I just wrapped up a whirlwind trip, speaking at the 2012 Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research in Rome (QRCA/AQR), and then chairing the 2012 The Market Research Technology Event in Vegas, which both were phenomenal experiences!  Now that the dust has settled a bit, I wanted to share some of the key learnings and thoughts that I cultivated over the course of a crazy two weeks.

The winds of change are clearly a point of focus in the industry right now. As technology integration and “new” methods become a staple in the industry, people are looking for direction and guidance.  Though I feel change is often met with adversity and resistance (at least at first), I feel like the marketing research industry is making a shift, and a focus on evolution is prominent.

During the QRCA/AQR conference in Rome, I was fortunate enough to participate with two other young researchers (Tom Morgan from Razor and Sara Sheridan from Firefish), in an “Apprentice-esque” pitch competition, where we all spoke about the future of the industry and what we have learned thus far in our respective careers. Some common themes included:

• Escape the fear of speaking up
• Learn from your mentors, but educate yourself on how to build on that base of knowledge
• Embrace technology
• Humanitarianism matters – It’s easy to make a buck, but hard to make a difference

Not only was this exciting for the three of us as participants (Congrats to Sara!), but it really came as a positive signal regarding the future of our industry.  I even put a challenge out there to researchers to conduct at least one decent sized pro bono project each year, for a non-profit or other meaningful cause.  It is extremely fulfilling to be a young researcher in this time period of evolution, as we are also seeing a tremendous amount of focus being placed on succession planning, and engaging bright young individuals in the field of research. It is great to be a part of an industry where mentoring and coaching is so abundant!

After a week in Rome, a trip to Vegas was honestly a bit scary to think about, but it was entirely worth every ounce of missed sleep!  It was clear to see the parallel focus on hot topics of Mobile, Behavioral Economics, Big Data, and Data Visualization, but I was truly impressed in the level of sophistication each speaker brought to the table!  Great content, great speakers, and a nice look at what the client-side researcher is looking at right now from folks like Stan Sthanunathan from Coca-Cola (click here to see his slides).  People were not afraid to stand up and challenge the status quo, which is exactly what we need!  Google really knocked it out of the park in their presentation of Google Consumer Surveys, which are a lot more “legit” than folks originally gave them credit for upon launch. I would really check out what they are doing!

All of this did bring me to one question, though!  Where have all of the marketing researchers gone?  I love that we are focusing on new trends, tech and methods, but why do the new kids get the sex appeal and shine, while “marketing research” still is perceived by others as tarnished?  When I think of things like behavioral economics and neuro-marketing, I think of them as more specialized methods of marketing research, not a distant cousin.  How do we do a better job of putting the “marketing” in marketing research, and make sure the image of marketing research gets its “swagger” back?  Would love to hear your thoughts, and see you at the next conference!

- Ben

At the Worldwide Conference on Qualitative Research held April 26-27 2012 in Rome, Dianne Gardiner of Australia-based Latitude Insights shared her agency’s experience-based learning and tips from two recent research projects where consumers used their smartphones to share slices of their lives. One involved using smartphone-generated videos and online discussion boards to observe the evolution of painting projects in the home.  The other used smartphones to share two weeks of snack-related experiences with moms and their kids.

Gardiner and her clients found two clear benefits to mobile-enabled qual:

• The ability to get insights from the ‘real world’ since mobile takes research to all points of interaction with brands and products, in true competitive context.
• The ability to conduct in-home ‘ethnography’ with minimal time and financial investment.

The clients felt they really “got to know” their target participants — especially from the ultimate deliverable: a 5-minute summary video drawn from extensive clips.  Gardiner was favorably impressed by the overall naturalness of responses, noting that “Kids felt at ease because they were in their own home, and it was mum who was asking the questions.” However, she cautions that, “Mum isn’t always the best interviewer for kids…. She’s not unbiased, doesn’t know our objectives, isn’t a trained researcher, and can ask leading questions.”

Nevertheless, Gardiner encourages researchers to “use mobile to go where ‘traditional’ qual can’t” including:

• To take you to multiple points of interaction with brand and products.
• To capture behavior as it occurs.
• To contrast what participants say with what they actually do.

Gardiner also shared a short list of lessons learned about how to avoid information overload and potential tech-related issues:

• Trial your platform and all potential response types (photo, SMS and video) with multiple respondents
• Get a clear understanding upfront about how the platform will function (any limitations / file size issues / memory limits, etc.)
• Keep respondent numbers low (over 20 is a lot!)
• Set tasks realistically (video recording one family shopping trip or similar activity per day was overwhelming for both the research team and respondents)
• Fully brief all respondents on practical elements (angle of filming, how to save files and upload them)
• Check and chase up for outputs daily
• Allow lots of time for editing and analysis of photos and videos at the back-end

Dianne Gardiner is Managing Director of Latitude Insights, a specialist market research company based in Darling South, Australia that uses online research to develop rich and deep customer insights for its clients. www.latitudeinsights.com/au

QRCA invites you to register for the upcoming Qcast: “In the Moment with Mobile.”

May 3, 2012
12:00-1:00 pm EDT (GMT-4)

» REGISTER NOW (event over)

CLICK HERE to watch the archived videorecording of the “In the Moment with Mobile” Qcast

Broad consumer usage of smartphones and web-enabled phones allow respondents to participate in qualitative research like never before.

Learn how mobile can generate additional insights to your current qualitative studies, regardless if those are in-person, online or both. Kristin Schwitzer, Beacon Research, and Dana Slaughter, Slaughter Branding, will share the following examples of how their creative uses of mobile technology have provided entre for qualitative researchers like never before:

- Teen spending
- Major cultural events
- Retail/shopper insights
- Youth sports
- Emotional moments

And if you can’t make this real-time session, no worries — the QCast will be video recorded and available for you to watch soon after at your convenience via QRCA’s QCast Webinar Archives.

P.S.  Sorry for the late notice.  This webinar filled up quickly, so QRCA responded this week by adding a second virtual room to accommodate the overflow.  Hope to see you online!

The sixth joint conference of the AQR (Association for Qualitative Research) and the QRCA (Qualitative Research Consultants Association) was held in Rome last week (April 25-27).

Presentations covered a wide range of topics.  Of the 38 presentations, roughly a quarter were of interest to NewQual fans and practitioners.  Three presentations in particular stood out.

• Liz Van Patten presented “Dr. Digital, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Online Qual.” This was a Pecha Kucha presentation, consisting of 20 slides, each being shown for exactly 20 seconds.  By using stills from the 1960s classic Stanley Kubrick film, “Dr. Strangelove,” Liz provided a quick, clever, humorous, and informative overview of the benefits of online qualitative.  Nothing new for those of us who are already steeped in NewQual methods, but it was a good reminder of why we use these methods.  Her presentation also served to make NewQual methods less scary to those who are reluctant to try them.  For more info, contact Liz at lvanpatten@aol.com.
• Daniel Berkal’s presentation, “Project Butterfly: Escaping the Net,” compared and contrasted the characteristics of highly social individuals in online vs. offline environments.  His presentation revealed that online social butterflies tend to be not very social in the offline world.  This raises important questions when recruiting highly social individuals from the online arena; how we define “social” is critical.  For more info, contact Daniel at daniel.berkal@thepalmerstongroup.com.
• Mark Michelson (markm@threadsqual.com) closed the conference with an overview of the newly-formed Mobile Marketing Research Association, and outlined the myriad differences from country to country in terms of what information is considered private in the online world.  He pointed out the need for NewQual researchers to pay careful attention to privacy policies in each country.

Of special note, the QRCA’s 2012 Qually Award was presented at the end of this conference.  It was awarded to Layla Shea of Vancouver, British Columbia, who’s project made extensive use of a NewQual platform to collect data.  An exclusive interview with Layla Shea will appear next week in the NewQual blog.  Be sure to stop back to check it out!

In Rome at the joint AQR/QRCA Conference on Thursday, April 26, Julia Gartside-Spink explained the mobile/online approach she used to help her inkjet printer client better understand the consumer purchase process.  Her hybrid approach allowed her to get “up-close and personal” throughout the frustrating process of buying a printer that one consumer described as “the kiss of death” and another claimed was making them “lose the will to live.”

Julia wanted to get immediate feedback on the steps printer buyers took and their thoughts, feelings and observations about it.  To do this she provided participants the freedom to report back during their shopping experience by mobile-enabled text, email, photo and video uploads, using their smart phones, mobile phones and computers.  As soon as a participant finally made their purchase, they reported into Julia, allowing her to personally speak with that person by telephone (TIDI) to debrief this final stage. She finds this online/mobile/TIDI ethnographic approach far superior to in-person focus groups and in-depth interviews to understand the purchase process because “memory of reported behavior and emotions is not nearly as powerful as capturing them immediately.”

Interestingly, Julia’s client wanted to make sure the mobile/online/TIDI hybrid approach had captured all insights and asked her to conduct in-person groups with participants after the mobile/online/TIDI portion of the project was completed.  The in-person groups added nothing further to the mobile/online findings.

Julia shared the project with us using an intriguing visualization of the entire printer-buying process, which she describes as “snakes and ladders,” drawing on a British children’s game, which captures how consumers come into the process at different levels and no sooner begin to come to a decision when the “snake” drags them down to the beginning again.

Editor’s note:  read on to learn about the many updates to GreenBook’s NewQual website from our publisher, Diane Liebenson.  A quick overview about an essential resource for new technologies in qualitative research!

While remote-access qualitative methods have been around for over 10 years, expansion of their use beyond early adopters is a recent phenomenon that appears to be accelerating.

Measured by visitor traffic across the GreenBook platform, interest in online and mobile qualitative methodologies is growing at more than double the rate of other market research techniques.  Additionally, results from the most recent GRIT Report show that two thirds of researchers expect to use online communities in 2012 and over one third expect to employ mobile qual and webcam-based approaches.

Qualitative options continue to evolve rapidly, particularly those that allow researchers to capture behavior and emotions “in the moment.”

With the support of QRCA (The Qualitative Research Consultants Association), GreenBook has revised and expanded its guide and directories on NewQualitative.org and in a companion print edition.

Updated NewQual online guide and directory

The New Qualitative Guide includes:

• An updated list of qualitative options — including mobile-enabled solutions, tablets, webcam/video options, and “do-it-yourself” vs. “full featured” approaches.

• Practical tips for exploring new research options and staying current with the ongoing evolution of qualitative research.

• An expanded checklist of factors to consider when choosing qualitative methods and providers.

We would like to thank our co-authors, Betsy Leichliter and Jay Zaltzman, for creating a thoughtful and balanced overview of qualitative research approaches.

The Directory of Platforms has expanded and offers a detailed, current overview of qualitative research software tools, applications, and services while the Directory of Providers profiles the researchers and firms who directly apply new qualitative research methods.

NewQualitative.org also features a blog written by leading qualitative research experts in the online and mobile space – stop in regularly to stay current, learn at your leisure and comment on their posts.

Qualitative research providers and their clients face the difficult task of choosing the best methods and the most appropriate tools to meet their research objectives.  Our hope is newQualitative.org will offer the guidance, resources, and inspiration to ease your way forward.

Enjoy!

Diane Liebenson
Publisher

The sixth joint conference of the AQR (Association for Qualitative Research) and the QRCA Qualitative Research Consultants Association) will be held in Rome on April 25-27.

This joint conference happens only once every two years, and is a great way for qualitative researchers to get a pulse of what’s going on in other parts of the world in terms of qualitative research.  And as of March 23, registrants are coming from 20 countries spanning six continents (all but Antarctica)!

Nearly 40 presentations are planned.  Many are tied to the theme of “Qualitative Renaissance: Challenge Your Thinking.”  There will be plenty for those with interest on NewQual to feast their appetites.

• There will be a block of presentations on social media, mobile research, online, and hybrid methods.
• In a separate block on ethics, there will be a presentation about the ethical issues raised with the increasing use of in mobile qualitative methods.
• Behavioral economics is a hot topic, especially in the UK.  There is an entire block of presentations devoted to this topic.  While not a NewQual topic in terms of using technology for research, it presents a framework for conducting and analyzing research, of which we should all be aware.
• Several online research platform providers will be setting up exhibits.  This will provide an opportunity for attendees to meet and talk with NewQual vendors.

Aside from the programming, don’t forget about the conference location – Rome!  For many, this is a once in a lifetime chance to combine business with pleasure.  Think about the food, the sites, the history!  Find out more and register for the conference at www.aqr.qrca.org.

This month I took time out to get demos and trial boards for several licensable community platforms. These platforms allow essentially any research consultant to create their own online insights community. The companies I spoke with can mostly be found as advertisers in Greenbook’s New Qualitative Research Directory.

I was excited by what is happening with these products. They seem very well-suited for moderator-led communities where purposeful research is the primary objective. They also appear helpful for communities that might last 12 months or less, where investments in the platform itself need to be in line with that duration. New offerings are coming in from both social networking community providers and NewQual research suppliers (i.e. previously bulletin board companies) who have integrated community capabilities into their platforms.

Some of the big trends happening are:

• Robust research capabilities – Mostly these capabilities are asynchronous – only one platform I tested had integrated “live chats”. The best ones offer the ability to have one-on-one interaction or group discussion, decided at the question level. They can easily handle all forms of media (sharing and collecting). Plus, they have “cool research tools” like whiteboards and heat maps. They also have good to outstanding coding/tagging capabilities, and excellent transcript export options. From a moderator’s perspective, it’s hard to complain here!

• Integration of mobile qual – This is still being handled in very different ways within each platform (app-based, email, text, audio), but the best ones now have mobile integrated and included in their flat pricing (see below). There was even one platform offering an “adaptable” mobile design so that all questions programmed for online answering are equally well-viewed on participants’ smartphones, giving them the ability to participate in the full community experience via mobile. Audio mobile (where voice messages are recorded and transcribed for analysis) was also available from one supplier.

• More “research” vs. “social” feeling interfaces – Some of the best licensable platforms don’t resemble the social networking community interfaces that have been popular from the major, full-service corporate community providers. The licensable platforms are instead more geared to the purpose of research and usually provide a menu of “tasks” for the participants to complete, versus an experience where participants could explore various discussion or content areas throughout a social-style homepage. The good news is this focuses the participants on the tasks at hand and adds structure, but on the flip side it could negatively impact participant enjoyment and opportunities for engaging more in areas of interest to them personally, and possibly limit spontaneous sharing. To reconcile this somewhat, one provider is offering a Facebook-style homepage version where participants can post a status for themselves and share that with other community members.

• Smart pricing – The better options now offer an “unlimited” pricing model where your license fee allows you to launch as many research activities and discussions as you would like. This is a great attribute because it allows the community data collection to be flexible in type and frequency – a key benefit of communities. The best ones offer this at a price that is extremely favorable versus one-off studies, making do-it-yourself communities affordable and competitive within today’s tighter client budgets.

I’ve been using NewQual platforms as a moderator for nearly 5 years now (not as long as other colleagues in this blog, but longer than many moderators in general). It’s become so second nature to me that when I was recently asked by a new client to quickly tell him what types of research and issues are well suited for NewQual, I wanted to dust off my notes before sharing them. So, for anyone who is new to online and technology-enabled qual methods, here is my short list. Please respond with your own ideas, comments, and experiences.

In broad strokes, NewQual is generally better for:

• Broader geographic reach, and low incidence or hard-to-reach populations. Generally, in-person qual is executed in a handful of cities (or sometimes only one location), but with NewQual (online or mobile), you can sample in multiple cities/geographies simultaneously. Because you can spread your sample out across many locations and draw from larger numbers of potential respondents, it is much easier to get broader geographic representation, and to include low incidence or hard-to-reach populations.

• Longitudinal engagement with respondents (iterative processes, in-depth exploratory). With NewQual, you can have a dialogue over several days, weeks, or months that would not be efficient or likely not be possible if in-person interviews were repeatedly required from participants. I have found this type of longitudinal engagement is great for immersing the participants in the subject matter so you ultimately get richer, more in-depth feedback as they reflect on an issue in multiple ways over time. Another benefit of sustainable engagement like this is the ability to iterate on ideas over time with respondent input – expose ideas, get reactions, use that feedback with the client to develop/evolve ideas, then propose refined ideas back to the respondents for more feedback.

• One-on-one work – Many clients don’t have the money or the time to execute one-on-one work in person, but online or via mobile, multiple one-on-ones can be conducted simultaneously, speeding data collection and leveraging the unbiased and more in-depth nature of a one-on-one interview when it’s better for the study design. NewQual one-on-ones also generate far more data than groups because every participant answers every question, making your data collection larger in scale.

• Multi-media data collection (and stimuli). When it comes to allowing the work to “live on” with the client, visuals and videos help to create a more powerful deliverable and can be easily collected with NewQual tools. Plus, the best platforms make it easy to show any type of stimuli to respondents, so there is essentially no technology barrier today.

• Team and respondent convenience.  With asynchronous NewQual tools, clients and participants have the flexibility to engage in the study whenever they are ready on a given day, without the need to travel, increasing the likelihood that they can participate fully. I’ve also noticed that when doing asynchronous work like this, participants tend to give more time to the study without complaining about “staying later.”

• Lack of moderator and peer bias.  NewQual has the advantage of what I like to call “virtual anonymity.”  Participants have admitted personal details to me in studies that I’ve never heard doing in-person interviews. When that kind of insight is valuable, NewQual can allow for better data collection and an opportunity for a more intimate dialogue.

Among the newqual diary formats, online diaries are the most popular.  Online diaries, which sprang from personal blogs, pre-date the other newqual formats.

Online diaries are a good choice when there is a long series of specific questions for each entry (i.e., too tedious to answer by audio, mobile or video). They also are appropriate when there is a need to capture imagery (such as photos and online images) with the written entry.

Online diaries are usually set up in one of two ways, with the researcher providing either:

1. One or two sentences of direction that allow participants to elaborate and share as much or as little as they would like, or
2. A specific set of questions to answer for each diary entry.

Either way can be effective, depending upon the diary objectives.  In the former, participants write their blog entry from memory, ideally on the same day that the event occurred.  This is less taxing for the participant, but it often lacks consistent details across entries and across participants.  In the latter format (a specific set of questions), participants can be provided with note-taking pages that are printouts of the online questions, and they can be asked to record their answers “in the moment.”   Participants later transfer these notes to the online site.

Online diaries are the one newqual format in which the old pen and paper are still a handy aid to data collection, and they facilitate the capturing of more details and improve the accuracy and consistency of responses.

A successful application of an online diary we executed was studying wine-drinking occasions, where participants showed us a varied range of those moments over two weeks.

They took a photo of each occasion, provided an emotional image to capture feelings in the moment and answered a series of questions detailing the who, what, where, when, etc.  Both the photos and emotional images illuminated the rituals and motivations for the wine moments, fulfilling the desired level of detail for the client.

Next up in the series:  Video Diaries. The qualitative diary is evolving far beyond traditional pen and paper. Trends in social media sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, combined with pervasive personal technologies, have enabled the “newqual” diary which can include online, video, mobile and audio data. Two qualitative research consultants (Kristin Schwitzer and Dana Slaughter) share their experience with these new approaches, as originally published in QRCA’s Fall 2011 Views magazine. This is Part 2 of 5 in a series of posts.