International Journal o f M arket Research Vol.

56 Issue 3

Viewpoint
M a k in g m e a n in g : t h e fa te o f th e
c o n s u m e r in m a r k e t re s e a rc h

Chris Barnham
D O I: 1 0 .2 5 0 1 /IJ M R -2 0 1 4 -0 1 9

It is widely accepted that market research

is the study of consumer attitudes and
behaviour for the purpose of satisfying
specific commercial ends. In this process,
consumers, brands, organisations and
markets are evaluated and analysed in
considerable detail. But it is remarkable
how little is written on how the mar
ket research community conceives the
role of the consumer. Obviously, the
consumer is understood to take part in
research, and to contribute their views
and opinions, but little time is taken to
analyse what this actually involves at a
granular level. What is ignored is the
specific contribution that the consumer
makes in the process of making mean
ing for brands. This is a surprising, and
in some ways telling, omission and one
that has an interesting history.
T h e c o n su m er: a b r ie f h is to ry

When marketing was in its infancy in

the 1950s there was a well-documented
focus on products, rational consumer
needs and rational messages that were
intended to address those needs. The
consumer (customer?) was conceived
as a passive recipient of these market
ing messages and was expected to act
rationally in response to them.
In the 1980s and 1990s this model
was overthrown - in great part due to

2 0 1 4 T h e M a rk e t R ese a rch S o c ie ty

the rise of qualitative research and the

parallel evolution of the planning func
tion in advertising. In the new model
of marketing that was established in
this era, the consumer was redefined as
a more integral part of the marketing
process. It was recognised that he or
she had both rational and emotional
needs, and it was also accepted that
they had a subconscious. This was
something that qualitative research was
particularly good at accessing with the
development of in-depth interviewing,
extended creativity groups and a range
of projective techniques, etc.
W h o m a k e s m e a n in g ?

This evolution in marketing in the late

twentieth century is usually framed in
exactly these terms. But to see the leap
forward that marketing made as no
more than recognition of the emotional
needs of consumers is to miss a more
subtle and equally important change that
took place.
The key development was in the way
that clients themselves thought about
meaning and, specifically, who makes
meaning. In the 1950s the brand had
been positioned as the property of the
manufacturer - the very purpose of
advertising was to send messages about
the brand that the manufacturer owned.
What was radically new in the 1980s
approach was the recognition that it
is actually the consumer who makes
meaning. It came to be accepted that
how the consumer interprets the brand,
rightly or wrongly, is what the brand
is. The effect of this shift in focus was

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Viewpoint

dramatic. At a stroke, the location of the

brand moved - from a desk in the brand
owners office to the inner recesses
of the mind of the consumer. And,
critically, the consumer thus became an
active force in the marketing process.
It was he or she (rather than the brand
owner) that created brand meaning.
This revolution initiated many other
changes that went in hand with this
approach. Planners in advertising agen
cies were seen as the voice of the con
sumer in the advertising development
process; strange types of qualitative
research were regularly commissioned,
which are now long extinct (does anyone
remember strategic advertising research
projects?). Implicit in this new mind
set was the view that the fundamental
answers to marketing and advertising
problems could be found in the only
place in which the brand could exist - in
the mind of the consumer. There is a key
distinction to be made here that is often
overlooked. The manufacturer (and its
agencies) are obviously the main source
of creative input into the marketing pro
cess, but the creation o f meaning was
something that could take place only in
the consumers mind.
P o s t-2 0 0 0 : a re v e rs io n o f m odels?

So what has happened in the last decade?

So many of the innovations of the 1980s
seem like they now belong to another
age. In many ways we seem to have
reverted, despite 70 years of apparent
progress, to the model of the 1950s.
What has happened is that the brand
has moved its location back to the brand
owners office. The main reason for this
is that, in most areas of marketing, the
question of what a particular brand is or
does is now defined in terms of the col

lection of scores that it achieves in adver

tising tracking and pretesting studies.
What were once universally understood
to be simply dimensions for measur
ing a brand have become engrained as
the very dimensions that define it. As a
consequence of this, the consumer has
effectively been evicted from their previ
ous role in the marketing process. The
consumer has once again become a pas
sive entity in marketing - little more than
the mere location where messages are
received and where advertising effec
tiveness (and other marketing activity)
can be measured. This means that the
consumer is no longer recognised as
having the role in the critical business
of making meaning. This has now been
conflated with the business of creating
marketing activity and the consumer has
been reduced, once again, to the dart
board where we can count the meta
phorical holes that this activity makes.
This reversion to what is no more
than a simplistic messaging model has
immense consequences, of course, for
the status and future of all types of mar
ket research. For if it is accepted that
the meaning of the brand is now (once
again) created in the brand owners head
office, then it is always going to be the
brand owner and their consultants ...)
who are in the business of adding value.
Market research is then relegated, as
night follows day, to the role of simply
assessing whether the meaning the brand
owner has created has been correctly
received by the consumer. A dualism is
created in which meaning is established
on one side of the messaging divide (in
workshops, brainstorming sessions, etc.)
and it is the job of market researchers
just to check whether the output from
this activity has been received by the
consumer. This has the effect (and it is

I n t e r n a t io n a l J o u r n a l o f M a r k e t R e s e a rc h V o l. 5 6 Is s u e 3

a serious one) of pushing all forms of

market research into a testing mentality.
This, of course, is a source of profitable
business for many research agencies, but
it has long-term consequences for the
status of market research. Qualitative
research, in particular, finds itself forced
to shift its focus. Rather than endeavour
ing to understand the deeper processes
of how consumers construct their worlds
(and therefore make their meanings),
it is dragged (sometimes kicking and
screaming) into the business of testing.
This is a term that was hardly ever used
in qualitative briefings in the 1980s, but
it is one that regularly haunts such meet
ings nowadays.
Sadly, of course, the main victims of
this shift in focus are the brands and the
brand owners themselves. This is for
the simple reason that the proponents
of the 1980s mindset were absolutely
correct in their diagnosis of both how
meaning is made and where it takes
place. The academic evidence for this
view is overwhelming - whether it is
expressed in the form of psychology,
semiotics, philosophy, NLP, personal
construct theory, behavioural econom
ics or discourse analysis. Meaning is
not something that can be sent (like
a letter, email or a text) to the con
sumer as a recipient - it is something
that is constructed by the consumer
in their own mind. As Gary Radford
points out, You do not receive mean
ing from a text. You create meaning
as you engage with the text (Radford
2005). This is exactly how the mean
ing of brands is created. And part and
parcel of this view is that brands can
truly exist only in the mind. This is
the insight that should ultimately define
the role of market research as it is the
main conduit for understanding them.

Of course, large parts of the market

ing community have long ago aban
doned any desire to debate or contradict
this naive sender/receiver model. Mar
keting consultants also have a strong
vested interest in decrying the ability of
consumers to construct meaning - after
all this is precisely how they position
their own expertise. Advertising pre
testing and tracking are also profitable
businesses and, from the point of view
of advertising agencies, it is arguably
much easier to achieve high scores
on specific metrics than engage in the
much more messy and complicated
business of building a brand.
Market researchers, however, have
mostly themselves to blame. Much of
the apparent decline in the status of
market research in the last decade stems
from our reluctance to champion the
role of the consumer in the mean
ing-making process. It is much easier,
if entirely misguided on our part, to
accept the common-sense view that the
consumers role is one of just being a
passive location where meanings can
be received. But the long-term effects of
clinging on to this position are already
clear to see. If the market research com
munity does not challenge the received
view that our role is simply one of test
ing or counting messages, then we will
greatly diminish our own status, curtail
our own career paths and let down the
clients who still want to engage in the
important business of building brands.
Reference
Radford, G. (2005) On the Philosophy o f Com
munication. London: Thomson Wadsworth.

Chris Barnham
Chris Barnham Research and Strategy

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