Marketing Research: Chapter 5

Procedure for conducting a focus group

1. Design the focus group environment 2. recruit and select focus group participants 3. select a moderator 4. prepare the discussion guide 5. conduct the group interview 6. prepare the focus group report

Common techniques for qualitative research

1. focus group interviews 2. depth interviews 3. conversations 4. semi- structured interviews 5. word association/ sentence completion 6. observation 7. collages 8. thematic apperception/ cartoon tests

qualitative research orientations

1. phenomenology- originating in philosophy and psychology 2. Ethnography- originating in anthropology 3. Grounded theory- originating in sociology 4. case studies originating in psychology and in business research

advantages of focus groups

1. relatively fast 2. easy to execute 3. allow respondents to piggy back off each others ideas 4. provide multiple perspectives 5. give flexibility to allow more detailed descriptions 6. provide a high degree of scrutiny

word association - prompts

1. the frequency with which any word is given as a response; 2. the amount of time that elapses before a response is given; 3. the number of respondents who do not respond at all to a test word within a reasonable period of time.

semi structured interviews

open ended questions, often in writing, that ask for short essay type answers from respondents - grounded theory, ethnography

free association techniques

record respondents first (top of mind) cognitive reactions to some stimulus - people who drink beer are_______ (completion techniques) - light beer is like by _____

hermeneutic unit

refers to a text passage from a respondents story that is linked with a key theme from within this story or a theme provided by the researcher

quantitative data

represent phenomena by assigning numeric values in an ordered and meaningful way

Discussion guide

a focus group outline that includes written introductory comments informing the group about the focus group purpose and rules and then outlines topics or questions to be addressed in the group session

concept testing

a frequently performed type of exploratory research representing many similar research procedures all having the same purpose to screen new revised or repositioned ideas

word cloud

a graphical depiction of the frequency with which words occur; words occurring more frequently are shown in correspondingly large type face. others may use the term tag cloud to refer to the same thing

Depth interview

a one to one interview between a professional researcher and a research respondent conducted about some relevant business or social topic - ethnography, grounded theory, case studies

laddering

a particular approach to probing asking respondents to compare differences between brands at different levels that produces distinctions that the attribute level, the benefit level, ad the value or motivation level, laddering is based on the classical repertory grid approach

phenomenology

a philosophical approach to studying human experiences based on the idea that human experience itself is inherently subjective and determined by the context in which people live - relationship between a person and physical environment, objects people or situations shape a persons behavior - conversational interview tools - avoids direct questions

thematic apperception test (TAT)

a test that presents subjects with an ambiguous picture(S) in which consumers and products are the center of attention; the investigator asks the subject to tell what is happening in the picture (s) now and what might happen next

picture frustration

a version of the TAT using a cartoon drawing in which the respondent suggests a dialogue in which the characters might engage

Quantitative marketing research

addresses research objectives through empirical assessments that involve numerical measurement and statistical and or computational analysis - less interpretation - changing a salad dressing flavor having everyone who tastes it put it on a number scale of likeness

Hermeneutics

an approach to understanding phenomenology that relies on analysis of texts through which a person tells a story about him/herself

projective technique

an indirect means of questioning enabling respondent so project beliefs an feelings onto a their party an inanimate object or task situation - encourages respondents to describe a situation in their own words with little prompting by the interviewer - the iphone picture

conversations

an informal qualitative data gathering approach in which the researcher engages a respondent in a discussion of the relevant subject matter - phenomenology, grounded theory - almost completely unstructured

probing

an interview technique that tries to draw deeper and more elaborate explanations from a respondent

focus group interviews

an unstructured free flowing interview with a small group of around six to ten people. focus groups are led by a trained moderator who follows a flexible format encouraging dialogue among respondents - ethnography

qualitative data

data that are not characterized by numeric value and instead are textual visual or oral; focus is on stories, visual portrayals, meaningful characterizations, interpretations and other expressive descriptions

participant observation

ethnographic research approach where the researcher becomes immersed within the culture that he/she is studying and draws data from his/her observations

themes

identified by the frequency with which the same term or a synonym arises in the narrative description

10 popular projective techniques

1. Brand VS User Imagery 2. Category Sculpting Lucky Charms, Shredded Wheat, Fruit Loops, Crispy Critters The Domineering Mother or Aunt Sarah 3. The Looking Glass 4. Tellepathy (Creative Group Story Telling after The Looking Glass) 5. Modified Thematic Apperception Tests (TATs): unbranded visual 6. Mind Walk (memory lane) 7. Timescape (futuristic) 8. Scent-sations (eliciting memories) 9. Synesthesia (sight * scent; sight * sound; etc). 10. Market-Plays Performing arts/ psychodrama Communication Research 7% is verbal 38% tone/inflection 55% is non-verbal

grounded theory

represents and inductive investigation in which the researcher poses questions about information provided by the respondents or taken from historical records; the researcher asks the questions to him/herself and repeatedly questions the responses to derive deeper explanations - highly dynamic situations with significant change - what happened here? how is it different? - ex: when a company is losing sales you can use this to find out an explanation

Ethnography

represents ways of studying cultures through methods that involve becoming highly active within that culture - the biker article

Researcher dependent

research in which the researcher must extract meaning from unstructured response such as text from a recorded interview or a collage representing the meaning of some experience

Qualitative marketing research

research that addresses marketing objectives through techniques that allow the researcher to provide elaborate interpretations of market phenomena without depending on numerical measurement; its focus is on discovering new insights and true inner meanings - detailed and in depth

Subjective

researcher dependent results with the consequence that different researchers may reach different conclusions (meanings) based on the same interview - qualitative research

replicable

something is intersubjectively certifiable meaning that same conclusion would be reached based on another researchers interpretation of the research or by independently duplicating the research procedures

netnography

the application of ethnographic research procedures to online phenomena - online social communities

case studies

the documented history of a particular person, group, organization, or event - may describe a consumers acceptance or rejection of a particular product or brand - clinical interviews of individual consumers - used when figuring out what makes up a prestigious brand

field notes

the researchers descriptions of what he/she actually observed in the field; these notes then become the text from which meaning is extracted - observation