There’s a time and place for “slow and steady wins the race”.
But, in the world of market research, and in today’s lightning-fast market, you’re better off matching the pace of innovation if you want to move the needle and stay competitive.
You hear it all the time, especially in marketing: Why fix what doesn’t appear to be broken? It’s an understandable perspective. Brands are more risk-averse than ever — just ask any creative agency. Markets are unpredictable right now, yes, but one thing that isn’t changing anytime soon is the speed at which it’s all happening.
Traditional methods of market research, especially for brands used to using them, might feel like safe, reliable options for planning future messaging, campaigns, and products.
The reality: They’re anything but. Change can be hard, but if the alternative means falling behind your competitors…
Here, we’ll explain how adopting a swift, modern approach to your research keeps your brand agile, and in a world that moves as fast as the one we’re in now, that’s the safest thing you can be. Read on to see exactly why and how holding on to the methods of yesterday is not only costing your brand more money, but the potential of today and tomorrow.
The billable hour, incentives, and other expenses
Conducting surveys and focus groups gets expensive quickly.
Whether you’re outsourcing or trying to DIY it, you’ll have to shell out for all kinds of expenses — from hourly rates to incentives for participants to comps and rented spaces to conduct double-blind experiments. The bill adds up fast for data collection alone. Beyond that, there’s also time and resources spent on strategy and analysis to account for.
With a modern research method like testing in the wild, there’s less time and money spent on, well, everything. Once a test is ideated and released, participants exhibit behavior freely without need for costly incentives or other related expenses.
Because of targeting capabilities and the ability to meet consumers where they already are, data is collected and analyzed quickly and within a pre-approved timeline. What this means for brands: what was once largely unpredictable about getting real behavioral insights is now fully plannable.
Not accounting for the say-do gap
Surveys and focus groups have a major blind spot, and it’s known as the say-do gap.
Consumers are not reliable self-reporters, and the say-do gap is only widening in a modern context.
Social desirability bias, decision fatigue, more impetus being put on ethical consumption, and hyper-personalized marketing efforts overtaking algorithms have changed the way we answer questions about our habits. Basically, what we say we do when asked about it is often not based in reality, but rather a mix of aspirational thinking, a desire to appease the person or entity doing the asking, or to get closer to some previously promised incentive.
Here’s exactly how traditional research methods don’t account for the say-do gap:
- When researchers ask consumers about future behavior, they’re measuring assumption, not intention.
- A/B testing and clickstream data show what happened but miss the critical why behind consumer choices. This leads brands to misinterpret motivations and build strategies on incomplete insights.
- Historical data alone tells a limited story. It can’t predict emerging behaviors, capture the full context of decision-making, or identify the preference shifts that signal future trends.
- Brands often mistake past patterns for future preferences, doubling down on strategies that are already becoming obsolete.
Unfocused findings with one-size-fits-all approach
Traditional methods are built for a single point in time, which makes gathering relevant data even more difficult when values and trends shift constantly.
Testing in the wild is designed in-context, and works from the moment of innovation (from “just an idea”) to testing a concept before investing in prototypes, to targeted trial campaign messaging to launching at your most strategic point.
Testing in the wild isn’t just about getting stimuli in front of consumers quickly — it’s also taking queues from what’s worked in the past and applying those learnings. It’s designed to be deployed with intention in one of three stages (Seed, Shape, Activate), to meet your target consumer where they actually are.
Early-stage signal with Seed: Identifies the most resonant problem statements. Early-stage testing designed to pinpoint the strongest problem statements, themes, and early ideas before investing more time and resources.
Mid-stage refinement with Shape: Defines early ideas to be market-ready contenders. Mid-stage testing that refines and advances ideas like product concepts, positioning territories, packaging directions, claims, or communications.
Validation-stage confidence with Activate: Reveals what’s going to perform in the real world. Validation-stage testing to confirm which near-final executions perform best under the same rigor realism they will face in the market.
Slow research isn’t just inconvenient, it’s expensive in more ways than one, and the main unseen cost is that of your brand’s relevancy.
Your position in the market is defined by the willingness to adapt, not a commitment to what has appeared to work in the past.
Modern solutions demand modern methods. The market doesn’t change on its own, it’s the consumer who changes it with shifting cultural values. Meeting them where they already are, in the wild, in-feed is the first step in making faster, smarter go-to-market decisions right now.
Book a call with our team of researchers to see how real-world testing can get your brand up to speed.
