Chapter Seven

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Chapter Seven

• Information Collection
• Qualitative and Observational Methods

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Examples

• Tiffanys is researching possible positioning
  options for their new ad campaign
• Starbucks seeks to understand its brand
  associations
• Las Vegas tries to understand why tourists love
  to visit the city
• You try to figure out the fierce loyalty HOGS
  have for Harley Davidson

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Common theme

• What is the common theme that runs through these
  research questions
• seek to understand
• seek insights
• You have no clue about the trait
• (which if you did, you would frame a close-ended
  question and do quantitative research)
• Qualitative inquiry to find out the trait

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Tiffanys ad campaign
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Tiffanys ad campaign
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Information Collection Qualitative and
Observational Methods

• Qualitative methods
• To find out what is in the persons mind
• Relatively unstructured stimulus
• A range of responses possible (e.g. What thoughts
  come to your mind when you think about Winthrop)
• Prelude to a quantitative study
• Used to measure motivations, hidden thoughts and
  feelings, etc. (the question why)
• Greater potential for new insights

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Qualitative Research

• Exploratory
• Problem definition (e.g. why are sales down in
  the Northeast?)
• Suggesting hypotheses
• Generating new product concepts and features
  (e.g. What new features would you like to see in
  your cell phone?)
• Preliminary reactions to new concepts (e.g.
  millenials)
• Pre-testing questionnaires (e.g. what problems do
  you see in the questionnaire)
• Orientation
• Appreciating new perspectives (cross cultural
  research) and vocabulary (what does a word mean
  e.g. meh, etc.)
• Clinical
• Insights into topics heavily influenced by
  desirability bias (e.g. why do at-risk people
  resort to questionable behaviors?)

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Individual In-depth Interviews

• Non-directive interviews
• Semi-structured or focused individual interviews
• Create a relaxed atmosphere
• Ability to probe critical questions
• Ability to bring back the interview on course
• Laddering A technique to elicit higher-order
  benefits / issues from a tangible product
  characteristic

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Laddering Another example
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Laddering another example
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Focus Group Discussions

• Discussion of 8 to 12 subjects moderated by a
  discussion leader
• Used in the exploratory phase of the market
  research process
• Intended to provoke spontaneity
• Group interaction
• Chain reaction (adding forces you to think),
  devils advocate (present extreme viewpoints),
  false termination (one more thing)

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Focus Groups

• Hersheys has plans to introduce a soya milk
  chocolate bar.

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Effective focus groups

• Plan the agenda
• The introduction
• The main issues
• Recruitment
• Homogeneity
• Some contrast for a lively discussion
• Experienced panels
• Moderator
• Friendly, flexible and firm (3 Fs)
• Results
• Recording, coding, inter-coder reliability

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Problems with focus groups

• Peer pressure
• Desirability in the group / anxious to belong
• Shy participants
• Controlling participants
• Undue influence
• Sensitized participants- spontaneity is
  questionable

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Projective Techniques

• Used when respondent will not or cannot respond
  meaningfully
• Comment upon rather unstructured or ambiguous
  object, activity.
• Objective reveal hidden feelings and opinions
• Respondent projects own opinion on something
  else task, third person, object

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Projective Techniques

• Word Association
• Immediate response word to the stimulus word
  (stimulus word is mixed with neutral words)
• Conclusions based on
• Response latency
• Frequency of mentioned word
• Number of respondents who do not respond at all
  to the test word
• Used to find out brand associations

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Word Associations Tests
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Projective Techniques

• Completion tests
• Give an incomplete sentence and ask the
  participant to complete it
• E.g. I love Vegas because ---
• Dialogue balloons
• Show a picture / cartoon and suggest what the
  actors are saying
• Picture Interpretation techniques
• Project yourself into the picture and suggest the
  brand that comes to your mind

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Projective techniques

• Third person technique
• Ask how friends, neighbors or an average person
  would react to a situation
• Respondents tend to project their feelings
• Address sensitive questions
• E.g. If you were to see your neighbor talk to
  his car, what do you suppose he/she would be
  saying?
• Role playing
• Respondents attitudes surface during the role-play

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Limitations of Qualitative Methods

• Potential susceptibility of the results to get
  misused or misinterpreted
• Small samples limited generalizability
• Moderator or interviewer's role can heavily
  influence the outcomes
• Volume and complexity of analysis

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Observational Methods

• Casual Observation
• Systematic Observation
• Direct Observation (observe an activity in its
  natural setting)
• Contrived Observation (a situation is created and
  participants are observed)
• Content Analysis (observation of written content)
• Physical Trace Measures (trace of the behavior
  left behind)
• Humanistic Inquiry (ethnography)
• Behavior Recording Devices (people meter, bar
  code scanners, eye-movement, voice pitch
  analysis, etc.)

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Evaluation of Observational Methods

• Cannot be used to observe motives, attitudes or
  intentions
• Often more costly and time consuming
• Often the only method to collect data

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Projective Technique