6 Is customer insight a culture change rather than just a name change?

As new members introduced themselves at April’s meeting of the Association of Users of Research Agencies, one thing stood out above all else: the wide range of job titles now in use on the clientside of the industry.
Today, in-house professionals are as likely to be called consumer insight managers, customer insight managers or planners, as they are research managers – so much so, that AURA plans to investigate the extent to which the in-house research function is being restructured and repositioned.
The move is one more sign of what is arguably a fundamental change under way in client companies. A number of recent ‘clientside’ features in Research – General Mills, GuinnessUDV, Van den Bergh – have highlighted the increased importance now given to the ‘consumer insight’ function within MR buyers.
Andrew Grant, European and marketing insights manager for Ford, puts this more dramatically when he suggests it is a case of change or die for in-house research departments. ‘The clientside researcher must innovate or die. The encroachment of data suppliers and insight consultants could squeeze the clientside research function altogether.’
However, management styles and corporate structures are very prone to fashion swings, so is the move to ‘consumer insight’ just a relabelling exercise? Professor Tim Ambler of the London Business School believes the change undoubtedly includes a certain amount of rebadging. ‘I’m not against that,’ he adds. ‘It can be helpful, and market research people do need to market themselves better internally. But that’s second prize. First prize is rethinking how consumer insight fits into the company as a whole.’