Sentient Insight: the business blog for consumer psychology and consumer marketing

The ESOMAR Qual 2010 held in Barcelona – City of Inspiration – challenged us to re-think how we deliver qualitative research findings. Jackie Hughes’s (Kellogg) keynote speech on opening day urged us not to deliver insights, which can be here-and-gone in a flash. Instead she suggested the notion of “continuous, daily enlightened thinking,” which is sustainable and can be built upon, as the way to lead our client teams toward real ‘game-changing ideas’.

I took a break from some pretty intensive fieldwork this week to attend the evening event at the QRCA annual conference in Philadelphia. Because of my schedule I was sadly unable to attend the conference, but with some advance planning and the traffic working in my favor on rte. 95 I was able to make time for the event (I have my priorities after all). The QRCA evening event is always a great opportunity to meet new people and share ideas. Over cocktails I met some colleges I’d met at AQR/QRCA in Prague earlier this year and we had a lively discussion about the differences between online focus groups and online bulletin boards. I’m thankful I ran into them because they gave me a very helpful perspective based on their experience with these approaches.

As anyone that has ever worked on a multi-phased research study knows, integration of people, learning and insights is critical to success, and missing an integration point along the way can potentially thwart an entire study. We were recently invited to present on this topic via a webinar for the Qualitative Research Consultants’ Association (QRCA). The focus was on helping qualitative researchers – often the first researchers in the mix in a hybrid study – to take ownership of the integration process.

Many research studies are designed to have single touches with consumers. Ex: in focus group situations, the moderator typically meets the research participants for the first – and last time – when they enter the focus group room. Think about this concept: we meet them at minute 1, and by minute 15 are asking them to open up and share with us their fears, desires, and perhaps faulty perceptions about ideas we are researching…a risky proposition for them. And at minute 120, we say goodbye forever. In IDIs, cut that time in half, but expect to get to the same level of rapport we do in a two hour session. Our expectation that research participants look at us as trusted confidantes in single-touch qualitative research is irrational at best.

“In defense of marketing” is an on-going theme here at Sentient. As marketers, we are often put in a position to defend what we do as an ethical and valuable service. When faced with that challenge, our argument runs deeper than the standard “consumers need marketing in order to make informed choices” and puts forth a much stronger statement: Marketing has been ingrained in our species since the advent of sexual selection, we have needed effective subconscious marketing to ensure the survival of our genes, these same marketing tactics are at play in our current consumer culture, and it is therefore the responsibility of market researchers to understand the subconscious influences on behavior in order to provide products and services that are truly valued by consumers.

We’re gearing up for the annual MRA conference being held in Boston this week! Aaron will be presenting a session, In Defense of Marketing: The Peacock’s Plume and Dancing Birds of Paradise Thursday at 11:00AM, and I’ll be working various stations, from hospitality booth to door monitoring some events. In addition, we’re sponsoring a wine and cheese reception Thursday from 4-6PM – planned so you don’t have to choose between the many after-hours events on Thursday including a Boston meet-up and the chapter event being held at the Aquarium.

I’m slowly recovering from the joint AQR/QRCA Worldwide conference on qualitative research in Prague last week: this year’s theme “Inspiration in Action.” The workshop day – with Wendy Gordon, Jay Zaltzman and Ava Lindbergh gave me enough to contemplate for a month, but the next two days were jam-packed with session after session that made me think and re-think qualitative research – specifically how we do it on a daily basis. The presentations were inspiring, provocative and beautifully done. Here’s a snapshot of my top Three Inspirations from Prague..(not in any particular order except top-of-mind!):

I had the honor of attending a workshop by master moderators sponsored by the Philadelphia / Delaware Valley chapter of the QRCA yesterday. The event’s theme was simple: bring in 3 expert moderators who between them have moderated over 30,000 focus groups in a combined 100+ years of experience, and let professional moderators observe from behind the glass while they moderate groups with real respondents. The three moderators: Bob Harris, Pat Sabena and Judy Langer – have different approaches to moderating focus groups, making the day thought-provoking and educational. Here are the three styles that were demonstrated:

We’ve just concluded a lengthy ethnography study on foods and snacking. The field team has been de-briefing on our collective experiences across US markets and a story has emerged about a potentially risky ethno location one of our researchers encountered while in LA. While our recruiting partners make every effort to properly screen ethno participants, they simply aren’t always able to anticipate every potential issue. This one in particular involved a consumer living in a boarding house in neighborhood that looked and felt unsafe to the researcher assigned to the ethno.

Flip MINO HD: video gathering for the field We’re four-fifths of the way through a substantial consumer ethnography study which is the discovery phase of a hybrid study in the foods / CPG category. I’m fortunate enough to be in the office today, having left the field team two days ago to begin our market-by-market analysis. Reviewing video, audio, photos and field notes behind closed doors has left me wanting to connect with the “outside world” again (an ethnographer can’t stand to be away for long) – so I thought I’d take a minute to share some thoughts about the role of video in consumer ethnography with our blog readers.