Marketing Action Research (MAR) is an emerging qualitative methodology that helps marketers solve problems and test ideas with customers. MAR involves collaborations among marketing, research, and other departments to conduct experiments with customers. Companies use these experiments as “action” steps in solving a problem or testing an idea. In each of these steps, you need people who can be trusted as your “critical friend.” The role of the critical friend is not always easy to fulfill. This person is a trustworthy individual who will challenge your assumptions, give you honest feedback about your work, and act as a source of support for you during this project.
What is a Marketing Action Research project? A Marketing Action Research project (MAR) is a collaborative project-based approach to marketing that focuses on the organization’s and its customers’ needs and uses marketing activities to meet organizational and customer needs. MAR is an iterative approach to marketing that uses a cyclical process of continuous planning, action, data collection, analysis, and follow-up to achieve marketing effectiveness. MAR is a collaborative approach to marketing planning that requires cross-functional engagement to understand customer needs, organizational capabilities, and desired outcomes of marketing activities. MAR ensures marketing investments are aligned with organization goals by creating marketing plans informed by data collected from marketing activities. MAR can be used to address any marketing challenge, but it is particularly useful when an organization needs to change how it engages customers.
The Role of the Critical Friend in MAR: A critical friend is someone who has an honest and discerning relationship with you. They will challenge you to think differently, stretch your thinking, and help you see what might be invisible to yourself. They are not afraid to express their views in a way that challenges how you see things or makes you uncomfortable. This is a very important part of their role because the team members in a marketing action research project need to be challenged to think more deeply and critically about the project they are working on. They will help you see blind spots, explore assumptions, and recognize areas needing change. The role of the critical friend in a marketing action research project is crucial because they act as a filter for ideas and thoughts expressed in the project. They help the team ask difficult questions, gain new insights, uncover assumptions that have gone unquestioned, and expose areas needing change.
How to Find the Right Critical Friend for Your MAR Project? – First, determine what you want from your critical friend.
- What skills do you need from them?
- What do you hope to get out of the relationship?
- What type of person do you need to help you on this project?
Once you have identified who you need, you can then go out and find people who might fit the bill. First, find out if the individual wants to be a critical friend. You may need to explain what this role entails and that it may be time-consuming. The person may be willing to help you but have no idea how much work it would entail. Next, find someone with skills and abilities that can benefit your project. The ideal critical friend is someone with skills and abilities that can benefit your project, such as marketing expertise, working in the same industry as your company, or they have experience working with groups and teams.
Benefits of Having a Critical Friend in MAR:
- Provide a sounding board for ideas
- A critical friend will help you explore the pros and cons of various marketing strategies and plans.
- Provide a reality check
- A critical friend will challenge assumptions made during the project and help the team find data and information to support or refute those assumptions.
- Offer fresh perspectives
- A critical friend can help the team think about the situation and marketing challenge from many points of view.
- Be a role model
- A critical friend can model critical thinking skills and help the team learn new ways to explore marketing challenges.
- Push the team outside of their comfort zone
- A critical friend will speak their mind, even when others are hesitant.
- Help the team meet project deadlines
- A critical friend will help keep the team on track and assist with managing the assignment of duties and workloads.
Wrapping Up: As marketers increasingly adopt an action-oriented approach to marketing planning, they will find that having a critical friend in their team can be very beneficial. A critical friend will challenge the team to think critically and act with intention. They will push the team to explore new ways of doing things and challenge them to consider new perspectives and ideas they may otherwise overlook. When the team has a critical friend, they will work with more clarity, focus, and intention.
Adapted from the book, “How to Conduct Collaborative Action Research Paperback – January 1, 1993 by Richard Sagor
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