And the award for best marketing analogy goes to… Episode 33!
Ever thought about how superheroes could relate to research?
Superman and Batman represent the two distinct styles of insights research!
While Superman can embody quantitative analysis with his broad strokes, Batman dives deep into a more qualitative understanding.
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
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Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sean Jordan (00:01)
You might not know this about me, but one of my many jobs in the past involved working in marketing for a comic book company. So it might not surprise you that from time to time, I relate what I’m doing now in marketing research back to my days working in a world where superheroes loomed large. So now seems like a good time to educate you a little bit on two of the greatest superheroes there ever were, Superman and Batman. Now I’ll start by reminding you that despite what popular culture might have told you with that
awful Batman vs Superman film from 2016, Batman and Superman are historically friends, not enemies. The two of them were both popular characters in the Golden Age of Comics during the 1930s and 40s, and they were some of the most enduring characters in popular culture throughout what we now call the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics. They often teamed up, and eventually they became members of the Justice League of America.
as well as other groups like the cheesy cartoon show Super Friends. While the comic books featuring these characters would sometimes have them match wits against each other or get tricked into fighting, most comic book fans consider the 1986 comic book mini series by Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns, to be the moment where Batman and Superman really squared off as true enemies. And that story was never part of the continuity of the characters. It was instead a
What If story about a future where Batman came out of retirement and destroyed himself to become an inspirational icon to a crumbling America. So it completely made sense for him to battle Superman and, since it was a Batman comic, to actually win the fight. Well since then, there have been a handful of fights between the characters and the comic books have really played up the idea that the two of them don’t see eye to eye in many ways. In fact,
Their difference in perspective is what makes both of them such interesting foils against each other. And you know what? That’s just like qualitative and quantitative research, two different styles we use in marketing and insights research to understand what consumers think and feel. Well, I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this is the Marketing Gateway.
Now, you know I want to get right into talking about research because that’s kind of my thing these days now that I’m an RPG and not at a comic book company, but let’s step back a few steps and talk about superheroes for a minute. And we’re going to start with Superman. Now, as you probably know, Superman isn’t actually a human. He’s an alien who was sent to the planet Earth as a baby and who draws his powers from the yellow sun at the center of our solar system. Back on his home planet of
Krypton. He’d be nothing special, but on Earth, he’s able to be super in every sense of the word. Super strong, super smart, super fast, have super senses, and also to be able to fly. In addition to all of that, he can shoot laser beams out of his eyes, he can see through walls with his x-ray vision, he can create tornadoes with his breath, and if it’s convenient for the writers, he can gain other powers as well. If Superman is having trouble gaining perspective,
He can launch himself up into the sky and get a bird’s eye view of the area around him. When Superman is on patrol, he can fly around the city of Metropolis and hear the cries of people in distress. He can then zoom in to the problem and resolve it with incredible precision. And, since Superman also has a secret identity as the reporter Clark Kent, he can blend into society and keep his ear to the cultural rail.
often learning about big happenings from his friends Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. But the secret identity is more of a convenience for Superman than a necessity. He uses it so he can walk among humans in secret and pretend to be one of us, not because he’s necessarily trying to protect anyone from harm. In fact, the people who know him as Clark Kent also know him separately as Superman, and this leads to plenty of trouble for them.
when his foes are looking for someone to kidnap our influence. Superman is a pretty formidable superhero, and he’s arguably the strongest and most capable of them all, but he does have some weaknesses. First of all, as we all probably know, he’s weak to kryptonite, a remnant of his home planet that reverses his powers temporarily and which can cause him permanent harm if it’s the right variety.
Second, Superman has a tendency to rely on his super strength and just start punching everything rather than finding ways to outwit his enemies. Because of this, Superman has an extremely poor understanding of his enemies and their enterprises, often focusing on going after the chief villain instead of wasting his time with their minions. And this also means Superman can be quite easily manipulated into doing things that benefit his enemies,
and which he then has to undo, especially when they exploit his heroic code or his nationalism towards truth, justice, and the American way. Now Batman, on the other hand, Batman is a whole different kind of superhero. And one of the biggest ways he differs from Superman is he doesn’t actually have any superpowers. But Batman is still extraordinary in every way. He’s very intelligent, very wealthy, and very capable.
thanks to his years of training and his unquenchable desire to avenge the death of his parents at the hands of Gotham City’s criminals. One of his primary skill sets is being an excellent detective. Batman uses traditional deductive and inductive reasoning to solve cases as well as the tools of forensic science and secondary data he has access to in order to track down the criminals he’s pursuing. Another of his skill sets involves being a master martial artist.
Batman not only is an extremely formidable hand-to-hand fighter, but he’s also trained in the use of weapons that he specially designed, like batarangs and his grappling hook, as well as more sophisticated equipment like the batwing or the Batmobile. Batman’s weaknesses are the very things that he tries to cover up. He’s as vulnerable to bullets and explosions as anyone. He’s deeply emotionally scarred because of witnessing the murder of his parents when he was a little boy.
He has a secret identity that puts himself and his allies at risk if it ever becomes public knowledge, and he has a code against killing that means he’ll always let his enemies live to see another fight if they can escape from confinement, as they often do. Batman often has to handle these foes not with brawn, but with his brain. That’s why, more than anything, Batman’s chief weapon is psychology. He doesn’t
dress like a bat just because he thinks it looks cool. He does so because he realizes that bats are terrifying and he wants to strike fear into the hearts of the criminals he’s facing. As Batman has evolved as a character over time, it’s been revealed that he wears a cape to distract his opponents from his movements. He has a bat sigil on his chest to encourage them to shoot him where his bulletproof armor is the strongest. He wears dark colors so he’ll blend in more effectively into the shadows and
The man beneath the costume is covering up his vulnerabilities by considering what makes him the most fearsome and supernatural to the people he faces. And that level of deep understanding favors Batman because he understands the criminal enterprises of Gotham City from the ground up. He can shake down low-level criminals for information and he can track the movements of those he’s investigating by watching their soldiers and their lieutenants.
He can also make use of his connections to the power structures in Gotham City to obtain additional information when he needs it. Batman keeps detailed records on everyone he encounters and often has personal history with the villains that he faces. This might be one of the reasons why Batman has such a greater number of memorable and nuanced villains to face compared to Superman. Each villain reflects a piece of who Batman is.
And a big part of his story is his personal conflict with what they represent. So the Penguin, for example, is a villain who pretends to be a high society guy, even though he’s just a two bit criminal. Catwoman is a villain who skulks around in the night and uses her physical skills and social savvy to achieve her own goals. She even has a secret identity. But her goals are about vengeance on other criminals, not about doing the right thing.
The Scarecrow uses fear and trickery to terrify his victims. Two-Face is a man who’s part law-abiding citizen and part terrifying ghoul. Mr. Freeze is a cold, detached villain who can’t get over the loss of his beloved wife. Bane, Killer Croc, and Solomon Grundy are all monstrous, distorted versions of Batman’s strength and fighting abilities. And the Joker. ⁓
Well, somebody needs to remind Batman not to be so serious all the time, right? I think it’s interesting, too, that Superman’s chief antagonist is Lex Luthor, a man much like Batman, who is wealthy, intelligent, and psychologically savvy, but also not bound by the same strict code of honor that Batman lives by. And most of Superman’s other main villains are similar in that they use their strength and heightened abilities to harm people instead of just to help them.
Few of them stand out quite as memorably as Batman’s foes do. But let’s put the comic books aside now and think for a moment of how Superman and Batman represent qualitative and quantitative research. Because believe it or not, the parallels are actually pretty striking. Superman’s perspective is very similar to the quantitative perspective. He has a broad understanding of the world and even though he lacks the depth of understanding,
He can look at things from a far out view or drill down to individual units with an amazing level of precision and speed. But Superman’s solutions to the problems he faces are generally limited to a discrete number of actions. Though he’s brimming with superpowers, much of his technique boils down to just punching his enemies until they surrender. Quantitative research, which is so rooted in using surveys and generating flurries of numbers,
has that same tendency.
much more in common with Batman’s perspective. Batman spends a lot of his time investigating his enemies and learning from them. When he faces his foes, he often knows exactly what he needs to do to dispatch them and has a creative array of techniques at his disposal to do so.
Batman’s biggest problem is that he’s so engaged in the process of gathering data and solving problems that he never takes a break. He has to build complex systems, and even enlist the help of others, to manage the massive troves of data he collects, and because he’s so vulnerable, he constantly has to increase his capabilities to stay competitive. Batman’s skills as a superhero are only truly possible because of his wealth and his extensive training.
Now in the comic book world, I mentioned, Batman and Superman aren’t actually enemies. They are generally friends who can overcome each other’s weaknesses by working together as a team. And while the various stories about them have shown Batman to be quite pragmatic about Superman’s raw power and Superman of being suspicious of Batman’s tendency to jump to conclusions and suspect everyone,
The two of them are aligned in their desire to be heroes rather than villains, and they’re effective at watching each other’s backs. What’s more, Batman and Superman are also part of a bigger team called the Justice League that helps them to further expand their capabilities and overcome their weaknesses, much like the many fields that touch marketing research help us to enhance the work that pure qualitative and quantitative research can’t achieve on their own. When qualitative and quantitative research are used together,
They’re a powerful force that’s not easily stopped.
And whether you’re a fan of Batman or Superman or Qual or of Quant, there’s no denying that when you have both helping you to solve your marketing problems, you’re going to be far better off in the long run. Well, I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this has been the Marketing Gateway. See you next time.
Today’s plug is for insights. And by that, I don’t just mean the findings of a marketing research study. I mean taking the time to really sit down and think things through and then to try to have a light bulb moment where things start to make sense in a new and different way. In the episode you just heard, I shared a metaphor that I developed about 15 years ago to help non-researchers to understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative research. But I didn’t arrive at it naturally.
I had to sit and think for quite a while about how I could explain these two concepts in a way that was easy for someone who had little to no knowledge of research to actually be able to understand. I had to find a framework that could help to make mathematical sounding language feel familiar and even kind of fun. And I had to relate it to myself somehow so that people who were listening to me talk could actually remember the story I had to share.
It’s when you’re faced with problems that you have no clear or easy solution to that insights tend to arise. You just have to give yourself the time for those insights to appear before you.
For me, I often have my best insights in those quiet, boring times when I’m alone doing something really mundane like driving or taking a shower or doing some manual labor where my body’s engaged but my brain won’t shut off. When the insight hits me and it’s often quite out of the blue, I feel like I’ve been zapped by a bolt of lightning.
the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I get tremendously excited as I see something I never saw before. Unfortunately, those insights love to show themselves when I don’t have any ability to jot them down. But that encourages me to talk about them and to work them out so that I don’t forget them. And that’s the best thing about insights. Not only can they help you see the world a little differently, but they can then be shared with others.
So allow yourself some time to be bored and start thinking about those problems you can’t solve and see if you don’t find some insights ready to appear before you if you’ll just give them the chance. You might be surprised how much of an impact they have once you find them.
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