Applying Principles of Creativity Management to Marketing Research Efforts in High-Technology Markets

The 1990s have seen an increased emphasis on marketing research and marketing information systems. Several trends have caused this renewed interest including increased customer focus, more demands for resource productivity, and heightened domestic and international competition. We examine whether creativity can enhance marketing research and help the organization respond to these challenges. We discuss the measurement and meaning of creativity and describe how creativity techniques can be used in marketing research. Strategic business units of two Fortune 500 companies wanted to determine if using creativity techniques could improve their marketing research efforts and agreed to participate in a case study. We conducted exploratory studies on site at the two companies, applying creativity techniques to questions surrounding the design and development of a marketing information system.