CEO of the MRS, Jane Frost has made it clear that there must be a division between what ethical research is and what direct marketing is. Research gets an unfortunate name from a few baddies in the industry who disguise the work they do as customer research. They are often a product marketer falsely pretending to be a market researcher conducting a survey, when in truth they are merely attempting to sell a product. Jane clearly states that we must protect the public from whom research draws its business from, or the whole of the industry gets tarred with the same brush. “Sugging has a direct impact on trust in the handling of data and thus response rates, fundamental to the health of the research sector”.
*Sugging denotes “selling under the guise of research”
As a result of this activity, MRS has set up a new sugging hotline. This has been established for people to report on questionable use of research as a cover for other activities. You can read more about the MRS challenging the companies who carry out this bad practice, by clicking here.
You can be reassured that at Mackman, our researchers adhere to appropriate research working methods. We specialise in non-prescriptive, quality, and ethical research. Our research director, Gemma Mackman, is a member of the MRS and we abide by a strict set of rules and guidelines outlined by the organisation. We are always direct with our introductions when conducting research on behalf of our clients and offer an explanation as to why we are conducting the research. All responses are collected in a strictly confidential manner and in such instance both clients and participants remain anonymous throughout and breaches of confidence do not occur under any circumstances. Our methods also conform to the legal requirements as stated in the Data Protection Act 1998.