It’s a YARP (Yet Another Research Project). We have lots of these in the UK

As usual, Laurie Orlov makes me laugh and nod in agreement when I read her blog.

This week she is talking about the YARP. A new term to me (yet another research project) and something we have an epidemic of in the UK.

Laurie is writing about a sensor technology research project being undertaken by  Carnegie Mellon researchers who seem to be oblivious about the mass of other research that has already been done on the subject.

Universities, national, local government agencies and the EU seem as if they are stuck in a never ending loop of asking the same questions, getting pretty much the same answers and doing very little with the answers.

A couple of days back I wrote about two projects that are going on in the UK that fall into the YARP category.

I guess what irritates me about these YARPs is that whilst huge areas of funding for older people are being squeezed the establishment seem intent on pumping funds into areas that will have little or no benefit.

So what are the marketing issues of all this YARP activity. I think there are two main things that marketers need to consider. On the positive side, these projects do provide a free source of information. Some good some bad. On the negative side, beware the hype that often accompanies the publication of the 'findings'. Having spent a shed load of money then it necessary to talk up the importance and certainty of the conclusions.

So there you go, if you have learnt nothing else from reading this blog posting you have a new term to add to your lexicon (YARP). Dick Stroud