Behind the Mystery Shopper: Market Research and its Ethics

Many of us look forward to March. It is the month when we can try out our new 'quant' approaches or 'Blink!' systems to choose who will win the NCAA college hoops tournament. To be sure, March Madness bracket choices are now a science. Sad to say, my own approach remains stubbornly unscientific and partial to Michigan schools. So, unless Michigan State can get to the Final Four, I will have once again shown that state loyalty is foolish and farfetched, not to mention an obsolete way, given the status of loyalty today, to win an office betting pool. It is some kind of madness.  

There is another very smart  and forward-looking way to show state loyalty during March these days. March is also the month when Eastern Michigan University's College of Business hosts its own hoopla of sorts: the annual Ethos Week. Ethos Week, at least to us at A2Ethics.org, is a cross between a spirit and funny fashion week, themed booster club event and  a 'shout out' for ethics. It is a serious and fun appeal to wear your ethics as a brand and a call to make your resume distinctive...by suggesting to everyone involved that we try to be ethical in our professional lives.  And a bid for ethics to matter.

The week includes speakers from diverse corporations and businesses, several of them located in Michigan, and all talking about the ethics of their enterprises. It is capped off by a guest speaker and a luncheon, attended by hundreds, all of whom  pledge, after dessert, to be ethical on the job.  For a whole year. Until the next Ethos Week luncheon rolls around. We love it. And like March Madness, at A2Ethics.org, it has become an event that we look forward to covering.

Last year, we rushed to the Ethos Week speaker who could fill us in on the ethical what happened and who knew what whens of the financial crisis.

This year, at the 4th Annual Ethos Week, we decided to learn about mystery shopping.  Why? Look. With an unemployment rate in Michigan of a little over 14%, we wanted to find out whether becoming a mystery shopper, and more importantly,  signing up to be a permanent professional focus group member is a way to earn a living. So, it was that we chose to attend the talk given by Debra Power, owner and President of Power Marketing and Research, who was on hand to discuss the ethics of her profession, market research, a field that hires among others, mystery shoppers and focus group participants. 

First things first. Being a professional focus group member... that is, one who gets paid to participate in a specific kind of  market research study, say where you are called on to determine the fate of car brakes or whether dogs should be served in fast food restaurants... is unethical. And as I found out,  not a way to make a living. It makes sense. I guess it would be similar to people who want to grow up to be professional jury pool members. Or professional blood bank givers.  

And why is the professional taste tester not able to pass muster in the ethics smell test? This was the subject of Ms. Power's informative and finely detailed presentation to an audience of 50 or so attending her Ethos week talk, aptly titled, "The Ethics of Market Research." 

For the uninitiated, which includes me, it is best to talk about Ms. Power's points (yes, she did use PowerPoint-and all right I will limit the stupid word play, unless it is the only word left to play with) with a definition of market research,  its tools and the geographical terrain of market research in hand.

Accordingly, as best as I was able to gather, market research is the business of collecting, surveying, validating and analyzing a wide range of information provided by consumers and citizens about the products and services available to them in the global marketplace and polity.  For what purpose? So that corporations, governments, for-profits and non-profits alike, can learn what consumers want and citizens believe...to sell and to deliver the goods... to buyers and voters everywhere. 

To  get this vital information from consumers and citizens, market research professionals use a vast array of methods, some of them sciency and others arty. One sciency tool includes  the creation and reliance on statistical samples to obtain target groups to research, say for example,  people in the universe who own EMU 'Got Ethos?' t-shirts. One arty tool includes selecting and personally interviewing individuals about their tastes and preferences, such as talking to people in the universe who have never washed their EMU Got Ethos? shirts, in order, I suspect to learn why.  Among the most commonly known methods used by market researchers:  focus groups, surveys, mystery shoppers and 'intercepts,' all contacted using various communications technologies, from telephones to the Internet.

Fortunately for us, we live in market research land. Two of the largest for profit market research firms in the country are headquartered in Livonia and in Bloomfield Hills respectively.  And a very large nonprofit market research firm amidst us is the redoubtable Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Ms. Power, however, holds her own. She specialises in custom research studies for a wide range of clients in the for profit and nonprofit worlds.

So, enough definitions. What did Ms. Power say about her profession's ethics? 

1. Honesty is quite crucial in market research. There are a multitude of reasons to be for veracity and against mendacity in market research. Consider the fact that in market research studies, the researcher is dependent on 'the kindness of strangers' to give their own honest opinions and ideas of a particular product or service. So, a market researcher first and foremost has to be very open, honest, truthful and transparent (how many ways can I say it?) about what she is calling on  strangers to do, including taking their precious time, to answer questions that sometimes are very personal.

If people who went to this presentation didn't get this point, then they should not consider becoming market researchers. There is one question though about this honesty point. And this is an honest question, which now I am sorry I didn't ask.  How does this principle square with the reliance in the field on mystery shoppers? Aren't they supposed to be undercover? But this is not really that important. Mystery shoppers don't seem to cause moral panics.  And besides, deception is not the same as secrecy...or privacy. Which, by the way,  is the next point.

2. Privacy and confidentiality are imperative. And not only are they ethical requirements, in many cases they are The Law. There are many layers of privacy and confidentiality in market research, based on what Ms. Power reported. For one thing, the market researcher must not give away or identify her client and the client's business. So, for example, a market researcher would not be living up to the profession's standards if she were to say to a focus group of first timers and unprofessionals that she has convened for the singular purpose of testing the pricing sensitivity for an on- the-market ethics product, 'the conscience meter':

  "Hello. My client, God, wants to know whether you would be willing to buy the conscience meter if it were--- a) $20 more; b) packaged and sold along with a green light etc."   (Disclosure: this is my example and not Ms. Power's. Her examples were from the real world, mine are from the spiritual world).  

And for another thing, privacy and confidentiality must be accorded to any focus group members, or for that matter anyone who consents, and Ms. Power emphasized this word too, to participate in any market research.  No matter what.  Unless, of course they give permission. Clearly, what comes to mind here are the laws that give special regard and protection to minors and children, and the more recent laws covering  unsolicited emails and spamming on the Internet. And while she didn't mention it, but since we're on the subject,  the laws that govern privacy and confidentiality across borders,  including the Safe Harbor framework established to deal with cultural and legal differences with respect to privacy and confidentiality, between the United States and Europe.

Again, if people going to this presentation did not understand by the end of it that privacy and confidentiality are paramount in this field, then they should not consider becoming market researchers.  There is one question though about this privacy point. This is probably a question I should have asked in private, and I am sorry now that I didn't go up to Ms. Power afterwards to ask.

How does this privacy and confidentiality principle square with the increasing use by market research firms of their own private label, or proprietary methodologies or tools in conducting their research? What am I talking about? Several market research firms now sell their own brand of survey methods or sampling software.

Let's suppose that A2Ethics.org wishes to do a survey of people who have read all of the existing works of the wonderful ancient philosopher who gave us the Socratic dialogue. Yes, that one.  In Greek. (Okay, maybe a small sample.) So, we go  to a very large internationally known for profit market research firm to check into their services.  They say to us, "Well we have this incredible, trademarked, private label, sampling software called "It's Mine and You Can't Have It."  And then we ask, "Well, how does it sample? How will we know if you get all the people that should be in this sample? Does it know Greek too? " And they respond: "Well, we can't tell you. It is proprietary information. It is private and confidential."

So, in the end, A2Ethics.org decides to go to Ms. Power's firm. She has no such private label software and tells us all about how the sample will be done for us. In the end, who are we going to go to for our market research needs? 

This leads to the final imperative in market research. And that is being objective.

3. Objectivity is an aspirational must in this field. Ms. Power recommended that we imagine there is a wall between ourselves and the project we are doing for any client.  Why is this?

Let's suppose the market researcher does not like the product she is conducting preference research on. In fact, she would prefer that this product just disappear from the shelves of stores. Everywhere. She feels that strongly about this product. It has no redeeming social value, let alone any value in her view. And not only that, she thinks it is the worst product created in the history of the world, and if she were part of a focus group or a mystery shopper for this product she would flush it down the...okay. I digress. But not really. 

According to the objectivity tenet, the market researcher sometimes has to hold her nose during the taste and ethics smell test, if she intends to be professional. It is not her role to determine what is good or evil about this product. It is her role to let the people, the mystery shoppers considering this product, the focus groups of first timers... the consumers and the voters to decide.

Because in the end, if she is unable to decide whether she can do research on a product for the reason that it is against her principles, and her ethics, she must reveal her own preference: and that is, is she going to become a market researcher for this project and this product?

Indeed, some projects, the ethical market researcher may just have to pass on.  And there is no mystery shopping required in this case. She has done the objective research. The ethical market researcher has, however, in this case, publicly and honestly made her choice to do what she thinks is right.