The bystander problem in market research with Brooke Reavey

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Summary

Brooke Reavey, Professor of Marketing at Dominican University and founder of the Marketing Research Competition, on the 'bystander problem' in market research — how disappearing internships and entry-level roles are starving the talent pipeline, why automating beginner tasks erodes the apprenticeship tradition that trained generations of researchers, why students still need to stumble through manual work before reaching for AI, and why curiosity and human discernment remain the irreplaceable core of the profession.

Guest

Brooke Reavey — Professor of Marketing (John and Genie Rowe Distinguished Professor); Founder and President, Marketing Research Competition, Dominican University · Academia

From this episode — top claims

• Just as we still teach children to do arithmetic by hand despite calculators — because manual reasoning builds problem-solving and critical thinking the tool cannot replicate — students must do research work manually before using AI, or they will learn what to do without ever understanding why. — Ep. 58, Brooke Reavey
• For someone overwhelmed by shrinking entry points and constant technological change, the single most important thing to hold onto is curiosity — maintaining it and continuing to ask questions will keep them on the right path, in an industry of great people that no one enters to get rich. — Ep. 58, Brooke Reavey
• By requiring an expensive master's degree for roles that companies once trained people into on the job, the industry has shifted the cost of entry-level training onto students — who go into debt to subsidize what employers used to provide, which is ethically troubling and reduces pipeline diversity. — Ep. 58, Brooke Reavey

aytm's take on this conversation

Automating entry rungs — phone-room work, junior project roles — strips out where the next generation learned the craft while industry bets someone else rebuilds the ladder. Fund apprenticeship instead of shifting training debt onto students, and make juniors work by hand before reaching for AI.

aytm's perspective, voiced by Stephanie.

Full transcript

Auto-generated captions — speaker labels aren't always available and wording may be approximate.

0:00 Reading the report, any kind of report is the most critical part and it is so difficult to teach. There's no like formula because every single question you ask is going to be different. It's like telling somebody like how do you write a novel? Well, I mean there's a formula kind of but you need to do the stuff that gets into it. And so that's what started it and since then we've reached over 600 students all across the country. So we've been able to work with big state schools, a lot of really smaller rural schools and honestly it's a life changer for a lot of students. It's one of those high impact practices that the students will think about forever.

0:35 Hello fellow insight seekers. I'm your host Molly and welcome to the Curiosity Current. We're so glad to have you here. And I'm your host Stephanie. We're here to dive into the fast moving waters of market research where curiosity isn't just encouraged, it's essential. Each episode will explore what's shaping the world of consumer behavior from fresh trends and new tech to the stories behind the data. From bold innovations to the human quirks that move markets, we'll explore how curiosity fuels smarter research and sharper insights.

1:09 So whether you're deep into the data or just here for the fun of discovery, grab your life vest and join us as we ride the Curiosity Current. Today on the Curiosity Current, we are joined by Brooke Rivi, Professor of Marketing, John and Genie Rowe Distinguished Professor at Dominican University and Founder and President of the Marketing Research Competition. Brooke is one of those rare people who moves fluently between academia and the real world of research. She's a professor, textbook author, editor-in-chief, two-time Fulbright awardee, and a long-time advocate for making market research more accessible, practical, and relevant for the next generation. At Dominican, Brooke teaches marketing research, digital marketing, and sales with a strong focus on applied analytics, ethics, and She also serves as a research fellow in the Brennan AI Innovation Hub, where her work centers on responsible use of emerging tech and data-driven thinking.

2:06 Today, we'll explore what's happening to the entry points into market research, why so many students are struggling today to get practical experience, how AI is changing both learning and the complete profession itself, and what it will take to keep the human side of insights alive in a much more automated future. Brooke, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I I appreciate having you being able to talk to you guys today about all of this stuff. It's all very relevant, and I'm super excited to to chat about it.

2:36 Brooke, you spent years working in market research before stepping back to pursue your PhD. And then it it seems like built an entire academic career around the mission of making research education more practical and applied, which is music to my ears. Looking back, when did you realize that helping students actually do the work, not just learn about it conceptually and theoretically, was going to be such a central part of what you do? Uh yeah, so I'll have to say that I I went in with um this idea when I was I was working at TNS at the time, and um I had spent years learning at my with my masters at Temple about how to do all this advanced analytics and how to do all these really cool techniques, and I was so I wouldn't say upset, but like kind of frustrated that nobody wanted to do the advanced analytics. And I was I was told that it's often times because the

3:35 person that's asking for it um needs to feel confident when going to sell that solution and that the knowledge base to the rest of the other stakeholders in the company. And so I thought, I'd love to be able to teach that. Like, what if I'm what if I was to go out and teach and make all these people be really energized about it and they could feel more confident doing it. Um and I recognize, you know, it was very naive uh perspective. I was in my early 20s. Um and you know, but at the same time that's also just kind of who I am of like, well, if somebody's not going to do it then I'm going to do it myself.

4:07 I'm going to build it myself. And so I went in and got my PhD, learned I I kind of joke with my students but don't joke with my students of I took for my PhD program I took at least twice as many um statistics classes uh than marketing classes. And uh again, I learned all this super advanced stuff and now I'm teaching t-tests, ANOVAs, and correlations. And so then um what started happening then was that I realized that when I had left um the market research industry in 2007, that since then the world has completely changed and all the practices of what was going on in market research from that point on was totally different. So it's not that my master's degree doesn't is worthless and it's not that what I learned in the the uh decisions I made, but the way that we digest and re um discuss information has changed so much that um I wanted to be more involved

5:07 with the industry and it that that's at the point where I started um working more with the Insights Association, with AMA, and really understanding more about what common what I guess modern um market research practices look like. Um and then that's also when um I wanted to create something that was more national level for the students to be able to get a chance to to understand what types of questions people have um in marketing research. Uh most of the textbooks uh center on satisfaction, which is a good starting point for the students and um you know, it's a very normal business practice. There's other questions that we have and that you know, I try and explain to them like what you know, what uh let's say you were uh working for a CPG company and you realize that a lot of your sales are going down because of Instacart and you wanted to know how can you create a new logo or a new product so that would look better on a thumbnail as opposed to in

6:04 comparison to the other um types of products. And so those are the types of questions that you have to test, you know, you don't really want to go through and spend a ton of money on that without having them to go without testing it first to be able to before you um make that national roll out. And so those, you know, students understand that, but we're also just at a very written inflection point with knowledge information transfer that's very different in the sense that it is it is rare for my students to come across a question that they don't realize that they just can't Google.

6:35 They have been Googling questions and answers for things for a long time and that was enough to get through school. And as they advance through into the like juniors or seniors and then going into the master's program, they also are, you know, starting to realize like, oh yeah, we do actually have to figure this out on our own. Um but so there's, you know, that that's one of that's the reason why is like how do you ask the what are the questions? What are you actually trying to figure out and why? Um and then how do we get that information? That's so interesting.

7:03 I'm I'm really blown away cuz I don't have a formal market research education. That's not my background and it's so interesting to hear that the focus starts at like satisfaction because I would have just intuitively thought you would start at a place where like research influences like product outcomes or something more like earlier because then you're in like I would hate for that to be where I actually started research because that would be a terrible place to start. You know what I mean? Uh just cuz it's at the end of the cycle and why wouldn't we want to influence design earlier? So that's fascinating and you know that. I want to talk a little bit about those training grounds that you mentioned about how what is learned in the classroom, like Stephanie was just saying, is completely different than perhaps what they'd experience working in the industry when they actually get out into the workforce. And you've spoken a lot in different engagements that you've had that this idea that the the front door to the market research industry is getting narrower, that

8:01 internships are disappearing, these entry-level roles are becoming more few and far between, and people are pushed, perhaps, towards an expensive advanced degree and just to get started, rather than, you know, your path of experiencing a little bit and then going back for some additional um school. So, from where you sit, how serious is that talent pipeline problem right now? Uh yeah, so I um and you know, I haven't written about it formally, but I call it the bystander problem. I always say we have a bystander issue going on in market research. Um and if you recall, this is where if you're in a crowded area and um a bunch of people are walking by somebody who's fallen down, um the assumption is that somebody else is going to take care of it. And so, um what we are dealing with now with all of the layoffs and with all of the agencies, more or less, you know, they release huge pipelines and they're getting squished down, laid off, and then a lot of the folks that have all

8:58 this uh knowledge and information are creating their own off uh serving as freelancers. They are not the ones that are serving that they're not handling the pipeline of interns. So, marketing research has always been very practical. It's been the most practical of any of the types of Well, I'm sure advertising would would uh would disagree with me, but I would say it's the most it's one of the more practical areas of marketing. Um it is very much process-oriented. Um you know, we often say that when I'm teaching it, it's it's much more like the students should think of it more like an accounting class than they should a marketing class, because it's not theoretically driven, aside from the scientific method. Um it is much more, you know, it's just it's very it's very much process oriented of like having rules and you have to have think through the critical thinking of like, "Where am I going to find these people? Who are these people? How do I make sure that these are the right people?" And, you know, kind of focus more on sample stuff, but but then being able to answer the questions, um it does go into much more of a, I guess, a deep thought kind

9:57 of a an idea um where what you put into the equation is going to equal the um the output. And so, um we have always relied on the knowledge that uh we have and the experience that we have and we've always had more experience research researchers teach the younger people much like you would uh in a in an apprenticeship. And so, um if we cut off that pipeline of of what we've always kind of um allowed to happen, it's it's going to be at, you know, 10 years down the road as people are starting to retire and are going to want to um pass off their company to somebody, they're not going to have anybody trained to be able to take it on.

10:35 And so, um what we're seeing now um and what I've been kind of talking about for a little while is that the assumption is that somebody's going to fix it, but nobody uh is out there right now actively trying to fix it because we are automating all of the processes that um beginning researchers would take. So, or we've eliminated their methodologies. So, it was not unusual back in the '90s and actually earlier than that and early 2000s that you would be working in a phone room um and you'd be calling people and doing surveys and then you would move up uh along the ladder um of, you know, being a manager of the phone room and then potentially serving as a junior project director a project director or project director.

11:17 And so, um you didn't need to have even a bachelor's degree to be able to get promoted and to be able to run these studies. Now, to be the analytics part, yes, you needed to have a degree, but it was very common for people to say that they fell into market research. And that's not as likely these days for early entry um uh students. We hear much more often that um that they had to get a master's. These masters are not cheap. You know, so what what we're doing in many ways is that the students are subsidizing the um companies uh for uh entry-level positions. Right? So, what would what a normally a company would do is they would invest in somebody to uh complete the you know, to to start to work for a year or two, um get get the experience level of like what I started off with doing, which was like checking tabs and checking reports and listening in on meetings and you having conversations.

12:12 Um we're now asking for the students to go into debt and to uh to do that to be able to then at least start at that next level. And you know, I um morally, ethically, you know, there's a lot of issues with that and it also um decreases the level of uh diversity that we can have that comes into the pipeline. Right? So, if we're only asking people that they if we're saying that this is like the is a is a gigantic barrier to entry. Um and uh the folks that are really operational experts and the folks that are very good at writing reports and all that, they you know, typically speaking, they're they either have a master's or they are um experienced researchers. And if you ask the people have been around for a long time, so like you know, when I started 26 years ago, they didn't necessarily have to have the same background as you do now. Yeah, I think you brought up a really interesting point that I I suppose I didn't consider, which is that a lot of those roles are being automated and there's a

13:10 requirement to come in at a higher level. Are you finding that things in the industry, mentorship programs or networking events or you know, I I'm very involved in the industry in the Insights Association, Women in Research, SMR, are those opportunities is translating into entry-level roles or other positions in in market research companies. Good question. Uh the when marketing research starts first started being taught at the university level, which was in the 1940s, 1950s, around then, um it was taught as how do you go into the profession? And so it was always taught, and even when I was in school in the '90s, it was taught as like this is what you do, and when you come across a question like this, you find a vendor, and you give it to the vendor, and then they'll run off with it. It was the same as like when you went to an advertising when you were doing advertising in class about advertising, you would this is this is the process, this is the strategy, and when you have a question,

14:06 you find an advertising agency. And so, um that's just how it's historically been taught, but what we're starting to see now is that there are more folks that are not either in marketing, have never had a marketing class, or just went into digital marketing or other areas, um like maybe just I don't know, maybe management, um that have access to customers are now running it themselves. So a lot of this information, um because of the fact that, you know, like is, you know, I definitely appreciate AYTM, but a lot of these um platforms that have made it so accessible have also made it so that um there's just less need to go and work with the with the big agencies. Um but to go back to your original question of um about the pipeline, there are 500 plus schools that have in the US that offer marketing as a major.

14:58 And you have to assume that with all the majors that are out there, let's say at any given moment there's 12,000 students across the US that are learning about marketing research. It was supposed to serve, and what it had served for for us for a very long time, was a platform to decide this is the job that in the career that I want to take on when I when I graduate. And so it was always difficult to get in, and I'm not saying it's it wasn't easy industry to break into. Um but there were more opportunities because there were more call centers and there were more localized places and um smaller firms and boutique firms than there are now.

15:35 And so um we you know so that that the it's just been decreasing it's been a decreasing trend for at least a decade. Um uh to it's just harder and harder to get in. And so even though I'm outside of Chicago, it is exceptionally hard for my students to get internship roles. Um you know they're competing with a lot of other schools around here and some of the schools um you know they have more uh types of um relationships at this school like you know this this the alumni association they have just other we have other competing processes.

16:11 And so as many students as I've had over the years that have been interested in trying to get into the research area, they haven't been able to break in as easily as they've been able to go into other areas like digital marketing um or even events marketing or influencer marketing um there's just a lot more entry-level positions that are available um within particularly the digital side. Uh and it's been hard for me and it's broken my little research heart to see that so few students can can get into it even though they really like this area.

16:40 So Brooke that raises a question for me, you know, a business might say, "Well this is great though because I have all these low-level tasks automated and now my talent has upgraded to be people who are coming in with a you know a larger body of knowledge um when they start." Talk to us though about what we lose in that trade-off professionally, culturally when these more practical non-traditional entry points start disappearing. Yeah so um we learned this and a lot of um consulting firms over the years have learned this. So So, you look at like the bigger you know like if you look at the Bains and the Deloittes and the um any of like any of the big four accounting firms that have their own um their consulting firms on the side, or not on the side, I guess it's their other part of their business model.

17:28 Um they had learned that if they were getting the same people over and over again, if they were hiring the same people with the same degrees from a business school, that they were getting they were never getting any innovation. Um and that's exactly what happens. So, you when you decrease the diversity of thought, you decrease the innovation. And if we're not going to be getting people that fell into market research because it was a part-time job and allowed them to um kind of work their way up and they realized that they liked it, we're not going to see as much um information. And yeah, I mean, it's a we've been teaching and we've been, you know, operating that under a pure capitalistic model for a very long time.

18:05 Of course, any CEO or any any uh business manager is going to be like, "This saves me money. Why would I What do I What do I need to do?" Um and so, that's why there it's a systemic issue. Um there is an entire industry-wide issue. Um the entire infrastructure with which way with which we work is um changed, and we need to figure out a way to realign it. You know, one of the simpler ways to do it is to have uh anybody who is a freelancer or who works at a very small company um to put out a uh internship, you know, uh job hiring for an intern, um and working for having somebody work with them for 5 to 10 hours um up to 80 hours uh for the like the semester. They don't have to get that much money, but they can at least get the experience. And that that's one of the things that we're starting to see, you know, across the across the gamut is that

19:03 a lot of entry positions entry-level positions are being eliminated because of AI. And this is not just uh you know, marketing. We're seeing this, you know, across for uh for anything that's business school related. And obviously just other areas. Um and we're starting to we're just we see that people want they companies want you to have one to three years experience, but will not give you that leg up to get into that. So it's a catch-22. That's why it goes back to the bystander if you issue of like, well, someone's going to take care of it. Doesn't have to be me.

19:33 Um and and that's why I'm also saying it's yeah. I had never thought about them cuz you you were talking about like we need these independent consultants and these these smaller consultancies to be picking up this, you know, to carry on this tradition for us. And I immediately cuz I spent a lot of my career in that environment. I was like, oh but man, I mean we I would love to have had the luxury of a a budget for an intern. But do you very simply like we're like it doesn't have to be a full-time internship. Like it is about, you know, if it's eight hours a week, if it's, you know, whatever it can be over the course of a semester, it's still creating that experience. It's not breaking your bank. It's a win-win for everyone. Absolutely. And um yeah, the the Department of Education um a while ago, you know, however many years ago even though before they canceled and are going away, slowly being dismantled.

20:24 Um but they created a a guideline for companies to understand what's the difference between a part-time job and an internship. And so the difference between a part-time job versus an internship is that somebody at the agency um needs to know what they're doing and and like bring somebody essentially under the wing and show them what to do. Show them the ropes. So um we've had people be like, we want um we need to have a social media intern. And we're like, cool. Do you know Do you have anybody at your work that knows how to do social media? No, that's why we need an intern. And we're like, that's not an internship. That is a part-time job. Because if you were going to throw them into water and they you're going to let them just try it out, then that is not an internship. You need to guide them.

21:07 Um and so that is one of that's just and that that's one of the things that I've I've always I've always felt even though I'm an academic and I don't you know don't do active market research anymore aside from academic papers is that I've always really loved the market research people. Like this industry pulls in really kind-hearted, curious, wanting to help out people, right? So we don't like we're not in it for the money. Or there's a lot of other industries where you could be in it for the money and we're not. Um and we're not in it for the you know where the I always kind of joke that we're we were the ones that like in the basement like doing and like tallying the numbers. I I would even argue that that's another thing that's lost with the elimination of these lower entry-level positions is both from the learning aspect but then also from the ability to train up new researchers because like you said there is still a gap between what they learn in the classroom and what they learn on the job. I mean I think back to my undergrad market research class and we

22:05 just put some survey in Qualtrics and put it on Facebook and I come back to you know my my profession and what I know now and like why why did that even fly? You know? Like why why did I even learn that? Give me work experience over educational background any day of the week. I mean they're both important. I don't mean I'm I also you know spent a long time in academia and totally value that experience. But I mean just when I'm looking at talent and thinking about it I just know that that work experience is going to get me a lot further cuz it's practical. And I think we're going to get into that a little bit later in this interview cuz I know you have some thoughts about about practical education. So So the question of readiness gets even more complicated with AI in the mix. Uh it seems like universities are still kind of trying to figure out whether AI belongs in the classroom or not while the business world is just it's out the gate, right?

23:02 The horse is out of the barn. We're all using it every day. How do you think educators should balance protecting foundational learning with preparing students for the way that research is actually kind of practiced now? Thanks. Uh yeah, I I wish that I had the solution cuz I would be a millionaire. Um but I would package that up and sell it just like the capitalist that I am. We are um you know a good analogy that I like to use um that I think many people can relate to is that calculators have been out for a really long time. I don't even know how long. But like I know that my I know that my mom bought my dad uh like a calculator cuz he was an accounting major um and that was in the '60s and that was like a you know it was a huge thing to like get him a his own personal calculator. So, let's just say you know like whatever, 80 years. I mean I know I'm not saying that that I know it's um whatever, that my math is off, but calculators have been out for a very long time.

23:58 We still teach elementary students for years how to do the mathematical equations in their head. And you have to ask yourself why. It's not because uh people are bored. It's not because um we want to we just need to fill up their time with stuff. Um it's because we know that mathematical thinking does so much for the brain. We know that um that adding in problem-solving and reasoning abilities and having the students walk themselves through the steps that it takes to to calculate something is their reasoning abilities um and also just it allows for more critical thinking.

24:35 You can't replicate that and you can't speed it up. Um if we were to just give them calculators to be able to get through um the questions, they would memorize what the what they were doing, but they wouldn't know why they were doing it. And so, what we're running into now with AI is if we give the students if we don't have the students do stuff manually first before they go into synthesizing and reading creating their own, they're not going to understand why.

25:01 They're not going to fall down a few times and stumble before they can figure out how they learn. That is just how humans learn. How humans have learned through stumbling and repetition, you know, like getting back up and doing it trying it again in a different way for as for as long as we've, you know, been around. And so, um from this learning perspective then, there I've talked to a number of university professors that say like, "Well, you know, it's we we kind of have to just the cat's out of the bag, might as well just work with it and have them go back and forth with the um AI agent to figure out what they're going to do."

25:36 That is true, um and there is a specific segment that probably can take that step and skip. But, having taught now since 2008 um at the college level, I can say very confidently that the majority of students need that manual step of getting up, stumbling, getting up again, figuring out what they did wrong, and do and going forward. So, if we eliminate AI immediately, then we're showing the students that we don't trust them.

26:07 And if we don't trust our students, then there's going to be some degree of animosity on either side of like, "Well, I'm not cheating. What are you doing?" But, at the same time, if people are able to take that step quickly that they would that we would normally make them kind of struggle through, then they're not able to learn. And that part of your brain and creating those synapses and getting them to understand the logical steps that you need to take is huge and you can't replicate it. So, when marketing research that I've mentioned that in the 40s, there was a paper by a guy named Luck, Professor Luck, um that he first came out with the first curriculum. He had he he actually required his students to take an entire semester of logic because there is just so much logic that's required in the steps of market research.

26:58 And so, we can't we can't speed that up. Um yeah, I mean you can with market research you can with AI, but if there's an issue, then what are we doing? And I I kind of always I go always I always go back to why do we why are we doing what we're doing? We're doing what we're doing because we're helping people make decisions and sound decisions. We're going out and making sure that what what they're going to do is is going to be is the right step before they invest a lot of money into it. And so, if we look at it from the perspective of like, what would the shareholders say if you were about to make a big product launch and it was incorrect because some AI hallucinated and gave you this wrong idea, then most researchers would say like, probably you you should probably like talk to real people.

27:46 But other researchers are like, well, whatever. There's you know, there's a lot of reasons why regular research is wrong. You could have talked to the wrong sample. You could have talked to, you know, could have analyzed it incorrectly. So, that that's a huge debate right now. Um I try and give my students uh like a talk of, you know, your degree is probably one of the most expensive things you're ever going to spend on your life. And if you take that shortcut, you can't make it up again. There's no you can't compete on the marketplace. You can't you cannot replicate that knowledge building and that those logical steps to critical thinking by skipping the steps and just using AI. It's like it would be like if I gave my kindergartner a a calculator and I said, don't ever worry about it.

28:29 Just use a calculator from now on. If your teacher has an issue with it, then tell your teacher that he's not up to uh practical standards because everybody in business uses calculators. I think that that's a really interesting way of thinking about it. And I also think about it in terms of and this is coming from someone who you know has had years of experience before the use of AI but is it streamlining something I'm already pretty versed in or am I using it to supplement my critical thinking? I was having a a conversation with our our VP of growth ops just the other day and she was saying I I I can get back to messages that would have required me to think about it and and think how do I say this diplomatically or how do I say it in this way? I'm getting back to them sooner because I can just have AI do it.

29:15 You know, am I get am I becoming dumb? And I I told her I don't think so because could you do it without it? Yes, it would just take you more time. So, there's students I'm sure and I completely understand this, you know, I think back to my my all-nighters and shiver. Um, but students are using AI to just survive deadlines while others are still doing the work that's required to learn but perhaps always not getting rewarded for it. Um, and so I think about you know, is it is it automating a task that you know, you can probably pretty sufficiently do or is it supplementing learning? So, as someone who's right in the middle of this, how do you teach students that differentiation, the practical uses of AI and what it's used for in business today while also steering them or perhaps warning them about an over-reliance especially when it comes to critical thinking, creativity and

30:13 authenticity? Great Great question. Um, I would have to say um, the students are divided, too. So, a lot of students understand and they certainly are very, you know, versus 3 years ago when it first came out it was kind of like whatever. Um, they're starting to understand more about the hallucinations. They understand that it's not always correct. Um, because also of the fact that we as a society, particularly the US businesses, put so much emphasis on grade point average, GPAs, they feel the need to do as best as possible. They feel like they are not going to be able to succeed without that. And there are so many barriers to them getting into things um if if they're if they have to put in their GPA. So, GPA is one indicator, but because it's so easy to cheat to get to a 4.0 now, we have to as a society and also within the market research industry figure out other ways that we can signal to the community that

31:11 you can actually do the work. Because what we also know is that as good as AI is right now, it can't do a market research report, it cannot create a dashboard, and it cannot create insights. It can help you crunch the numbers, get to the next steps, but it can't do all of the thinking for you. And so, for me, that's one of the reasons why, you know, I think that uh something like the a third party like the marketing research competition, like not to pitch my own competition, is helpful because it it sends a signal to the market that I know what what I'm doing. And so, the students that did it and liked it are able to show full-on proof of what they did when they go on a on a um on an an interview. Even if it's not for marketing research, they're able to show something that they did for a major national brand. These practical ways of working is what we as a society care about. When we after the Vietnam War, um you know, there was a lot of people

32:09 that like basically what happened was that um when uh Congress um provided the GI Bill. Um and once they granted the GI Bill to anybody who was coming home, we had a boom within uh universities for um for people going back to college. It was like the first time we got a real boom um and started thinking about colleges being more uh of places like that that was not going to be a place where you get eliminated essentially, but it was going to be a place where you can come and learn regardless of of, you know, what's going on. You can switch majors. It wasn't wasn't necessarily like a factory where we were going to be seating people out of like, this is, you know, you're not doing well.

32:50 And then up until the like up and through the '90s, that's when we started seeing a big boom with the MBAs and all the different master's degrees. We had people we had companies that were paying for these degrees. And now that we have you know, people that were able to learn how to code and now use AI, we have a whole faction of people that are saying that there's no point of having a college degree now. And that we need to just eliminate college degrees. They're they're useless. All we need to do is start sending people to work right away.

33:23 It doesn't signal to the market and in places where there has to be so much knowledge and there does have to be so much institutional longevity as to like that's not how we do things. That's not how we make these decisions. We can't We need to be able to teach people that in a certain way. So like I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume at some point in your life you guys have had a shitty boss. I'm sorry if I I cursed, but Can can confirm. Okay. So anybody here that's had a If you've had a bad boss, you know that not everybody is meant to be a manager.

33:54 And not everybody is meant to teach you how to do something. And so that has been one of the reasons why we have been as a business as business schools are very successful of what we do. Because you're not going to go into teaching if you're really bad at teaching. And you're also not going to be able to stay at a university for very long if you fail everybody out and you're not teaching them. So yeah, I'm sure I have a a number of students who would probably disagree with me and say well I shouldn't have a job and that I don't teach them, but there's also enough that are saying that that I that I can, right? So there's a reason why we do what we've been doing and the way that we've been teaching and the the idea of, you know, defining what the problem is or defining even kind of vocab, creating a word for whatever we're seeing that's going on in the world, and then working to apply it to different concepts and to see what variables would change that thing, and then we can and then we get to that idea

34:52 of a synthesis and analysis, that is called Bloom's taxonomy. So, like defining and looking at that is like the easiest things, and then once we get up to that. So, we've been using that concept of, um, teaching since, uh, like the year 1100 or 1200. Um, it's called the Bologna model. A lot of other types of college models have tried to come up over the years, but they've not been successful because we are teaching the way that it's a logical sense of how humans work, and it's around the world, right? So, there's like lots It's not just a US model. This is lots of other folks have tried to come up with a different way, and the Bologna model has been as successful as it is because it's just the way that humans learn the best. We are coming into an inflection point where we have to start thinking about what we're going to do differently. You know, I personally think that, particularly for certain industries like analytics or like research, um, we need to

35:49 come into an apprentice style position. We need to have our own journeyman, um, and we need to start thinking about it from that perspective, because otherwise, even though computers have the knowledge and AI can do the crunching, it's never going to replace human insight and discernment, right? I use AI to go back and forth on a lot of ideas of, um, just to kind of push to pressure test some of my ideas.

36:16 And there's always some degree where I'm always like, a human would never have said that to me, and I don't uh, it's not that I don't agree with it. It's just it would never work in real world with what it's saying. And so, um, I think there are certain times when it's appropriate, but um, and other times it's not. And so, I think that anybody who's willing to eliminate entry-level positions or internships because it's someone else's problem and it doesn't matter, the industry's going to be dead in 15 years anyway, isn't seeing the big picture. You know, humans are one of our core characteristics is relationships.

36:49 And if you don't understand what a relationship is and what emotions are, which computers don't, you're never going to be able to understand what marketing is. Right. And it seems like a a really a lot of your point is around this notion that like, or you know, wisdom even, right? Like whatever it is that is the distinction between like, you know, what AI can do versus what humans can do. And with all of your talk around like education and Bloom's taxonomy, etc., it really seems like you're speaking to the fact that for us to produce these people, who exist right now, but if we're if this is how we do things going forward, we really have to think about how do we make the people who have the discernment if we're not scaffolding that knowledge up? And that's that's what you do by creating that journeyman model, right? Of like, you're Yeah, I love that. It's super interesting. I want to go back to something else you you mentioned cuz it's such a cool thing, um, which is around the marketing research

37:47 competition. And I would love if you could talk to us about that. I think it's so cool and I'd love to hear the story behind kind of how it got started and what you were trying to do. Sure. Yeah, so, um, I was actually working with, um, the Insights Association's, the North Central Chapter, um, and they were working they have their own competition level, but it's only for the chapter and so, for a very like smaller, like a just for a couple states. And they were trying to work they were trying to, um, reach out to a couple of, uh, schools and encouraging students to, um, to submit any market research, uh, problem that they had and they could create a report.

38:24 And it was at that moment that I thought, "Okay, well, I can give you some insider information. If you were to approach me and ask me to find some students, I would say, 'Well, this is going to cost me a lot of time and effort and I'm not going to get paid, so no thanks.'" That lovely capitalist we keep seeing. Well, yeah, I mean like so why why, you know, like I have to so the ask is to find students to do this report that they can come up with what about whatever and it's going to, you know, it's not easy teaching students how to collect data and to write a a survey instrument or to write any kind of a paper um you know, project report. Where do we go from there? And so from that I had pitched the idea of creating something national and it did not go well. And so I just took it on my own and went from from there.

39:19 And I think that, you know, for each chapter it does make sense it wouldn't it wouldn't make sense for the for one chapter to be running something national. And I think it also it having the market research competition be separate from any association or from anything just having sponsorships is also helpful too because then it's an independent third party. And so the idea is that I'm at a very small school. I'm at Dominican University.

39:46 We're just outside of Chicago and you know, we're not a University of Chicago or Northwestern. So we don't have the big brands coming into our class every day. And but to have our students compete on the market, it's also really helpful to have them work with these big brands. And so working on a big national brand that anybody across the country can do the exact same thing with it was kind of the idea of what I had come up with is let's have them work with a big national brand. Anybody across any market can understand what it is, what the problem is and how to collect the data. So, um the first um group that we worked with was Johnsonville.

40:23 And the idea and the problem set that came up um what Karen had come up with was uh we want to sell more in the South. So, how do we do that? And so, then it was you know, then it allowed the question allowed the um teams from other other areas of the country to say, "Well, you sell well in our market, so let's figure out what works well here, and we can maybe apply that same concept um down South." And so, it just worked out really well. Um it was really enlightening for the students.

40:52 Um the students were able to gather a lot of really good uh and practical insight, and then most importantly, write the report. Writing the report, any kind of report, is like the most critical part, and it is so difficult to teach. Um there's no like formula. Cuz every single question you ask is going to be different. It's like telling somebody like, "How do you write a novel?" Well, I mean, there's a formula, kind of, but like you need to do the stuff that gets into it.

41:19 Um so, that was that's what started it, and since then um we've reached over um 600 students um all across the country. Um so, we've been able to work with um big state schools, um a lot of really um smaller rural um schools. And you know, honestly, it's a life changer for a lot of students. It's one of those um high impact practices that the students will think about for forever. It's a it's something that they get to say like, "Yeah, I I got to work with McDonald's. Yeah, I got to um meet with the McDonald's team and tell them my idea." And so, like it's pretty like to me it's as a professor, I see all of the reasons as to like why it's cool. It's uh you know, and a a lot of professors um have have gravitated towards it because of the fact that it's a turnkey model. And what I'm each year on what I'm trying to do is make things be a little bit better by um you know, like last year I I made sure that there was um, mentors for every single class.

42:16 And that they were each group was able to meet with the mentor. And then the mentor was able to go over their project, um, give them like look at their reports, give them feedback. Um, there was just a lot of um, back and forth of working with somebody who's been in the industry for a long time that I can't as a professor provide. So, if I'm going to be meeting with let's say I have 10 teams and I'm going to be meeting with every single team for for an hour a week. I mean, that's already a you know, that's a huge commitment. Um, and so they're having that with mentors, I'm also not going I mean, I don't do this every single day. So, I'm not ever going to be able to provide that information as quickly as a mentor can. And so, providing networking connections with people in the industry, providing um, real-world feedback and fast feedback and then having the chance to work with the national brand has been big. I have been a one one-man band uh, running this all on my own, um, uh, for the past couple of years, um, past few years.

43:14 I am looking to build out my board now because I'm recognizing that I'll send myself into an early grave if I continue to do this on my own. Um, and now that I have proof of concept and I have a better understanding of like what what the mission is, I feel more comfortable and confident going out and finding some more folks to work with and work with me. Um, but I can say that this uh, the it's you know, it's it's it's a lot, right? So, it's it's like you're the students are are are feel the time pressure, the mentors feel the time pressure, but it's also so normal with what you would normally get for a regular I was going to say that sounds hyperrealistic to a research project.

43:55 I I yeah, one of the the some of the feedback that I've gotten from the students is that it's not enough time. I'm like an entire semester is not enough time? Wait until you go into market research. Oh my gosh, we have a I I have had a saying clients going to client, and uh, the idea that you can have 4 months to return something for a client. I mean, even just the way that I mean, an AI has accelerated this. We've been talking about it, I feel like, forever in market research, but that insights are being returned even faster, and the expectation is overnight. The expectation is within hours. The expectation is instant reports, because I have a meeting with our executive team in 4 hours. This needs to get done.

44:32 So, Yes, Stephanie is laughing. Uh so, that that I always find that funny. And that's what That's what the real importance is of this real world application. Yeah, I agree. Um yeah, and it's been a lot of fun. It's um it's also uh like every There is a time to during the cuz it's I'm doing it while I'm teaching full-time, right? So, I'm doing it, and it's also I'm putting in my own money. I actually spend um you know, a couple thousand dollars per year of my own money to to do the operational expenses on the on the back end, cuz I also have to worry about cybersecurity and website design and all that other stuff. So, uh and email and all that. And so, on top of regular full-time job. And so, it's right now it's a passion project, um and it's something that is allowing the students to at least get a taste. And so, now that I've got people who are super excited, what I'm hoping for, too, is that the next step is to have more um internships be available.

45:29 Um and for folks I'm also hoping if I can at some point to get this uh working out. It seems to not be going so well with the HR departments, but you know, hopefully we can work on that. Is that the winners of the market research competition if they um they could potentially get a a job or an internship. Like, that would be my ideal thing is that we've got um some companies lined up for them to to work with. Cuz they can show that they can do it, right? So, They can They do, right? Yeah, like what a what a That would create a lot of confidence, certainly, for me as a as a hirer, a hiring lead, um that's exciting. I love that.

46:06 I wanted to bring that kind of conversation full circle and and go back to what you had mentioned that has stuck with me about the bystander issue. How do we combat that as an industry? How How do we ensure that the industry is serious about building the next wave of talent? Where do you think academia and employers need to perhaps meet each other differently? If I could have my druthers, um you know, wave my magic wand, um what I would do is I would have something along the lines of um having a commitment statement essentially, like uh something I like I picture it like something in Quirk's, right? So like having Quirk's saying like what we're going to do is we're going to commit to having 5,000 hours in uh of market research interns or entry-level positions this year.

46:54 And then um those that commit to it and then actually find the people, then then they can get then they can be rewarded and like a full, you know, like a you know, something where there's they're mentioned in the in something that where they did it. And we can show the names of the interns or whatever, something along those lines. But it needs to be something that's visual and it's something that is to understand that other people are doing it. And so if you're not doing it, you're actually not cool and you should be dealing with FOMO. Cuz it they get the fact of the matter is like we we um when you're asking students to go through an apprenticeship, when you're I mean you know, 18-year-olds in general are pretty fickle and um when you're dealing with somebody who's 22 and they are feeling the pressure of the world having to spend let's just say roughly, you know, $100,000 on their degree and I know it's not the same for everybody, but but at a a private university it often is.

47:43 They feel the pressure of the world to make sure that they make that right decision for the first job. And allowing them these internships get gives them a chance to take it take a chance on a career path that they might not like, which might mean we might get some stinkers, you know, coming through. But then we don't have to deal with all those people applying for an entry-level position because they think that they might not like it and they actually don't. And so it should decrease the number of the amount of turnover that we have.

48:12 Um because I've never met anybody that has taken either has has started a market research and taken a very like meh approach to it. It's you either love it or you hate it and the people that stick around love it. It's not, you know, like I It's not like insurance or like a regular desk job. Um where you can just kind of you know, buckle down and deal with it. Like you have to deal with all of the cumbersome issues that that are part of it. Um and so I would say it would have to be something very public at least for the first couple of years.

48:42 Um I know that there was um and I there was a a plan to have some folks um uh through the Insights Association to be able to do some be um going through these rotations. I think that is a beautiful idea for um agencies that um want to do that as like a management trainee position, um but not for the Insights Association or anybody else to be running because it's way too hard to find students that are even going to look at market research because people that are cool and hip right now is social media and digital marketing.

49:22 Well, I want to switch gears a little bit and as we close out to do a quick round of our reoccurring segment on the show that we call Current 101, um where we ask all of our guests the same question, which is what is one assumption about entering the market research industry or something in the research industry as a whole that you think that we should stop doing and what's something that you would like to see more of? Uh sure. So, for stop doing I think we should stop relying on the NPS score.

49:55 Who's sign? Um, I just don't I think it is overused and I think that um, the idea behind it is of being uh, the only number that you need to know to understand our consumers is way too simple. So, I would like to stop that. Um, and then for seeing more of is more internships. I feel like that's the theme of this this episode. We're just going to call this a more internships and I am here for it. I I'm almost like this episode needs to be mandatory listening for everybody in the industry to say this is this is a call from academia to have a more robust internship program. That's right.

50:35 And it is a call from the future of the industry. For sure. For sure. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, um, architects went through this like 20 years ago. They stopped hiring a lot of um, junior level architects and they have a a most architectural programs just had a they couldn't get anybody placed, so they um, there was just a a lower enrollment and they stopped having as many schools that offered it. And now they're going through a gigantic issue because there's not enough licensed architects and there's a lot of boomers that are trying to retire.

51:03 And it's because they weren't future thinking. So, capitalists are not meant to think long-term. Capitalists are meant to think short-term. And we can't do that if we're thinking about it from the industry perspective. That's such a good point. Well, to close this out, Brooke, for somebody who is listening today and wants to build a meaningful career and insights, but feels overwhelmed maybe by these shrinking entry points, uh, rising expectations, constant technological changes like AI, what do you think is like the single most important principle or just thing that you'd want them to hold onto or think about?

51:40 Uh, curiosity. Um, so I think that maintaining some degree of curiosity and being able to ask questions, um, will lead them on the right path. I am a hopeless optimist. I do believe that we are like we just we operate in an awesome industry with really great people. And I think that with some collective thought we can we can bring this together. You know like I had mentioned before no one's going into market research to become rich.

52:08 And it's the same thing with academia. No one goes into academia to become rich. And so those two things alone I think are just going to bring everybody together. At least I hope so. That's a fantastic way to close us out Brooke. Well, thank you again so much for joining us. This has been excellent conversation. I think tons of takeaways for students, for research professionals senior or or not.

52:36 So thank you again so much. We've really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. The Curiosity Current is brought to you by AYTM. To find out how AYTM helps brands connect with consumers and bring insights to life, visit aytm.com. And to make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe to the Curiosity Current on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

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