Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

In which I talk about the importance of how information is presented and the problems with market research.

When we talk about “relationship” marketing, trust is a key factor in success, but - as with everything - there’s a downside.

A recent Harvard Business School eletter talks about The Dark Side of Trust: “The researchers conducted a field experiment involving the City of Brotherly Love’s 596 plumbers and plumbing firms…Plumbers were sent a questionnaire to measure specific trust with their current vendors. Six weeks later, the plumbers received a TrapGuard (a new product) promotional brochure. Some of the brochures pictured a white plumber, others a black plumber. Some brochures included a line that TrapGuard was certified by the International Plumbing Code, a set of standards developed by the International Code Council. Others did not.”

“…We found that the companies in our study were much less interested in learning about a novel product if they trusted their current suppliers. For example, they were much less interested in receiving promotional materials or a free sample. Companies that trust their suppliers were also less likely to purchase the novel product in our study.”

And, color apparently does still matter - at least to 596 Philadelphia plumbers: “…we wanted to see if trust posed an even higher barrier for minority groups. This is in fact the case. It is particularly difficult for African Americans to break into trusting buyer-supplier relationships.”

Couple of questions come to mind:

2. Was the entire problem due to trust and racial bias? Or, could at least part of it be due to how the information was presented?

Also - what people tell you in surveys is often not what they’d do in real life. This is for a lot of reasons - how the questions are written; people’s interpretation of the question; their need to look smart; their mood at the time they’re filling out the survey; and so on. This is also why focus groups are so dicey. (Shhhh…secret from the dark side of market research: Tell me the answer you want and I’ll tell you how to write or ask the question.)

Do plumbers want (or have time) to fill out surveys and read brochures? How were the brochures written? What was the call to action? How was the product described? Somehow I don’t see a group of academics doing wow-whee, gotta have that, purple cow marketing. What’s your opinion?

If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so. It may take a bit to show up since I hate making people type in little letters (I can’t read most of them myself) - so I moderate all comments. Feel free to disagree - debate is healthy. However, I’ve blacklisted the worst obscenities, including the “f” word, as part of the troll wall.

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, market research, marketing communications