Consumer Research Lunacy: An Example of Pointless Market Research

Out of professional interest I have signed up to an on-line consumer research study. It's always interesting to see who is asking what of consumers.

When I saw the invitation to complete one on credit cards I fully expected some pointless questions and got my notepad out to jot down a few just for you. This particular survey didn't disappoint.

It is particularly ironic that this survey was commissioned by the UK bank Lloyds TSB; a company that is in desperate trouble as a result of the credit crunch and whose share price has dropped from 488.50 to 37.10 in the space of a year.

If this research is anything to go by the 43% stake the UK government now holds in this bank hasn't made it any smarter (forgive me if I'm not surprised).

I will leave to one side my issues with on-line research (of which I have many) and focus on what they asked.

After asking which credit cards I owned - I realised after clicking the entry that I missed one that I use so rarely I forgot I had it - they asked if I always pay the balance off each month.

This seems a reasonable question. But what are they going to do with it? Lloyds TSB has credit cards, so it has data on what its own customers do. This may not be totally representative of the market as a whole but it's about as representative as you're going to get of what people who are willing to take out a Lloyds TSB credit card are likely to do.

If they get a dramatically different picture emerging for different financial institutions should they trust what people claim in a survey over their own behavioural data? I suggest that would be unwise.

To be fair, perhaps this is a tracking measure and the absolute level isn't the issue. But then a far better question would have been what did I do with my last bill - did I pay that all off or not? Asking me the question they did is really tantamount to asking me "Do I see myself as the sort of person who would like to think he pays off his credit card balance or not each month?"

Next they asked if I got points for spending with my main credit card. The answer was "yes"; but there was no question to ask if I cared about them, considered them useful or valuable, or had considered it when I chose the card.

The reality is that my bank gives them to me and I don't give them a second thought. Do I know to the nearest thousand how many I have or what I could get with them? No, I haven't got a clue.

Quite what they plan to do with this data I have no idea, but I do know it's junk data.

Next came a somewhat random question... "How concerned are you about threats to your personal privacy?" Whoaa there.

I'm extremely concerned about threats to my personal privacy - aren't you? Do I think that my personal privacy is threatened? Not in any way I can do much about - the government seems to do a good job of losing the nations private data and I can't do much about that. I shred financial correspondence, does that make me paranoid or is it a practical
action? I don't know and they didn't ask.

I can only assume that someone in the company has decided to introduce some extra level of data protection and is looking for consumer data to justify it. They should have no problems getting their justification from this question.

But will consumers flock to whatever the product is? I sincerely doubt it.

Perhaps the most entertaining question was this one:
"Most companies today want to know about the individual interests and lifestyle of their customers so they can tailor their information services and products to each customer's personal preferences. In general, do you see such personalization more as a good thing, designed to help provide you the things you want or do you see it more as an
invasion of your privacy?"

• Good thing
  
• Invasion of privacy
  
• Pointless exercise in respondent post-rationalisation and projection that has absolutely nothing to do with how they'll actually behave, and tailoring your information services (whatever they are) and products to this information is dumb.

OK, perhaps I added in one of those answers.

The UK market research industry is valued at £1.3bn. I suspect at least £0.5bn of that is a complete waste of money.

Philip Graves
[The Consumer Behaviour Research Resource]

The UK Goverment's Flawed Consumer Gamble

So, in response to the economic woes our country is facing, the UK government has decided that it will reduce the rate of VAT on consumer purchases from 17.5% to 15%.

This, it thinks, will encourage consumer spending and help fend off a nasty recession. They're also slashing the bank base rate too.

It strikes me that their gamble is destined to fail because they have totally failed to understand the prevailing consumer mindset.

Reducing VAT might have helped stimulate the economy, were it not for the fact that, at the time they announced it, they also reeled off a list of the taxes they intend to increase in the near future to recoup all the tax they're going to lose (at a time that they're increasing spending).

The UK government has been forced to admit that it is going to borrow money like never before (on account of it having wasted the money it received during a lengthy period of economic growth).

So, let's look at this from a consumer perspective.

• At a time when lots of people are finding out the hard way that borrowing heavily is a risk that comes back and bites you on the backside, the government's answer is to borrow heavily.
  
• Over the past few months fuel and food prices have increased dramatically. Even though they are starting to drop again this had the effect of sensitising people to how much they were spending on products that they previously bought without consideration.
  
• They are afraid about what their (economic) future has in-store.
  
• The only thing they can be sure of about the future is that the government is going to come back demanding more money within a couple of years (not just their hand-outs back, but a lot more besides).

Personally, I don't believe this is a winning formula. Consumer confidence won't be increaed by a 2.1% saving that is flagged as a "save now pay us back more later". All this will do is compound fears about economic pain in the future and encourage greater caution.

People will (probably quite rightly) work on the assumption that the unknown future pain will be significant.

I'm not suggesting that this will be a conscious process. The adaptive unconscious mind is concerned with protecting us from avoidable pain. It logs the warning signs, pays particular attention to what's going on with our friends, and guides our feelings about how to act accordingly.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that many people's mathematics skills aren't able to appreciate that a reduction in VAT of 2.5% translates to a price decrease of 2.1%. These people have been primed to expect more than they get and are faced with an instant disappointment when they realise the reality.

What didn't seem like a huge number to begin with has now got smaller and, since we judge things in relative not absolute terms, it can feel like quite a lot has been lost. The difference between 2.5 and 2.1 is significant proportionately!

I fear things are going to get worse before they get better.

Philip Graves [Consumer Behaviour Expert]