It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English.

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

The first is what I call the “how and why” complex. Conventionally, market research has focused on getting to the “who and what” of potential markets and customers. Gathering some good demographic information as well as finding voluminous reports on what is being purchased. With the hope of understanding trends and purchasing patterns. What is missing in many of the strategic meetings for senior executives is insight into understanding consumer or buyer behaviors and attitudes. Some may argue that psychographics provides this but psychographics focuses more on lifestyles as oppose to insightful and deep understanding into how and why consumers or buyers buy. The kind of insight that reveals competitive advantages and innovative breakthroughs.
The second challenge can be termed “proliferation” in the sense that market research has become big business. Thus, gaining insight must come from distilling volumes of reports, quantitative data, surveys, focus groups, and every imaginable new way to look at a customer that has been created in the past 20 years. There appears to be a built-in inertia related to how many reports are bought each year, how many new ways to cut and slice data, and discovering new ways to perform statistical modeling each year. I do not propose that this is entirely a bad thing but it is very easy to see today that the proliferation of choices for market research has increased substantially in the pursuit of insight.
The third challenge is one we can call “relevancy.” That is, how does market research communicate relevant and real consumer or buyer insight? I know I have and some of you have sat through presentations with beautiful slides and graphics of graphs but leave with that sinking feeling in your stomach that you really did not gain any new insight that is going to help to drive strategy. It is a challenge that senior executives today are seeking to fix for the “go-to-market” windows continue to shrink and what is needed is relevant and real consumer or buyer insight today and not tomorrow.
The fourth challenge we can liken to the nomenclature of the “silent majoirty” in the digital age. The nature of what we typically have been researching has changed so dramatically the last few years that we may be in fact not reaching out to the right consumers or buyers. And these may very well be active online types who don’t voice or interact yet they are everywhere in the social network. Watching, observing, and making decisions on these observations.
Market research, in today’s digital age, must look towards blending the power of quantitative research with advanced qualitative research methodologies to create a powerful story that can be told to senior management, personnel, and to consumers or buyers. To become a major contributor to strategy, market research will need to embrace the advantages of qualitative research and adapt to a world where numbers or data alone cannot tell the full story of consumer or buyer behavior.