That can give you like, you know, a little bit of a basis for becoming an insights professional. But I don’t think like something, it is. It is a profession that requires methodological foundation.

[00:14:21] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So based on that, I wouldn’t go, you know, try to learn about doing marketing research by searching, uh, YouTube videos, you know, I will go through a more formal route, such as the ones we, uh, we mentioned.

[00:14:37] Jon Last: I know we, we could talk a lot longer about this. We’re, we’re getting near the end of our, a lot of time.

[00:14:42] Jon Last: I want to wrap up, but just kind of getting your perspective and vision of what the industry will look like 10 years from now. And. How will that impact the programs and research education in general?

[00:14:52] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Yeah. I mean, we could all make a lot of money if we knew, right. And that the answer to that question,

[00:14:57] Jon Last: we have our thoughts though.

[00:14:58] Dr. Marcus Cunha: I know. Yeah. [00:15:00] So, uh, I think like, uh, we are at a point where we need to figure out as. Uh, an industry if we’re going to be a revenue center or a cost center, if we’re doing a lot of excellent research that goes into the proverbial drawer in your computer, that’s not being used to influence decision making link to ROI.

[00:15:26] Dr. Marcus Cunha: we will become a cost center. And by becoming a cost center, when economic downturns happen, you know who goes first, right? So we need to really position ourselves and link ourselves to, uh, uh, ROI. Now we also need to think like in, in the face of new technology, AI, uh, you know, another, uh, computational advancements.

[00:15:52] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Are we going to be servants to the AI or are we going to use AI to support our, [00:16:00] our work, right? I think the industry is trying to, to figure that out, uh, right now, like what’s the role of AI. I really do hope that. You know, AI will be a very important tool in your toolbox, but I think that, you know, the consumer behavior will evolve and to that extent, AI might be always a step behind, you know, by the time the AI gets trained, you know, things might have changed to that.

[00:16:34] Dr. Marcus Cunha: So it, it, it will be to our advantage to stay. I step ahead, you know, use AI heavily to support you on your activities, but I always With this focus, like what? How can I be one step ahead of AI by better understanding consumer behavior?

[00:16:54] Jon Last: Yeah, there’s always that contextual piece that that I think, at least in the short to medium term, can only [00:17:00] only be added by experience and only by what people have actually witnessed and how they’ve applied it.

[00:17:06] Jon Last: So it’s obviously the big question, and we will see it and others answered as time goes on. Now,

[00:17:12] Dr. Marcus Cunha: there are great uses for it. I use it a lot. Things that used to take me time to do or have to do programming, uh, to do stuff. Now I use AI, you know, to clean up, uh, data files or merge data files, I use AI. So I use it heavily as I would use a research assistant or like a, a junior, uh, researcher.

[00:17:35] Dr. Marcus Cunha: Some, some of the work that junior researcher, uh, would do like more of the grunt work. I mean, it’s been excellent, a great productivity tool for me.

[00:17:44] Jon Last: But of course, you know, in some cases, it doesn’t obsolete the role of junior researcher just focuses and redirects them into something value additive.

[00:17:52] Dr. Marcus Cunha: I mean, because, you know, if you went to a program like the MMR program or a certification through MRI, [00:18:00] you don’t want to people that, you know, you made them better thinkers.

[00:18:05] Dr. Marcus Cunha: to be doing grant work. You know, you want to better, uh, optimize the usage of, of their knowledge rather than just getting them to do like a grant work.

[00:18:16] Jon Last: So still a great opportunity for people emerging into the industry. I thank you so much for being on the podcast and we will see you in our next episode.

[00:18:26] MRII Announcer: Thanks for joining MRII’s Insights and Innovators podcast. Be sure to subscribe and listen to all of our podcast episodes and visit us at mrii. org for more insights for market research professionals.