exploratory research

Focus Group Steps

1) Agree on objectives/information needs 2) Pick a date and rent a facility to host the groups 3) Develop screener to recruit people (respondents) with the right backgrounds, interests, purchasing habits, etc. (Note you recruit homogeneous on Demographics, Psychographics, Product usage, etc. into a focus group, try not to mix respondents within a group) • Safe environment 4) Develop moderator's Discussion Guide to help him lead the groups 5) Debrief right after groups where moderator and client (observers in back room) discussed what they heard and saw 6) Write a report based on audio/video tapes. Can be either a Topline Summary (5 pages) or a Full Report (20+ pages) which contains respondent quotes, etc. 1. Specify objectives of qualitative research 2. State the objectives of the focus group 3. Write a screening questionnaire 4. Develop a moderators outline 5. Conduct the focus group interview 6. Prepare the focus group report

Projective techniques: Picture response and cartoon test

1. Picture response and cartoon test a. Picture response: shown a picture and asked to tell a story describing it Cartoon test: cartoon characters are shown in a specific situation related to the problem. The respondents are asked to indicate the dialogue that one cartoon character might say in response to the comments

Projective techniques: role playing and third person

1. Role playing and third person techniques a. Role Playing: respondents are asked to assume the behavior of someone else. The researcher assumes that the respondents will project their own feelings and beliefs into the role. b. Third-person technique: respondents is presented with a verbal or visual situation and asked to relate their beliefs and attitudes of a third person toward the situation. This third person may be a friend or neighbor. The researcher assumes that the respondent will project him or herself into the situation and reveal personal beliefs. Lowers defense mechanisms and reduces the social pressures to give desirable answers.

Projective Techniques: word association and sentence completion

1. Word association a. Respondents are presented with a list of words, one at a time and asked to respond to each with the first word that comes to mind- underlying assumption of this technique is that association allows respondents to reveal their inner feelings about the topic of interest 2. Sentence completion a. Respondents are presented with a number of incomplete sentences and asked to complete them. i. Advantage over word association: respondents can provide with more directed stimulus, however clearer to respondents and may be able to guess the purpose of study

projective techniques advantages and disadvantages

Advantages: • Elicit responses that subjects would be unwilling to give if they knew the purpose of the study. • Increases validity or responses by disguising the purpose • Helpful when underlying motivations, beliefs, and attitudes at a subconscious level Disadvantages: • Skilled interviewers and analyzers • Interstation biases-difficult and subjective • May not be representative of the population of interest

Ethnography and netnography

Ethnography: the study of human behavior in its natural context; it involves observation of behavior and setting along with depth interviews • Watch what they do and realize the problems they have already worked around • True honest and real responses Netnography: uses ethnographic techniques but uses data that is naturally found on the internet and that is generated by online communities

Focus group advantages, disadvantages and costs

Focus Groups Advantages: ¥ Useful for diagnosing situations, screening alternatives, discovering new ideas ¥ Immediacy ¥ Build on other's ideas/comments ¥ Hear/learn customer's point of view, outside our company's framework ¥ Hear/learn customer's terms, wording ¥ Uncover emotional connections to brands, etc.** Focus Groups Disadvantages: ¥ Listen only for what want to hear/sound bites not people's hearts ¥ Can't project the findings to everyone ¥ Opinion leaders can sway groups ¥ Requires a skilled moderator ¥ Tough to analyze Typical Focus Group Costs (recruiting 14 for 10 respondents to show) ¥ B2C $5,000/group (recruiting $100/recruit, incentives of $70-100/person, Facility rental $650/group, Videotaping $125/group, Food $250, Screener/discussion guide development, Moderating, Report extra ($3,000+) ¥ B2B $5,000-$6,000/group (same as above but incentives of $100-$250/each)

Focus groups

Focus Groups: an interview conducted by a trained moderator among a small group of respondents in an unstructured and natural manner ♣ are the most common form of Exploratory Research. Most are Full groups (7-10 respondents), rarely see the Mini-groups (4 respondents). ♣ Homogenous ♣ Relaxed and informal atmosphere ♣ 1-3 hours ♣ audio and visual recording ♣ choose moderator carefully- session dependent on moderator for success

IDI

In-Depth Interviews (IDIs): an unstructured, direct, personal interview in which a single respondent is questioned by a highly skilled interviewer to uncover underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings on a topic. ♣ Opposite of focus group. Personal and focus on things. More personal and individuals can open up and give perception. ♣ Probing is of critical importance in depth interviews and you should use it to uncover hidden information and issues. The one-on-one interviews is very conducive to in-depth questioning of individual respondents, which cannot be done effectively in focus groups. The interviewer plays a very important role in depth interviews. ♣ Advantages: greater depth than focus groups, attribute responses directly to respondents, no social pressures and free exchange of information ♣ Disadvantages: skilled interviewers are expensive and difficult to find, results susceptible to the interviewer's influence and the quality and completeness of the results depend on interviewer, difficult to analyze and interpret

Laddering and ideation

Laddering- the 4 layers: 1. Attributes we have 2. Attributes that have Benefits 3. higher order benefits- how you feel about those benefits 4. Value you have that support those benefits Most advertisements are built on the 3rd level because the 4th level is too complex and uncomfortable -target higher level benefits. Give direct benefits-attributes is what you talk about- give emotional components underlying. Ideation • Create ideas. • Ask people what are the problems with the product • Ask customer to use the products and explain the task while using the product. • Products usually preform the step in the task o Take the task apart and understand the environment to get ideas.

Mystery shoppers and executive interviews

Mystery Shoppers • Trained observers pose as consumers and shop at the company's stores or those of competitors to collect data about customer-employee interactions and other marketing variables. Executive Interviews: ¥ Set appointment, go interview a business person at their office or by phone ¥ Less of an interview, more of a conversation (like an informational interview) ¥ Ask their opinion/views of the subject, what they plan to do about it in future, etc.

Online Focus Groups

Online Focus Groups Advantages: ¥ Many locations, distance not a problem ¥ Convenience, cost effective, no travel ¥ Quicker than traditional focus groups ¥ 4-6 people (about mini group size) Online Focus Groups Disadvantages: ¥ Computer skilled respondents ¥ No facial or body language ¥ Respondents distracted at home/office ¥ Can't touch, smell, taste (unless shipped ahead/prepared at home) ¥ Must confirm who is actually online

Projective Techniques

Projective Techniques: An unstructured and indirect form of questioning that encourages the respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, or feelings regarding the issues of concern. • project on to another situation your personal biases and experiences • in describing ambiguous situations, respondents project their own underlying values, attitudes and beliefs which can be uncovered by analyzing their responses. While interpreting behavior of others, respondents indirectly project their own motivations, beliefs, attitudes or feelings into the situation and describe their own behavior.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research methodologies involve exploratory techniques that help bring customer insights alive. Focus groups (both traditional, computer journaling, and on video conference), in-depth interviews, one-on-ones (also called IDI's in-depth interviews), dyads Two people talking, triads three people talking, executive interviews (useful from small business owners to senior management) Talk to business person, and Mystery Shoppers, etc., are examples of qualitative research methodologies. • Funny because it doesn't have exact data but can be extremely effective

Direct vs. Indirect Approach

• Direct: One type of qualitative research in which the purpose of the project are disclosed to the respondents or are obvious given the nature of the interview o purpose of the project is disclosed to the respondent or are obvious given the nature of the interview • Indirect: a type of qualitative research in which the purpose of the project are disguised from the respondents o purpose of the project is disguised from the respondent

Social Construction Theory:

• Natural sciences there is one universal truth...works in all conditions • But with people there are many real realities in various ways for various people

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research

• Quantitative. project to population, but with qualitative you can't • Qualitative gives perspective into hearts and minds • Quantitative research: research methodology that seeks to quantify the data and typically applies some form of statistical analysis • When conducting a new marketing research project, you should conduct appropriate qualitative research before undertaking quantitative research. Qualitative research provides deeper understanding of the environmental context of the problem and the underlying issues, and lays the foundation for quantitative research. However, qualitative research may not be necessary if a marketing research project is being repeated.