Market research is a field about to be fundamentally changed by consumer companies needing to develop deeper insights about their customers and by emerging technologies that will make real-time behavior and attitudes available for customer-driven management. Current problems in market research are discussed and solutions offered as future best practices. These solutions include ethnographic methods, outsourcing emerging digital and information technologies, providing real-time insightful data, the ability to use that data to hyper-differentiate brands and to develop/retain customer loyalty. Four futures for marketing research are discussed, with implications for best practices across all four, and within each. Written by Steve Barnett.