The Value of Market Research

𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭, 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭: 𝐖𝐡𝐲 '𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡' 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬 𝐆𝐓𝐌 Over the years, I’ve seen too many FMCG brands rush to 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘴; only to realize weeks later that consumers didn’t respond the way they expected. I’ve been there myself, and the lesson is clear: A GTM strategy built without 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 is only an assumption. Market research isn’t about gathering random numbers. It’s about uncovering the insights that decide whether your launch wins or fails. Here are my 5 learnings on Market Research before any Brand / Product launch: 1. 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫 Early in my career, I worked on quite a few category launches. We assumed certain buying habits before launch, only to realize that the facts are something different later through our market findings. These insights changed our perspective & GTM completely.  The takeaway: know your consumers - who are they, and what drives their choices 2. 𝐌𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐲 Every category has its rhythm. We’ve noticed, for example, chocolates thrive on impulse, while edible oils or olives rely on trust and repeat purchase. Market Research uncovers these nuances, helping your GTM plan reflect the reality of the market, not assumptions. 3. 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 Should your focus be on Modern Trade, General Trade, or E-commerce? It's really important to understand your channel priority and phases. Such clarity allows us to allocate resources smartly and prioritize channels for maximum impact. 4. 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 I’ve seen products priced perfectly in one market fail miserably in another. Every market has its own dynamics. Market research ensures your pricing balances consumer affordability, trade profitability, and competitive advantage - so your GTM plan doesn’t hit a roadblock. 5. 𝐃𝐞-𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 Launching without research is like taking a long journey without a map. The right data navigates you to reduce uncertainty, validate assumptions, and build confidence in every GTM decision. 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲: Market research isn’t just a step in GTM planning; it’s the foundation, it helps you take informed decisions, and strengthen partnerships. It tells you: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲, 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐧. 𝘐𝘯 𝘍𝘔𝘊𝘎, 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦. #buildingpartnership #buildingbrandspeoplelove #fmcg #marketresearch #promotions #trademarketing #RTM #GTM #teamwork #distribution #visibility #execution #merchandising

People often ask me, What do you actually do in market research? My answer has evolved over the years. Today, market research isn’t about collecting more data. It’s about making sense of complexity. Organizations are surrounded by information - dashboards, reports, signals, opinions. Yet clarity is often what’s missing. That’s where strong research plays a critical role. Good market research goes beyond what people say. It uncovers why behaviours shift, where risks quietly sit, and which opportunities are real versus assumed. At a leadership level, research becomes a decision tool - not a validation exercise. It helps teams challenge internal bias, test strategic bets, and align around evidence rather than instinct alone. In a world moving faster than ever, the real value of research is its ability to : • Reduce uncertainty • Sharpen strategic focus • Inform long-term choices, not just short-term actions Thought leadership, to me, sits at the intersection of insight, context, and perspective. It’s not about having all the answers - it’s about asking better questions and framing the right conversations. That’s how market research creates impact. Not as a function. But as a strategic capability. #ThoughtLeadership #MarketResearch #ConsumerInsights #Strategy #DecisionMaking #Leadership

In 2025, every business, regardless of size, is navigating a complex ocean of consumer preferences, competitive pressures, and evolving trends. To chart a successful course, you need more than just a good idea or a passionate vision – you need a compass. That compass, in its most fundamental form, is market research. 🧭 Market research isn't just about collecting data - it's about uncovering insights that can make or break your business. It's the difference between guessing and knowing, between hoping and strategizing. 📈 As a huge Mets fan, the owner Steve Cohen often says, "Hope is not a strategy". ⚾ Maybe that statement can finally deliver on a World Series title at some point in the future. 1986 is too long. How can market research provide ROI? 1️⃣ De-risking Decisions: Launching a new product, entering a new market, or even tweaking your messaging without understanding your audience is akin to a blindfolded leap of faith. Market research provides the data to validate assumptions, identify potential pitfalls, and reduce the inherent risks in business decisions. 2️⃣ Understanding Your Customer (Really Understanding Them): Do you truly know what your customers want, what problems they face, and what motivates their purchasing decisions? Market research goes beyond demographics to delve into psychographics, behaviors, and unmet needs, allowing you to tailor your offerings and communication with precision. 3️⃣ Gaining a Competitive Edge: What are your competitors doing well? Where are their weaknesses? Market research provides competitive intelligence, helping you identify opportunities to differentiate your brand, refine your strategies, and stay ahead of the curve. 4️⃣ Optimizing Marketing Spend: Every dollar you spend on marketing should work hard for you. Without market research, you're essentially throwing darts in the dark. Insights from research allow you to target the right audience with the right message on the right channels, maximizing your ROI and minimizing wasted resources. 5️⃣ Identifying New Opportunities: Beyond current market needs, market research can uncover emerging trends, untapped niches, and evolving consumer behaviors that present new avenues for growth and innovation. This brings me to a point of often-frustrating reality: the perception of market research as an easily dismissible, low-cost add-on. When businesses approach market research without a budget, it often signals a fundamental misunderstanding of the depth, expertise, and strategic value that genuine market research provides. 🚀 For those considering market research, understand this: investing in quality market research is not an expense - it's an investment in clarity, growth, and long-term success. If you view it as a mere checkbox or a minimal expenditure, you risk getting minimal, or even misleading, results.

I used to think market research meant decks, data rooms and dashboards. Then I heard a story about Bernard Arnault (CEO of LVMH). He’s travelling in New York, gets chatting to a taxi driver, and asked if he knew who the president of France was at the time, but the driver replied "I've never heard of Georges Pompidou in my life, but I know what Christian Dior Couture is!" ..and that was the start of LVMH. On my trip to Nigeria I wanted to move through the city normally, talk to the drivers, speak to shop owners, listen to people who weren’t filtered through surveys or incentives, and understand how they actually think about brands, money and value. So I asked uncomplicated questions, what do you buy again and again, what feels worth the money, what do you trust, what do you avoid, what feels overhyped but everywhere. What came back wasn’t neat or scalable or easily turned into a slide, but it was honest, and in many ways far more useful than another report. Because people don’t speak in frameworks. They speak in habits, frustrations, shortcuts, pride and emotion, and those things rarely show up cleanly in data. The reminder for me and maybe for other founders, investors and operators is that markets are human before they are mathematical. Data can tell you what happened, but it almost never tells you why, and the “why” is where brand, loyalty and long-term value are actually built. If all you ever do is look at screens, you’ll optimise for numbers and miss the truth. Sometimes the real work is getting closer, listening longer, and being willing to hear things that don’t immediately fit your strategy. Markets aren’t charts. They’re people. And people will always tell you more than a dashboard ever could, if you take the time to ask and actually listen.

As a market researcher, your value isn't in: • A 20-slide deck • The executive summary • The methods section • The data tables in a shared drive They are all means to your why. Your value lies in what happens AFTER the research. Your 20-slide deck isn't the deliverable. Changed decisions are. Changed behaviour is. Confidence to act is. This means you need to:  1. Design for action  2. Think like a writer, not a reporter  3. Focus on the 3 key decisions  4. Start conversations, not give information  5. Measure what changed  6. Turn insights into tools people use  7. Remove the decks, build workshops  8. Make your advice hard to ignore  9. Track the value of your insights 10. Remember: unused insights = zero value You're not here to make reports. You're here to drive decisions that wouldn't happen without you. ~ JP

This is one of the hardest conversations I have with EdTech teams. Market research often gets treated as something you can gather along the way. Teams ask a few sales reps, pull notes from customer calls, and rely on last year’s data. I understand why. Everyone is busy, resources are limited, and the pressure to move quickly is constant. But good research requires focus. It requires intention. And it requires respect for the people you are asking to share their time. Educators do not have 45 uninterrupted minutes anymore. They are constantly asked for feedback, demos, pilots, and opinions. If you want meaningful insight, you have to create the right conditions. That usually means compensating them for their time. It means having experienced researchers ask the questions. It means synthesizing insights so product, marketing, and sales can actually use them. When research is done well, it accelerates downstream decisions. When it is rushed, it creates hidden drag that lasts for months.

Executives aren’t short on data. They’re short on a clear point of view that helps teams decide what to do next. I learned the difference early in my career at Nielsen. I proudly delivered a report early to my first Kraft Foods corporate client. I thought I had done the job well. The client asked me to revise it. Not because the data was wrong. Because I had answered the research question without fully answering the business question. That was an early lesson I never forgot. The value wasn’t just: What did the data say? The value was: • What does this mean? • What should we do next? • Where is the risk? • Where is the opportunity? • What decision does this support? That lesson matters even more now. Ten years ago, research meant fielding a survey, writing a report, and presenting findings. Today, much of that workflow is faster, cheaper, and increasingly supported by AI. AI can help with research execution but still needs human business judgment. The hard part hasn’t disappeared.  It’s synthesis and influence. It’s helping product, marketing, sales, and executive teams make better decisions with the information they already have. I’ve seen researchers survive by doing exactly what was requested. I’ve seen insights leaders advance by going further. They ask better questions upfront, connect findings to the business decision, and help the business move. The most valuable insights professionals won’t be the ones who produce the most research. They’ll be the ones who make research easier for the business to act on. When research doesn’t change the decision, where do you usually see the breakdown? #InsightsActivation #ConsumerInsights #MarketResearch #ExecutiveStorytelling

Tip: Conduct market research before you patent! 🔍 No matter how brilliant the idea, without a market need, it will fail. That’s why doing market research as early as possible is important. It reduces the risk of investing resources in an unviable product or service. In a nutshell, market research involves: => 🎯 Identifying the problem your product solves. => 💰 Determining market demand: Who needs this problem solved? What are they willing to pay? What other solutions are out there? => 📊 Assessing market size, scalability and potential profitability to determine commercial viability. Note that none of this should include disclosing your invention! In many countries, if you share your invention publicly before filing a patent application, you will lose the right to patent it. So even if the temptation is strong, never publicly disclose your invention before filing a patent application! Market research can be helpful for your IP strategy in various ways. 💪 Better patent applications: - A deep understanding of a product's unique advantages and the problem(s) it solves is a great foundation for a patent application. - Refinements made to meet customer needs can also enhance patentability. 🛡️ Deeper understanding of risks: - Market research can help position your IP portfolio against competitors and anticipate potential issues, like a must-have feature owned by a competitor. - Knowing your product and market improves your chances of building a fit-for-purpose IP strategy from the start, saving time and resources. 🧠 Improved strategic decision-making: - Market insights allow better informed long-term IP decisions, e.g., whether to patent, register a trademark, and/or opt for a trade secret. Hence, market research is not just helpful for defining your business plan or guiding your product development. It can also assist you in making informed decisions about your patent applications and IP strategy. Remember, however, never to disclose your invention before filing a patent application. Have you used market research in your patenting decisions?

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Even in 2024, after over 200 years of compounding growth in advertising, we still ignore the power of real market research. Marketers skip the groundwork, dive straight into creating campaigns, and wonder why their results fall flat. But the best campaigns don’t come from guesswork—they come from deeply understanding what your audience wants, needs, and responds to. Market research is and always will be the foundation for scalable success because it eliminates the gamble. Instead of throwing money at ideas you hope will work, you focus on strategies you know will resonate. Here’s the problem: we are wired to default to assumptions instead of data. And as a result, we tend to build assets that don’t align with their audience, waste time and budgets, and miss the mark entirely. The result? Slow progress, lackluster performance, and campaigns that feel like a shot in the dark. If you want to create campaigns that drive real results, focus on these steps: ✅ Ask better questions. Talk to your audience, but dig deeper. Find out what motivates them, what frustrates them, and what gets them to act. ✅ Test before scaling. Small, consistent experiments will reveal patterns in your audience’s behavior that data alone can’t always explain. ✅ Track and adapt. Use insights to refine your approach, tweak your messaging, and improve with every iteration. Skipping market research might save you time upfront, but it’ll cost you far more in missed opportunities...

Looking to expand and discover new opportunities? Start by doing a thorough market analysis.  Whether you're looking to enter new markets or expand into new categories, market analysis is extremely useful. Here's how you can use it: 1. To understand market demand by recognizing emerging trends and shifts in consumer behavior. 2. To analyze reviews and purchasing patterns to tailor your offerings. 3. To study your competitors' strengths and weaknesses to identify market gaps. 4. To compare your products with others to improve your value propositions. 5. To conduct market entry feasibility studies to assess market size, growth potential, and entry barriers. 6. To identify risks and develop mitigation strategies. 7. To pinpoint regions with high demand and low competition through regional analysis. 8. To understand cultural preferences and local regulations for proper localization. 9. To develop new products based on customer needs and potential for new categories. 10. To optimize your marketing strategies to reach new markets effectively. Market analysis provides essential insights for e-commerce brands to make informed decisions, minimize risks, and succeed in new markets or categories. How has market analysis helped you discover new opportunities?