‘ere – gizza freebie guv’nor?

At least once or twice a year I’ll be asked for some free research. Perhaps misled by research companies’ propensity to run free projects for lead-generation, it continues to surprise me just how many business people think that research companies have libraries of free research for the taking, or old research they can give away. Perhaps the surprise is mutual. Judging by the budgets often available for market research or what some clients expect for their dollar, some clients may be surprised that market research companies are in the business to actually make money, with most if not all the work that research companies do being conducted for profit; for paying clients. So, the chances are that most research companies can’t offer free research, and even if they have researched the subject of interest to a freebie-seeking client, there are two considerations:

1. The research won’t have been developed to answer the specific questions of interest to the client, so it might be ‘interesting’ at best but lacking the ‘what you need to do next’ recommendations specific to a client that makes good research worth the investment. It’s this that makes research truly valuable, and turning out non-strategic wallpaper research does nobody any favours.
2. The research was commissioned by a paying client. Once it’s handed over by the research company and the final invoice paid, it’s the client’s property. They own it, and their competition doesn’t. So imagine if the competitor turns up, asking “ ‘ere – gizza freebie guv’nor?”. Your research cannot be sold or given away to any other party unless the client who owns it chooses to do so. Free research – good to receive, not so good to have given away.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt clients to ask, and occasionally they will get relevant free research in exchange. But these are rare exceptions, not the rule. For the few freebies published here and there, there are thousands of commercial projects conducted for, and now owned, by the commissioning clients that they’re going to keep close to their chests. If reminding freebie-seeking clients of that sounds tough, it’s worth reminding them that the research they have paid for in the past is not being handed out or re-sold either. Billions are spent on market research each year around the world – that’s a major business investment. Give it away to all and sundry and the competitive value gained from providing it (as a researcher) or owning it (as a client) sinks faster than a politician’s credibility.  For research companies and their clients alike, staying afloat and keeping ahead of competitors requires the selling or owning of competitive insights and services – that’s where good market research is worth every dollar to sell or buy at a suitable price. Jonathan Dodd Research Director, Ipsos New Zealand Jonathan Dodd is a Fellow of the Research Association of New Zealand and an award-winning quant / qual practitioner since the early 1990s.